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.
Precedent isn't being set, it's being followed.
What the CPS is doing here is very typical for social services except for the scale.
All it takes for this to be you is an anonymous tip on a hotline from ANYONE at all. Not even a cry for help from someone who says it's happening to herself. Someone can pick your name out of the phone book. You will never know who did it for two reasons; one is the anonymity, and the other is, even if social services knows, they won't tell you.
When they get a tip, they HAVE to investigate. It doesn't matter if it's anonymous or not and if there's anything more that a vague accusation, like the kids listen to Christian music and eat dry Cheerios. (For real-FR thread on that one).
If you let them in the door, you're toast. If you refuse to co-operate, they'll go to the school your kid attends and interview them there without your knowledge or permission. If they so choose, they will take them from there and put them in foster care and you won't have a clue where they are, because they won't tell you.
What I don't get is why people are so horrified about this and acting like it's the first time any thing like this has ever happened before. It happens all the time.
I know what I wrote. This is what’s happening in the US right now. What rock have you been living under?
So now that you’ve tried to deflect the argument to avoid answering the question.
You claimed that this is all a hoax and fraud.
How do you know?
Sources please?
If you don’t like this little dose of reality, try reading “Anonymous Tip” by my former classmate Mike Farris.
It’s at least 10 years old.
He wrote it as fiction, but about the only thing he changed from reality were the names.
As I originally said, I won't condemn anyone until the facts are all out. So if the parents give consent to either a legal or even spiritual contract between their children and another, this could all be within the confines of the law. I looked at some other material that indicated a three year age difference for parental consent to be consideration. That could well be the crux of the matter. I'm not a lawyer..I don't know. (What that says to me is..if a kid falls in love with her 18 year old boyfriend it's different than a kid falling in...whatever..with the 50 year old neighbor).
As far as common law marriage..I don't think you can be married, legally or common to more than one person.
Too bad the laws are written in such mumbo jumbo.
For further reading about other fundamentalist mormon cults Google "Ervil LeBaron".
Hey, Old Professor- what exactly were you a professer of? Math? Science? I think that you probably should subtract the male children and pre-pubescent females from your mathematical calculations, and then your 3.6-4.8 percent will be out the window.
How about when the someone is a pregnant unmarried child under 17, and claims the babydaddy is a 50 year old pervert?
“It’s a toss up trying to decide who’s worse; the Muslims or the FLDS?”
If both practice statutory rape of underage females, in that aspect they are equal.
Muslims go several steps further, funding/supporting terrorism.
I’ve yet to hear of FLDS supporting terrorism. No tossup for me.
I sense that many of the people here that sound horrified are in fact either FLDS or LDS.
Try reading the whole thread, I was exaggerating to make a point, much the way the media does.
That doesn't even come close to making sense, I know you were upset when Best Buy found that porn on the school janitor's computer and reported it, but this whole raid is based on the questions, 'How many wives does your husband have, how old were you when you married him, and how old were the girls here when they were assigned to the men'.
There is the scary part of texas law where apparently the natural mother/father could consent to this and there is a “consent” clause in texas law. (I know it is very scary)
I think taking your hypothetical in the abstract there is enough to have an investigation, however that may not be enough for a conviction.
Don’t forget this is not the first time prosecutors have pursued these people.
I just hope the prosecutors did not do anything shady to get over their probable cause hump.
You got me there. I’ve been communicating with you. Sorry that I did not recognize you as the beacon of light which you believe yourself to be. When did God die and leave you in place as his mouthpiece? Even though polygamy is illegal in our country, monogamy is a cultural tradition. I am curious about the philosophical roots that frame your concept regarding marriage, if you would care to comment and give us the benefit of your wisdom.
Thanks in advance...
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