Judge orders FLDS newborn into state custody

Chron.com ^ | May 1, 2008 | MICHELLE ROBERTS

[Politicalmom]

SAN ANTONIO — A judge ordered that the baby boy born to a girl taken from a polygamist sect's ranch in West Texas be placed in state custody, according to documents released Thursday.

Texas District Judge Barbara Walther signed the order Wednesday giving the state custody of the 1-day-old infant born to a teen believed to be 15 or 16 years old.

The girl has claimed to be 18, according to an affidavit signed by Ruby Gutierrez, a Child Protective Services caseworker, but officials believe she is younger and placed her in foster care with other children taken from the ranch.

The newborn is the teen's second child; the first is a 20-month-old boy. The father of both children was identified as Jackson Jessop, 22, but state officials say they don't know his whereabouts.

Child welfare officials now have 464 children in their custody, swept from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado because authorities believe underage girls were forced into marriages and sex with older men. Authorities are also now investigating possible sexual abuse of boys.

Church members have vehemently denied there was any abuse, and civil liberties groups have raised concerns at the sweeping nature of the removals.

Individual custody hearings are set to be completed by June 5.

CPS and law enforcement raided the ranch on April 3 after a girl who was purportedly 16 called a domestic abuse hotline to complain of abuse at the hands her much older husband. Authorities are investigating whether the calls were a hoax.

Regardless, child welfare authorities say 31 of the 53 girls aged 14-17 have children or are pregnant.

Under Texas law, children under the age of 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult. A girl can get married with parental permission at 16, but the girls who belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are not believed to have legal marriages.

FLDS is a breakaway sect of the mainline Mormon church, which disavowed polygamy a century ago.

[metmom]

What did it?

The post was deleted.

[metmom]

The government responded to a false call from a psycho lady about a man who was not even in the state of Texas.

No, the government responded to what now appears to be an allegedly false call. They didn't know that at the time and they couldn't sit around flipping coins trying to decide if it was real or not. By law, they HAVE to investigate every call they get. What if it had been real, and they ignored it? How would you feel about it then?

So, you're willing to judge and condemn her on evidence that's no more substantial that that which is being used against flds? You've got her labeled as psycho. On what basis do you make that determination?

Has she stood trial? Has the evidence been presented in a court of law? Has she been found guilty by a jury of her peers?

What about her Constitutional rights? What about her right to due process? What about her being innocent until proved guilty?

All those who complain about people sitting in judgment of the flds are doing the very thing they condemn with this girl. Her picture is being plastered all over the place and she's being hung without a trial by the very folks who are screaming the loudest about Constitutional rights and due process when the flds is being condemned.

No one can say the phone call is a hoax because no one knows for sure. It has not been determined to be fact in a trial, and yet this one little tidbit released by the media that no one trusts is being treated as set in stone.

The hypocrisy is appalling.

[metmom]

Holding grudges for being kicked out or forced to leave is a mighty powerful reason to want harm done to those who did it. I’m not saying that what they say is false,....

Sure you are. That's exactly what you're saying.

Too many accounts that read too much the same. What next? They're all in cahoots just trying to get all those innocent cultists in trouble for no good reason?

Right.

[MrEdd]

It was an accumulation on the banning I think

I had freepmailed Jimrob and hit abuse on the repeated
"If a child is being abused, then they are responsible for reporting it to another responsible adult, if they want help."
thing, but his griefing post to Panda was also deleted before his opus. His opus post was mostly a gee look how long the freepathon is taking, and a "look at all these banned freepers I know" sorta thing. Not as bad as many of his posts that stood.

[MissouriConservative]

Your knee-jerk reaction is very telling. The Sheriff knew, KNEW beforehand that the man named in the warrant was not there. It's that simple.

At the crux of the 39-page motion Goldstein filed Thursday in the Texas 51st Judicial District Court on behalf of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a revelation that the man authorities were looking for, Dale Evans Barlow, was in Arizona at the time of the April 3 raid. Texas Rangers searched the polygamist sect’s Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado, Texas, for a week after receiving reports from a woman claiming to be a 16-year-old named Sarah Jessop who alleged that Barlow was sexually abusing her. Police, however, now suspect the reports were a prank engineered by a woman in Colorado Springs with a history of false reporting.

“Those officers could have and should have exercised greater diligence in verifying and determining the true whereabouts of a known convicted felon, serving a probated sentence in another state. At the very least, alleging that Dale Barlow was located on the YFZ Ranch without checking with the Arizona Probation Office, these officers knew to be supervising him, constituted a reckless disregard for either standard law enforcement protocol or common sense,” reads Goldstein’s request for a hearing to investigate the issuance of the search-and-arrest warrants.

The Aspen Daily News obtained the request in advance of its filing.

“Moreover, prior to executing the initial warrant, (Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran) was advised that Dale Barlow was in Arizona and not on the premises sought to be searched. In fact, prior to entering the premises Sheriff Doran actually spoke to Dale Barlow in Arizona by cell phone, confirming his driver license number and the fact that he was in Arizona.”

Barlow advised the sheriff that he did not know Sarah Jessop, he had not been to Texas in over 20 years, nor had he ever been to Yearning For Zion Ranch, according to the filing. Thus, Goldstein argues, law enforcement had been advised and verified that the only person suspected of posing an immediate risk to children was not located at the polygamist compound.

The later discovery that the reported abuse may have been the invention of a woman in Colorado Springs with a history of making similar false reports weakens the integrity of the Yearning For Zion Ranch raid, the legal filing states.

“The veracity of the factual underpinnings for any probable cause in support of (one of the search warrants) is further undermined by the revelation that the telephones utilized by the alleged sexually abused, pregnant, 16-year-old mother, claiming to be Sarah Jessop to the New Bridge Family Shelter ‘Crisis Hotline’ in San Angelo, Texas, have been traced back to a 33-year-old childless, African American woman in Colorado Springs, Colorado,” Goldstein states.

His filing goes on to accuse authorities of withholding salient facts from the court, and searching and seizing property at the ranch in an “unreasonable” and “expansive” way that infringed on the polygamists’ constitutional rights. Of particular concern is the seizing of blood, pubic hairs and other DNA from members of the polygamist sect, it said.

“Officers took action beyond the scope that these warrants authorized,” Goldstein claims.

LINK

[pandoraou812]

I have no clue. I was away from the computer but I am glad. It was evil & I do not let evil near me.

[MissouriConservative]

And you’re too ready to believe simply because “it’s for the children”. Emotionalism is a dangerous thing and you’re living proof of that.

[metmom]

Last post of his I saw was that he was going to start compiling a list of all banned FReepers.

For what purpose, is beyond me. I figured it was good busy work that would keep him off the threads, but this works, too.

“This account has been banned or suspended.”

[metmom]

Nope. I’m too ready to believe because of the pregnant teens that they found there.

[pandoraou812]

Thank you to all of you for being so nice to me....Hugs Pandy

[CindyDawg]

Were you here (on this thread) yesterday?

[MrEdd]

Condescension on your part does not cover for your poor position, nor does feigned ignorance lend credence to your ludicrous assertion that one series of phone calls launched this investigation.

< They are removing children from monogamous relationships where no report of abuse has been made.

Oh really? where on this compound was no allegation made? The former members of the cult who have escaped or been cast out allege that polygamy is within the entire cult. And the theology of the cult is that each man needs three wives for entry into heaven, so where is this no allegation family on the compound that you are trying to come up with?

And, they can’t make up there minds how old one of the young ladies is...and have taken it upon themselves to decide that she is under 18

Gee, I have a copy of my birth certificate in my safe. Where is hers? Are you saying there are FBI agents at the hospital where she was born keeping the FLDS attorneys from getting a certified copy? or at the county courthouse if she was born in the home? Maybe the FLDS can post YouTube video of the guards and embarrass the government.

You’re letting emotions get in the way of logic and that’s a dangerous thing for people and good for government.

I see no evidence you could even spell logic without a spell checker.

You assume quite a lot from my words. Your assumption, if we were in person, would get you a poke in the nose.

I assume that you meant them and I called you on their implications. Your threat, is getting you a post to the moderator.

What I’m saying is that in an emotional outburst, people like you will allow the state to trample over anyone, whether or not the abuse has been proven.

What you have said is that all the people who have escaped or been cast out from this cult are all liars. Perhaps they are bitter and hanging on to religion and guns too. and you maintain that when allegations are brought forward, since those making the allegations must be assumed to be liars - don't conduct a normal sexual abuse of children investigation. Entirely circular reasoning on your part which being insulting on your part will not shore up.

You knee-jerk types don’t care about evidence or anything else,

Actually I care that the case not proceed to indictment and trial if investigating it based on numerous allegations turns up no corroborating evidence, or evidence insufficient to have a reasonable chance of conviction. But I do insist that a normal investigation take place.

[MrEdd]

Welcomes.

[metmom]

Police, however, now suspect the reports were a prank engineered by a woman in Colorado Springs with a history of false reporting.

And that's all it is, is suspect. SO why are so many people accepting that as the truth from one source about one alleged event, but all the people who have lived among the group who testify to it's goings on are suspect and lying because they have an axe to grind?

If the testimony of all those people for all those years is so suspect, then the testimony of the police, who everyone accuses of making up facts to suit themselves, is suspect as well.

What's happening here is that everything that makes the government look even remotely like it did the right thing, is considered suspect and fabricated; and everything that makes them look bad and the cult look good is treated as gospel.

The double standard is also appalling.

[Alice in Wonderland]

I don’t know if this has been posted yet:

Bishop’s Record listing families of the YFZ Ranch

http://web.gosanangelo.com/pdf/BishopsList.pdf

[Alice in Wonderland]

The Bishop’s Record, found in a safe on the YFZ Ranch, is a record of families whose fathers lived on the Schleicher County polygamist compound, according to court testimony last month.

The record, released Thursday by Tom Green County District Court, contains names, ages and locations for many of the men, women and children of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints living at the ranch.

Most of those listed are said to live at “R17,” a code name for the YFZ Ranch.

“Short Creek” is a former name for the twin FLDS-controlled cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

The state of Texas introduced the document as part of its evidence during a child custody hearing involving the more than 400 FLDS children removed from the YFZ ranch as part of an investigation into a “pervasive pattern and practice” of forced “marriages” and sexual abuse.

As of today, 464 children are in the state’s custody, including a boy born this week.

[commonguymd]

fascinating

[TigersEye]

You're welcome, pandy. I see you pinged yourself to your own thank you.
I knew if I kept telling you to be good to yourself it would start to sink in someday.

;^)

[Politicalmom]

I almost warned him about getting mouthy with the mods....then I figured I’d let him take responsibility for himself.

BWAHAHAHAH!!!

[Politicalmom]

I didn’t realize “monogamous” people don’t abuse children.

That’ll save CPS a LOT of time in the future....