Combating polygamous crime: Utah officials say they can handle it (YFZ/fLDS Daily Thread - 5/2/08)

The Salt Lake Tribune ^ | 05/02/2008 | Thomas Burr

[MizSterious]

Combating polygamous crime: Utah officials say they can handle it

Harry Reid calls for task force, but local officials say they have it covered

By Thomas Burr

The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated:05/02/2008 02:47:25 AM MDT

WASHINGTON - The U.S. attorney for Utah and the head of the FBI's Salt Lake City field office said Thursday there should be no rush to establish a federal task force on polygamous crimes because existing partnerships already offer cross-agency cooperation.
    "What's also lost in this debate is let's not ignore that just announcing a task force doesn't give you probable cause to launch an investigation and it doesn't allow you to ignore constitutional protections," U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman.
    Tim Fuhrman, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's field office in Salt Lake City, said local agencies seem to be satisfied with the efforts so far and a task force won't necessarily solve any problems.
    "In many of our investigations we work with state and local agencies" Fuhrman said. "I don't see the need to go beyond that working relationship that we have right now and that exists with those partners."
    Tolman and Fuhrman were responding to calls this week by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the attorneys general for Utah and Arizona to form a federal task force to pursue polygamy-related crimes. Reid jousted with Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and Arizona's top law enforcement official, Terry Goddard, over actions the two states have taken, but all three agreed a task force was needed.

[MizSterious]

Just when you thought it could get no worse, click the link for a REALLY creepy article: Polygamist's Sons: Incest Will Bring Back The Line Of Jesus Christ.

[MizSterious]

Sect kids' religious needs make for problems

Web Posted: 05/02/2008 03:38 AM CDT

By Nancy Martinez and Abe Levy
Express-News

At Yearning for Zion Ranch, fundamentalist Mormon parents created a seamless religious environment for their children — free of government intrusion and modern influences.

More than 460 of those children now live under state supervision while investigators and the courts try to determine whether they were abused.

Their new homes are state-funded foster-care facilities run largely by faith-based nonprofits unfamiliar with the practices of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an enigmatic polygamous sect that broke away decades ago from the mainstream Mormon church.

The circumstances pose a rare challenge for child welfare officials as they try to provide for the children's religious needs.

This task is proving difficult; critics say it's impossible.

An FLDS core belief is that members must separate themselves from the secular, outside world. Further complicating matters is that the fathers make up the priesthood in charge of the community's spiritual development.

The state can't replicate either condition in the group homes, where the children are exposed to an array of non-FLDS staff and children and where the fathers are barred during the investigation.

Texas Child Protective Services officials say they're trying to be sensitive to the children's religious beliefs but ultimately the higher concern is their safety. They acknowledge their understanding of the FLDS is limited because the community is so isolated.

CPS issued a guide that recommends foster homes allow the children privacy to practice their religion, including time for prayer and singing of hymns, usually accompanied by piano, as is their practice. The state hasn't decided whether mainstream Mormon clergy should be made available.

“Every effort must be made to understand, respect and incorporate their religious beliefs and social practices as much as possible as the children are gradually introduced into mainstream culture,” CPS officials wrote in the guide, “Model for Care for Children from the Yearning for Zion Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints Sect.”

Patrick Crimmins, a CPS spokesman, said in an e-mail that the state is doing the best it can.

“We have already assured the court that the religious preferences of these children will be honored,” he said. “The needs of each one of these children are being met with care and compassion.”

But providing a suitable religious environment for the children is unattainable, says Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney and Catholic who represents the FLDS community.

“The state seems to think that giving them time to pray is all that they really need to do, but this religion is a lifestyle,” he said. “These are people who live their religion 24-7. It's not a go-to-church-once-a-week religion.”

Excerpt. Read the rest at source: MySA.com

[greyfoxx39]

Bring ‘em some prayer rugs. /sarc

[SouthTexas]

Combating polygamous crime: Utah officials say they can handle it

If you would have taken care of the issue, Texas wouldn't have all this mess now!

[MizSterious]

This quote told me just how clueless he is. Yes, it IS a lifestyle, of sorts, if you want to call it a "life," but the "lifestyle" has less to do with prayer and spirituality than it does just plain old power and sex.

[Colofornian]

From the article: "What's also lost in this debate is let's not ignore that just announcing a task force doesn't give you probable cause to launch an investigation and it doesn't allow you to ignore constitutional protections," U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman.

What a difference a century and a quarter makes. The feds jailed 1300 Mormon men in the 1880s for polygamy. A quarter of a century before that (1856), the Republicans had labeled polygamy & slavery as the "twin relics of babarism." Yet in our day, although its concentrated practice in certain communities is overly overt, he concedes here that they haven't even yet to begin an investigation! ("doesn't give you cause to launch an investigation...")

[MizSterious]

Acute gutlessness—my diagnosis. (I once stayed in a motel...)

[bonfire]

My dad used to call people like this: “Gutless Wonders”

[stlnative]

May 2, 2008, 12:24AM
FLDS adults not suspected of abusing boys
State: Older boys may have molested younger ones

By TERRI LANGFORD and LISA SANDBERG
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News

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State authorities are investigating whether younger boys taken from a polygamist ranch in West Texas were sexually abused by older boys, not adults, a state official clarified Thursday.

Documents taken from the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado indicate that younger boys were molested by older boys at the ranch, said the official, who asked not to be identified. No other details about the alleged abuse were available.

~SNIP~

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5747898.html

[Froufrou]

Since you brought that up, who’s going to share in the restitution of the welfare dollars they’ve scammed in Texas? We have many more cases than AZ or UT! You know what it is, right? $1000 per woman/case. Just the TANF, not including food stamps.

[ansel12]

"If you would have taken care of the issue, Texas wouldn't have all this mess now!"

Texas, having to clean up Utah's latter day taints

[SouthTexas]

Occasionally I can agree with some of the issues in this case. ;)

Don't think it's been investigated enough to say where the money is coming from, Texas or previous residences.

[Pebcak]

Amen to that.

Re: The article about the feds not having probable cause. Then what the heck was the FBI doing at the YFZ?
I swear the ‘deserter’ is a propaganda rag.

Not that they need my help, but I guess they could start with the Mann act, and after that call in Immigration.

[MizSterious]

'Bishop's Record' lists families of the YFZ Ranch

Staff report

Originally published 01:42 p.m., May 2, 2008
Updated 01:42 p.m., May 2, 2008

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.

Source: GOSanAngelo

[MizSterious]

Dr. Phil: FLDS principles 'imminent danger' for children

<

(CNN) -- Dr. Phil McGraw joined "Larry King Live" on Thursday where he talked about some of the stories in the news. He touched on topics ranging from the removal of children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sect to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the Austrian family affected by incest.

~~SNIP!~~

King: Let's turn to the polygamy matter. If the allegations of abuse are true, do you see any problem with all of these children in foster care?

McGraw: I see huge problems with it, Larry. I think we're in a situation here that there is not necessarily a good option. Now, think about this: there are only a certain number of these children that were believed to be at risk. But, yet, all of the children were taken out and put into foster care.

Now, I've said this before, the statistics tell us that 73 percent of all children that go into foster care wind up on the street or in jail. So, that means that if you apply those numbers to these 416 children, 304 of them would be predicted to wind up on the street or in jail. Is that a good alternative? And I don't think it is. And I don't think that it makes sense to take all of the children out of this situation without doing a case-by-case study, to see which one of these children are at risk and which ones are not.

Now, clearly, the principles that seem to govern the FLDS would be imminent danger for these children. But somehow or another, you have to figure a way to train these people, create an open door policy, get monitoring, get access and try to get these children back with their biological mothers, but with protection, and monitoring.

King: What do you think of the adult mothers?

McGraw: Well, at this point, so many of these mothers, Larry, grew up in this religious sect. So, they know nothing else. I mean, people say they look strange, because they walk around in kind of "Little House on the Prairie" type garb. They have unusual hair. They speak in very monotonic, scripted ways. This is all these women know. So many of them were born in this sect. All they have been exposed to are the forces, values and treatment that is indigenous to this sect. So, they don't know anything else. And they have been told that you, me, everybody on the outside world constitutes evil threats. So, at this point, I'm sure they're in a state of confusion. But it doesn't mean that they can't learn, that they can't be willing to adhere to some other guidelines. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. But some dialogue has to take place here.

Excerpt. Read the rest at source: CNN.Com.

[Alice in Wonderland]

Bishop’s Record listing families of the YFZ Ranch

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

[MizSterious]

Texas authorities cancel warrant for man accused of abusing FLDS girl

By Nate Carlisle
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated:05/02/2008 03:19:02 PM MDT

Posted: 1:49 PM- AMARILLO, Texas -- Texas authorities have canceled the arrest warrant for the Arizona man who had been suspected of physically and sexually abusing a teenage girl -- allegations that launched last month's raid on an FLDS ranch in Eldorado.
    Law enforcement did not find the teenage girl or Barlow at the YFZ Ranch, owned by the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
    The man named in the warrant, Dale E. Barlow, was never arrested and denied knowing the girl. Officials have not located or idenified her.
    A spokesman for the Texas Department of Safety said he could not elaborate on why the warrant was canceled.
    "The bottom line is the warrant is no longer active," said Tom Vinger.
    Vinger said he did not know when the cancellation occurred. He would not comment on whether the cancellation confirms the girl's calls for help were a hoax.
    "We're still investigating that," he said.
    The warrant had alleged a 16-year-old girl called a San Angelo family violence shelter to report she was married to Barlow, 50, and he was abusing her. The allegations were the basis for a search and arrest warrant executed April 3 on the FLDS ranch.
    Two weeks later, Texas authorities announced they were investigating a Colorado Springs, Colo., woman suspected of making the phone calls claiming abuse. The woman has no known connection to the FLDS and a history of making phone calls falsely claiming abuse.
    But once on the ranch, authorities said, child welfare workers found children who were abused or at risk for abuse, and more than 460 children were taken into custody. They are now in state facilities throughout Texas.
    Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney representing the FLDS, said, "The cancellation of this warrant is just one more piece of evidence that this call was a hoax and the state of Texas did not properly check this out before they raided the ranch."
    Parker acknowledged the cancellation of the warrant would have little legal significance to the childrens' pending custody cases.
    Barlow had denied knowing the girl or having visited Texas in 30 years. He continued living at his home in Colorado City, Ariz. Texas Rangers traveled to St. George to interview Barlow but did not arrest him.

Source: The Salt Lake Tribune.

My comment: Bear in mind, this does not negate the warrants and the evidence found in the search.

[MizSterious]

Protesters use NBA playoff game to raise awareness to FLDS plight in Texas

By Jason Bergreen
The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 04/24/2008 09:44:03 PM MDT

Posted: 9:42 PM- About 50 protesters holding signs outside EnergySolutions Arena demanded that Texas authorities reunite FLDS mothers with their children before last night's basketball playoff game between the Jazz and the Houston Rockets.
    Men, women and children stood on the corner of South Temple and 300 West about 7:30 p.m. waving signs that read, "Let the children go home," "Stop the Texas Holocaust," "Liberty and justice for all," and "Shame on Texas."
    Bonnie Whitmill passed a petition around gathering signatures from supporters going to the game. "Why should everybody get freedom of religion but the fundamentalists?" she asked.
    Whitmill, who is a member of the FLDS church, said they chose the arena as a place to protest because the Houston Rockets were in town. "The Jazz is going to waste all over Texas and send them home crying," she added.

Source: The Salt Lake Tribune.

[Pebcak]

I just spent some time looking at it and the Court order for DNA.

Looking at the locations of the wives and children, one finds, ‘house of hiding,’ ‘elsewhere,’ and Idaho. That is in addition to Short Creek.

Really freaky. I guess from now on we call the ranch R17.

[MizSterious]

From the article in #38: "About 50 protesters holding signs outside EnergySolutions Arena demanded that Texas authorities reunite FLDS mothers with their children before last night's basketball playoff game between the Jazz and the Houston Rockets."

I just can't resist commenting--wonder what their Freeper names are? ;)