Posted on 04/09/2008 9:33:38 AM PDT by Domandred
Texas authorities named the wrong man in search and arrest warrants used to enter the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado and begin questioning FLDS children, two opponents of the sect said Tuesday.
The warrant issued Thursday evening named 50-year-old Dale Barlow, alleging he had married and impregnated a 16-year-old girl. Officials, who later sought a second search warrant, have removed 419 children.
But Joni Holm, who has helped children leave the FLDS, said the teenager who called officials on March 29 and 30 and claimed she was abused is married to a different, younger man. The girl's husband is in his late 30s, is related to Dale Barlow, shares his surname and has a similar sounding first name, Holm said.
"I know they're looking into the wrong one," Holm said.
Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, on Tuesday said police were continuing to serve warrants and attempt to locate "the person that we are looking for."
When asked if that person was still Dale Barlow, she said, "As far as I know."
But Flora Jessop, who left the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at age 16 and now helps others do the same, also said the wrong man was named in the initial warrants.
Texas authorities have made no effort to apprehend Dale Barlow at his address in Colorado City, Ariz. He reported to his Arizona probation officer on Friday - less than 24 hours after the raid began to tell the officer he was under investigation.
His probation officer has said Dale Barlow claimed to not know the teenager making the abuse accusations. Later Friday, Arizona authorities questioned him and searched his home.
The Salt Lake Tribune, which generally does not name alleged victims of sexual abuse, and other media outlets have not published the girl's name.
But Holm said the girl's identity, and the correct identity of her husband, is "common knowledge" in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, where the sect has traditionally been based.
The Tribune is not naming the man identified by Holm as the girl's husband because he has not been named as a suspect or in court filings.
Holm, who is married to a former FLDS member, said she has spoken with people who know the teenager. She thinks Texas officials confused the two Barlows.
She believes it is possible the teenager did not know her husband's correct age and told authorities he is about 50. Also, she noted, Dale Barlow has a 2007 conviction in Arizona for criminal charges related to marrying and impregnating a different 16-year-old girl, which may have contributed to confusion.
The first warrant identified Dale Barlow by name and his birth date. The copy on file in court does not list the name of the investigator who petitioned for it.
A second and more expanded warrant, signed Sunday night, was based on observations and evidence found by law enforcement and child services workers inside the compound, according to court documents.
No. Allegedly, a shelter that was already biased against the polygamists (for valid reasons) reported that someone called them saying that they were an underaged girl and so on and so forth. We have a local DA who announced yesterday that she is "confident of the girl's existence" - meaning that she isn't 100% sure in legal speak.
So what happens if...and I'm just saying 'if'...it is found out that the phone call was made by someone who is not a sixteen year old girl living on the ranch? Or what if the person from the shelter made it up out of frustration at trying to bust up the cult?
What then?
I don't argue that these people are offensive to most American's hypocritical morals (no one says 'boo' about muslims taking child brides and the US legally recognizes the plural marriages of some muslim immigrants). But I'm more concerned about the precedents being set here.
What if a Freeper were accused of being a threat to the USA? Would that justify scores of raids starting with Jim Robinson and then on to other Freepers? Because of what is happening here we are, indeed, setting that as a precedent.
I thought so too.
They have minors with buns in the oven. Doesn’t sound like prosecutorial abuse to me.
” ... and the US legally recognizes the plural marriages of some muslim immigrants...”
They do? Where?
that is why phone records can be subpoenaed.
It is a matter of just tracing the number. Easy enough to do with a proper order or subpoena.
Happens with civil cases all the time.
newsflash no the USA does NOT recognize ANY countries polygamous marriage. ZIP.
It is one of the grounds that federal judges have used to uphold the 1996 DMA against foreign homosexual based “marriage”.
Even with everyone’s DNA, identifying biological relationships within this group is going to pose a major challenge for DNA analysis specialists. It’s common for girls to be married to their uncles or first cousins, and common for full and half sisters to be married to the same husband. Probably some mothers and daughters sharing husbands too, as women are frequently “reassigned” to new husbands, if their first one gets kicked out of the group. And this has been going on for many generations.
There has been a number of studies from the island of Papua in Papua New Guinea on the indigenous population, shows a reduced Y Chromosome population in relation to the amount of Mitochondrial DNA, meaning it could get extremely difficult to pinpoint fatherhood on any child. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=379223
If there hasn't been a distinct Y chromosome mutation in the about 5 generations or so since the community formed, it could make the DNA evidence almost worthless in a court.
Google 'africa' 'new york' and 'plural marriage' and see what you get.
Oh, and on the media bias: Mormons are 'polygamists'. Africans have better-sounding 'plural marriages'.
Just cuz ICE won’t deport them doesn’t mean the gov’t recognizes plural marriages. They don’t.
It don't work in West Virginny, either...
It’s run by the same people as the Utah/Arizona compound. Merrill Jessop has been in charge at the Texas location since it was founded. He is the former husband of one of the women who fled the Utah/Arizona community years ago and wrote a book about her life with the group (Carolyn Jessop), and father of her eight children. She had been forced to marry him in 1981. So the current leader of the Texas compound has been at this for decades, and it has been going on various locations in the US, Canada, and Mexico, under the same continuous chain of leadership since the 1930s. All of the residents of the compound who weren’t born there in the past 4 years came from other FLDS closed communities, mostly from the Utah/Arizona community. It is all one organization. There was no fresh start in 2004.
***The identity or location of the initial caller became moot as soon as they went in and spotted several obviously pregnant minors.***
After consideration, I agree. Furthermore, the actual name on the warrant is irrelevant. There is NO poisoned tree. Authorities, acting on the good faith of an informant executed a warrant, where they clearly saw evidence of crimes with their own eyes. They were perfectly free to act with additional warrants. A warrant is not “proof” of a crime or evidence of a man’s guilt. Furthermore, no one can simply say that the warrant named the wrong man. That, I believe, is up to a jury at trial to decide should evidence collected from the warrants lead to an arrest.
I must wonder if people think that the original warrant was improper WHAT exactly they think authorities should have done with the phone calls? Simply ignore them?
so not finding it on the internet proves it exists?
what you cite is not recognition, it is refusal to enforce. TOTALLY different. Not even admissible in court.
No argument about the gov, itself, and the issues of brainwashing in government schools, but folks can home-school as we did and are not forced to send their children to gov schools.
But that is another issue than the gov securing the welfare of these abused children. Apples to oranges, you know.
You are in error. No one named in the original warrant has been arrested.
no there IS poison from the deffective warrant. It is just that the INDEPENDENT nature of the pregnancies can “wash the poison”.
You never want to give police the “comfort zone” on being able to execute deffective warrents.
I don’t think longtermmemmory was saying that anyone named in the first warrant was arrested. Some people are trying to argue that because the man’s name shown on the warrant turned out to be incorrect (though reportedly the last name WAS correct), that this invalidates the whole search, and anything that authorities subsequently found inside the compound and everything they have since learned from the children who were removed and any of the women who voluntarily accompanied them. This is utter complete total nonsense, of course, but several people on this thread are trying to make that argument.
I think I already said that, but you did a much better job. With the one small correction.
Well, just because longtermmemmory or anyone else SAYS that the wrong name was on the warrant doesn’t make it so. Where is the evidence that authorities knew for a fact that the wrong name was on the warrant? And, how could anyone at this point possibly know that the wrong name was on the warrant?
And, even if the wrong name was on the warrant that doesn’t make a poisoned tree of evidence collection. Even if authorities knew that the girl named the wrong name, what exactly did these “poisoned well” criers want done? Aparently, NOTHING. The fact is that the mere allegation of child abuse by a minor required investigation. Authorities would have surely, as you pointed out did happen, seen the swollen bellies of minors. Clear evidence of rape.
But, really, do the criers want nothing done? Let the rapists have at the girls. There, your 4th Amendment sensibilities are preserved.
It wasn't only his name. The guy they were looking for was in his 30's. Guy named in the warrant is in his 50's. Guy they were looking for is probably on the compound, if the girl's call was legit to start with, BUT the guy named in the warrant was a previously known sex offender on the offender registry, on probation in another State and residing in the State of his probation....and the authorities KNEW THIS.
Look I'm all for busting child abusers but you have to do it correctly so they don't walk. So now we're in a situation where evidence was found that would not have been found without a warrant and the original warrant was bad and tainted...thus the poisoned fruit.
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