Posted on 04/14/2008 8:17:56 PM PDT by BlackVeil
SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — Texas officials who took 416 children from a polygamist retreat into state custody sent many of their mothers away Monday, as a judge and lawyers struggled with a legal and logistical morass in one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history.
Of the 139 women who voluntarily left the compound with their children since an April 3 raid, only those with children 4 or younger were allowed to continue staying with them, said Marissa Gonzales, spokewoman for the state Children's Protective Services agency. She did not know how many women stayed.
"It is not the normal practice to allow parents to accompany the child when an abuse allegation is made," Gonzales said.
The women were given a choice: Return to the Eldorado ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon sect, or go to another safe location. Some women chose the latter, Gonzales said.
The state is accusing the sect of physically and sexually abusing the youngsters and wants to strip their parents of custody and place the children in foster care or put them up for adoption. The sheer size of the case was an obstacle.
"Quite frankly, I'm not sure what we're going to do," Texas District Judge Barbara Walther said after a conference that included three to four dozen attorneys either representing or hoping to represent youngsters.
The mothers were taken away Monday after they and the children were taken by bus under heavy security out of historic Fort Concho, where they had been staying, to the San Angelo Coliseum, which holds nearly 5,000 people and is used for hockey games, rodeos and concerts. The polygamist retreat is about 45 miles south of San Angelo.
Some of the youngsters' mothers complained to Gov. Rick Perry that the children were getting sick in the crowded fort. About 20 children had a mild case of chickenpox, said Dr. Sandra Guerra-Cantu with the state Health Department.
Perry spokesman Robert Black said the governor did not believe the children were being housed in poor conditions at the West Texas fort. "Let's be honest here, this is not the Ritz," Black said, but he called the accommodations "clean and neat."
CPS said the move to the coliseum had been in the works since last week, but couldn't be done sooner because the facility had been booked for another event and had to be cleaned and set up for the children.
CPS also said about two dozen teenage boys were moved to a facility outside San Angelo with the judge's permission. "We don't normally say where we place teens," Gonzales said when asked where they were sent.
Monday's courtroom conference was held to work out the ground rules for a court hearing beginning Thursday on the fate of the children.
The judge made no immediate decisions on how the hearing will be carried out. Among the questions left unanswered: Would a courtroom big enough to hold everyone be available at the Tom Green County Courthouse, or would some kind of video link be employed?
Texas bar officials said more than 350 lawyers from across the state have volunteered to represent the children free of charge. Moreover, the 139 mothers who voluntarily left the sect to be with their children will need lawyers, too, to help them fight for custody.
The sheer numbers left the judge perplexed as she considered suggestions from the lawyers for how to handle Thursday's hearing.
"It would seem inefficient to have a witness testify 416 times," the judge offered. "If I gave everybody five minutes, that would be 70 hours."
In an unintended illustration of the problem, Walther gave the lawyers 30 minutes to break into groups and report back to her with ideas. It took almost two hours for everyone to reassemble.
The raid followed a call to a domestic violence hot line from a 16-year-old girl who said she was beaten and raped by her 50-year-old husband.
In addition to becoming a monumental legal morass, the case is proving to be a public-relations headache for the state.
Over the weekend, some of the mothers went on the offensive, complaining the children are falling ill and are frightened and traumatized from living in cramped conditions at the fort, with cots, cribs and playpens lined up side by side.
The secretive nature of the sect — and the indoctrination children receive from birth to mistrust outsiders — have added to the confusion.
Randoll Stout, one of the lawyers who plan to represent some of the children, said the youngsters "seem to change their names. Adults change their names. Children are passed around."
Betty Balli Torres, executive director of the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, said 10 women went into the San Angelo legal aid office last week seeking help and reported there were 100 more women who needed lawyers.
Attorneys began meeting with the women over the weekend. She said it was vital that the mothers be represented by lawyers. Otherwise, they could lose their children — "what we call kind of the death penalty of family law cases," she said.
A church lawyer, Rod Parker, said the 60 or so men remaining on the 1,700-acre ranch have offered to leave the compound if the state would allow the women and children to return to the place with child welfare monitors. But the state Children's Protective Services agency said it had not yet seen the offer and had no comment on it.
The sect practices polygamy in arranged marriages between underage girls and older men. The group has thousands of followers in two side-by-side towns in Arizona and Utah. The sect's prophet and spiritual leader, Warren Jeffs, is in prison for forcing an underage age into a marriage in Utah.
In Salt Lake City, dozens of polygamist wives with children in tow held a rally on the steps of City Hall to denounce the Texas raid. Rally organizers brought 475 wrapped care packages for the children in state custody.
"Reunite these children with their families. Let them go home," said Kent Johnson, an 18-year-old in a pinstripe suit who choked up.
Associated Press reporter Kelley Shannon contributed to this story from Austin.
Ping to the latest developments. A massive lawsuit!
Anybody know where this group gets its funding?
I think the local officials have really stepped in it. I can not believe a judge signed an order for more than the one “child” who made the call.
I saw one of those “poor” women being interviewed by Anderson Cooper tonight.
Let me say she was crazy, I have no sypathy for her.
She said they were treated like the Germans treated the Jews when they were put in concentration camps.
Refused to answer questions about how many wives her husband had, yada yada.
If this was meant to garner sympathy, she failed miserably.
They tax all the people of Texas, forcing them to pay up and then they build offices and have more taxes for all the lawyers and ...
Oh! That's it. Where does the religious cult get its funding? I have heard that they are heavily into welfare, with multiple payments to "single mothers" (who are actually plural wives) and so funds pile up in group households. Men in the group also have businesses in construction and so forth - small contractors.
The O’Reilly Factor reported that there are between 15 and 20 girls pregnant, between the age of 13 and 16.
If this case proceeds, then every suspected case of Islamic bigamy, female genital mutilation, and forced marriage must be investigated and prosecuted with the same fervor.
What they should be doing is removing the men, with restraining orders or whatever it takes, until it is proven they are not guilty of anything, and let the kids go home. It isn’t their fault, they did not ask to be born. It would sure beat what those poor little ones are going through right now. I would hope the men at the very least, qouls go along with that.
This is a situation where the, as always, when adults bring children into a bad situation, it is the children who get hurt. What we continue to allow in this country in regard to children is just plain criminal.
The children were hurt most evilly, and treated as non-persons, bred to be only slaves for sex objects, to serve their filthy minded leaders. As they have been passed from woman to woman, they do not even know their parents, so it seems.
Sounds like one giant welfare scam. More babies equals more money to the breeders and their keepers.
For what it’s worth (and I know you all have been anxiously awaiting my opinion .... you haven’t? You mean no one cares at all what I think? Oh well, here’s what I think anyway)
This is where I get off the train of support for the State’s persecution of the FCJCLDS. OK, there might be a reasonable case to be made that the fathers of these children are abusers. There might be a reasonable case to be made that the girl who made the original call was abused, and needed help. There might be a reasonable case to be made that some SPECIFIC parents who might be part of this sect might not be fit parents. There might even be a reasonable case to be made that some, or perhaps even all, of the parents and children involved need to be monitored and watched (at a place like, say, the San Angelo Coliseum) to prevent future abuse.
But to attempt to strip parental rights wholesale from 139 mothers (and an unknown, to me, number of fathers), without any individual determinations that these mothers and fathers are unfit parents ... words fail to describe the horror of this action. In what world does this wholesale breakup of families even begin to sound reasonable? Does anyone believe that the state has made any kind of individual, case-by-case analysis to indicate that each of those parents are unfit? Rather, it’s pretty obvious, at this point, that the state has simply decreed that mere association with a particular religion, even absent any proven or likely abuse with respect to the vast majority of these children, is enough to sever parental rights.
Whoa.
I’m certainly not arguing that, in cases of actual abuse, that children should be taken from their parents. I am, however, arguing, that, not only has the state not only not proven that these 139 mothers (and associated fathers) are abusers, but that they don’t even seem interested in making the effort to prove that any specific mothers and fathers are abusers. To date, it appears that these parents have already been separated from their children without even being allowed to appear in court. Again: parents have already been separated from their children based only on the parent’s association with a particular religion.
I’m not so sure I can imagine anything much more wicked that the state could do, other than, of course, simply burning to death everyone involved and grinding up the charred corpses under tank treads. Of course, I’m happy that this case hasn’t come to that stage ... yet ... but what has already occurred is still pretty bad.
So, again, I’m off the train of support for the State on this one. Based on the article, they’ve just taken a flying leap beyond the line of what is arguably reasonable and just with respect to the individual rights of the people involved with the FCJCLDS. If this merely ends “badly,” I think it’ll be a miracle. I predict that this is going to wind up having long term negative impacts on our society.
gidget7 you are absolutely correct- they should have taken all the men first. Maybe that will be the next step and move the lovely women and children back to their home.
Let me see if I got this right the government doesn’t have to prove a thing just get a restraining order and force out the men until they prove their innocence. Since when do people have to prove their innocence when faced with an accusation.
I would be careful about getting caught up in all the hoopla around this case because Texas may wind up with egg on its face. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong but if Texas can’t produce the original complainant will all the evidence seized be fruit of the poisonous tree?
Mostly the american tax payer. Appears the church doesn’t like outsiders and considers us evil, but they love our money. The men legally marry one woman, then “spiritually” marry the rest of their wives. The wives are then considered single mothers in the eyes of the state. Some of these women have 8 to 10 children and they collect the benefits for each child as single monthers. They also use every loophole in the book to avoid paying taxes on their property or any income they make.
When Warren Jeffs was arrested, it was reported the FLDS church had over 200 million in its coffers.
Hell imagine the financial windfall from Bush’s economic stimulus package. I’m sure they will going to file for it.
400 children * $300 credit = $120,000. That would go a long way to continue funding their child rape factory.
Hey, they can always all flee to Mexico just like Mitt Romney’s Grandparents did!
The call was made from one individual. But normally if a call of abuse is made from a home..all the children are removed, not just the caller. The communal aspect of the living arrangements would justify the removal of all of the children, I suppose.
The “caller” maybe afraid to step forward. Or if she is indeed known, maybe else where for her own protection.
I think any of the mothers that are interviewed would sound like raving lunatics. If the worst case scenario pans out, it is going to be a huge revelation that what they have been taught to believe is ,in fact, a crime. But until that revelation hits, they'll be worried and screaming like banshees for the “outsiders” to give their kids back.
I have deep sympathy for the kids. I have sympathy for the CPS workers. I doubt that most of them get any kick out of removing children from their parents. And,from a purely logistical stand point, removing that many children into an overcrowded system has got to be a nightmare.
I would not care to be a CPS worker, as deeply as these workers are needed. Go in and investigate (darned if you do) or turn a blind eye (darned if you don't).
Excellent comment. The whole thing.
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