Posted on 05/05/2008 6:44:40 AM PDT by MizSterious
At this point, I would imagine everyone in this group is in a heightened state of paranoia. I know I would be, nothing like being raided and having all the children taken to make you suspicious of further actions.
Yes, it’s pretty hard to feel sympathy for them, if even half the stories about this group are true they have no defense that I can think of- not only to get their kids back; but even to stay out of jail. This is a genuine mess for sure.
“I can’t say they’d be safe with their mother,”
Because there is a history of violating the laws of Texas,by the FLDS group, and appears to be evidence they still are.
” but you can’t say they are safe in foster care.”
I can say they are so far. There is absolutely no evidence they have come to any harm.
Sure, they have to adapt to a strange world, but then so did the woman and children locked in that guy’s basement in Austria.
Besides, you can’t be sure that these children haven’t already been torn from the mother they were born to, and given to strangers. How much did that affect them?
How much does it effect the 12 year old boys who were thrown out onto the streets, with nothing, by the FLDS.
I have heard the ‘lost boys’ (2 of them) give statements as to how they were treated. So it’s not just speculation.
You can hope they are. The statistics of foster care in Texas are better than the alleged statistics of the FLDS group, but hardly anything to be happy about. However, the CPS took great pains to pick the “best” foster care for these kids, ones that were not under probation or threatened with violations or reviews.
As to your comment about the first point, again my concern is using “FLDS group” and insisting that all parents who were at the ranch should be treated as if they were the leader of the group.
Wendell Nielsen is a big-wig in the FLDS:
The 2002 Winter Olympics were months away when leaders of a Utah polygamous sect predicted the Games would bring cataclysmic destruction to the Salt Lake Valley.
To escape, faithful adherents of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were given 30 days to gather in Hildale and Colorado City, Ariz., the sect’s stronghold in the Arizona Strip. Hundreds in the Salt Lake area packed up and moved as instructed.
Businesses relocated, too. Among them: Western Precision Inc., a high-tech machine shop that builds components for such products as bicycles, blood pumps and military aircraft. The firm, according to filings in a high-stakes court battle, once funneled as much as $100,000 a month to the FLDS church and its leaders.
The dispute, which is back in court on May 1, may tease apart the ties between the FLDS church, affiliated businesses and a property trust it once controlled - potentially setting a precedent that extends to hay farms, dairies, construction businesses and even new enclaves in other states.
Lawyers for Bruce R. Wisan, the court-appointed overseer now managing the trust, claim Western Precision was a “priesthood project business.” Its multi-million dollar building, fixtures and the land it sits on, they argue, are assets of the United Effort Plan Trust, which holds virtually all property in the twin cities.
Wisan has supervised holdings in Utah, Arizona and British Columbia, valued at $111 million, since last May after the FLDS church, the trust and its leaders - among them fugitive leader Warren Jeffs - failed to answer two lawsuits that named them as defendants.
Wisan sued Western Precision a day after his appointment, alleging that months after the suits were filed former trustees wrongfully allowed the company to buy the property and building for $25,000 - a fraction of its real value, which he puts at $1.8 million to $5 million. The deal also didn’t account for labor and materials contributed by FLDS members, he alleges.
Western Precision disputes Wisan’s characterizations of the sale and the company’s relationships with the FLDS church and the UEP trust.
The company claims it paid fairly for the land, owns the building that it paid for mostly with its own or borrowed funds and that members contributed willingly to the project. Wisan has overstepped his authority and does not have the right to challenge the sale, the company claims. In doing so, he has jeopardized the community’s largest employer and inappropriately taken sides in what is, at heart, a religious battle.
Founded by Wendell Nielsen in 1981 in West Jordan, Western Precision is a lucrative enterprise with contracts spanning a range of fields: aerospace, military, automotive, mining, health and fitness and medical.
The firm merged in 1992 with another machining business, Utah Tool & Die. Then-FLDS leader Rulon Jeffs, who was president of Utah Tool, didn’t see the need for two competing machine shops, according to John Nielsen, one of Wendell’s sons. Rulon Jeffs was put on Western Precision’s payroll.
“It was a major concern for Western Precision to be asked to move to Hildale when they did,” said Winston Blackmore, a former UEP trustee who lives in British Columbia and is associated with a group that split from the FLDS.
“Wendell [Nielsen] spent quite a bit of time with his customers trying to explain the necessity of the move and worrying that he would lose a certain amount of them,” Blackmore said. “He calculated freight costs and planned how he was going to offset the expense of being so far out of the way.”
Western Precision got special dispensation to stretch the deadline, several sources said, because it was one of the church’s “biggest cash cows.” FLDS faithful rushed to ready a new 55,266-square-foot facility for the company on 3.3 acres on Hildale, which Western Precision agreed to lease for $200 a year.
Jethro Barlow, a former FLDS member and once trusted accountant for the church, said the relocation of Western Precision to Hildale in a matter of weeks was “one of the largest work projects ever undertaken by the FLDS community.”
Work continued over the next two years, with volunteer crews spending Saturdays finishing up and modifying the facility.
And employees donated pay to help the company and the church, which drew praise from FLDS leaders who held Western Precision out as a model for others, Holm and others said in court documents.
“There was a time when Wendell [Nielsen, Western Precision’s founder] was starving his employees so that he could give their money to the church,” Blackmore agreed in an e-mail. “He would tell his employees that they couldn’t make payroll” because of the company’s contributions to church leaders.
Some employees, Blackmore said, went for months “without a hundred dollars.”
During at least one Saturday work project meeting - during which residents received voluntary community improvement assignments - a church leader announced Western Precision was contributing $50,000 a month, Holm said in a court document.
The company generated another $50,000 a month by getting employees to work for free on Saturdays, John Nielsen said. Stubbs makes similar claims in his deposition, describing wage cuts and donations Western Precision’s employees made.
< snip >
http://www.rickross.com/reference/polygamy/polygamy444.html
At the end of 2003, founder of Western Precision, Wendell Nielsen held 55 percent of the stock. Three of Rulon Jeffs’ daughters — all of whom are married to Wendell — held the rest: Janet Jeffs, 20 percent; Donna Jeffs, 15 percent; and Melanie Jeffs, 10 percent. In January 2004, Western Precision redeemed Wendell Nielsen’s stock. That’s right about when he disappeared from the community. The shares were then reallocated among the women (sisters of current prophet Warren Jeffs): Janet Jeffs, 48 percent; Donna Jeffs, 33 percent; and Melanie Jeffs, 18.5 percent. John Wayman bought the women out in January 2005. He acquired Melanie’s shares using his own money. Western Precision redeemed the shares held by Janet and Donna, agreeing to make monthly payments to them that together totaled $3,470. The company then shifted the shares to John Wayman, making him Western Precision’s sole stockholder.
http://blogs.sltrib.com/plurallife/archives/2006_04_01_archive.htm
note: only Donna is listed on the Bishop’s list.
November 1, 2006
A high-tech manufacturing company once based in Hildale has agreed to turn over its former facility to the United Effort Plan Trust in a lawsuit settlement. Western Precision, which moved to Las Vegas in August and changed its name to Newera Manufacturing Inc., signed the agreement Tuesday with Bruce R. Wisan, the court-appointed fiduciary overseeing the trust. The value of the property is sufficient to override any other claims Wisan might have sought against Western Precision.
February 27, 2007
The high bidder landed a bargain building. A Wasatch Front company added an expansion site. And job-hungry southern Utahns gained a new place to find work. All courtesy of an auction Tuesday in a polygamous community. Tom Davis of Las Vegas-based Northwest Land Co. snatched up the former Western Precision machine shop in Hildale for $1.65 million at the public sale, which drew more spectators than speculators.
In Jeffs’ absence, it is thought that other senior members of the notoriously insular sect have taken day-to-day control of running the group. Among those members are Wendell Nielsen, believed to be Jeffs’ closest confidant; Lyle Jeffs, Warren’s brother; and William Jessop. Several people told ABC News that some families have started putting Nielsen’s picture up on their wall, next to photos of Jeffs, and that some have started listening to tape recordings of Nielsen’s sermons.
It was not clear whether Jeffs’ confidants would take the sect in a new direction, though Benjamin Bistline, a former member and author of a history of the group, said he thought Nielsen may not be as harsh as Jeffs.
“I don’t think he will be taking people’s wives away from them,” he said.
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3656629
As a child-abuse investigation continues at a polygamous compound in Texas, NBC News has learned who helped fund the controversial sect.
It was the U.S. Department of Defense.
Freedom of Information Act documents obtained by NBC News show that the Pentagon awarded contracts of at least $1.5 million to two Utah-based companies owned and operated by senior officials of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS. The contracts, issued from 1998 to 2006, were for aircraft parts and other military equipment.
The Pentagon contracts were awarded to Utah Tool & Die and Western Precision, Inc., which operated in Utah. The president of Western Precision was Wendell Nielsen, described in multiple media accounts as a senior official in the FLDS religious sect, whose West Texas compound was raided by police earlier this month as part of a wide-ranging child-abuse investigation. Neilsen disappeared with church leader Warren Jeffs after Jeffs was put on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list in 2003. Jeffs, the sect’s “prophet,” was convicted last year on two counts of rape as an accomplice.
The records show that Western Precision continued to receive government contracts even after the well-publicized manhunt. And when Jeffs was captured in 2006, he was riding in an SUV registered to John C. Wayman, another Western Precision executive.
So how could federal funds have ended up aiding the FLDS church? According to an affidavit filed by Wendell Nielsen’s son in a church-related court case, Western Precision gave the church up to $100,000 a month, a testament to the close ties between the manufacturing firm and the church itself.
For years before the Pentagon issued the contracts, newspapers were reporting sensational allegations about the Mormon fundamentalist church. The Pentagon continued issuing contracts to the firms as the media reports continued. A 1991 article in the Salt Lake Tribune, for example, reported that the church engaged in polygamy, “commingled church and municipal money” and evicted dissidents who disagreed with the church. The 1991 article quotes “sect member Wendell Nielsen” — the president and CEO of Western Precision — describing church leaders as “direct agents of God.”
A Defense Department spokesman says the Pentagon didn’t do anything wrong. He tells NBC News that the Defense Department does “not consider religious affiliation” when awarding contracts and relies on cost and performance in selecting contractors.
And the Defense Department was apparently pleased with Western Precision’s work. In 2002, it honored the company with its “Innovative Business Performer of the Year” award.
Nielsen and Wayman and other church elders who worked at Western Precision, now known as the Las Vegas-based NewEra Manufacturing, could not be reached for comment.
http://people.tribe.net/13moonflower/blog/6c982252-c51f-4b2e-9ebe-9d5a9c952608
Wendell Nielsen’s photo is going up alongside Jeffs’ in homes. Our sources believe Nielsen is telling people he speaks for Jeffs, because it’s through Jeffs that Nielsen gets his legitimacy. But he may also be telling others Jeffs has become sick in jail and can no longer lead.
Ironically, it may be similar to when Jeffs himself took power. His father Rulon, the prophet then, was incapacitated by a stroke. For a while, Warren claimed to be speaking for Rulon, but everyone knew Warren was actually running things. That’s when major cracks started opening up in the group. After his father died, some people never believed Jeffs was the legitimate leader.
It’s not clear if followers even know that he no longer claims to be a prophet, since they aren’t supposed to read the papers or watch TV. They’re slow to get news, and they don’t believe much of what they do get. We’re told it took months for his followers to actually believe he was in jail.
“again my concern is using “FLDS group” and insisting that all parents who were at the ranch should be treated as if they were the leader of the group.”
I believe that the ‘intent’ to break the law rests with Warren Jeffs, and his Loyal Inner Circle.
It may even involve cooperation from the leaders of the other sects of FLDS.
I have said for weeks, that I think it will boil down to around 10 men, 3 may actually undergo prosecution, and maybe only 1 will get convicted.
Of the other FLDS men, I think they don’t get the benefits.
I think that is for the L.I.C. and the women/children are awarded to these men for their loyalty to JEFFS, and JEFFS only.
I think Warren took over a religion that was on the cusp of running into legal problems as polygamy was made illegal in the U.S. and the other ancestor religions (Mormon, LDS, etc) quit the practice, and asked the FLDS to quit.
For all I know, all the other FLDS groups have quit. Maybe some have, some haven’t.
But, JEFFS refused their request and specifically stated he intended to keep up the illegal practices.
I think he is a megalomaniac, possibly was molested by his own father, and he continues this abuse with his progeny.
Take out him, and his ‘posse’, and the FLDS can continue on it’s way, and will either conform to the law, or fail through lack of support.
I see no reason to say there can be no FLDS. Once the members are lifted from the prison camp (a clean one, I admit, but still prison), and oppression as well as death threats that seemed to be the tools of warren and his ‘running crew’, They may sort out the good practices from the bad, and continue on.
It’s not about Mormons, LDS, FLDS, Catholics, Waco, or anything else. It’s about some criminals playing GOD.
FIND THEM. GET THEM. DO IT LEGALLY. Let the FLDS members know this is a free country, and they have rights too.
Give back the children to those who are willing to prove they are the parents. Find a safe place for those we can’t.
No one wants the children hurt. No one wants them to be separated from their families any longer than it takes to ensure they are returning to a safe environment.
I know the law states that the custody hearings for every single child must be done in 14 days. Those laws or rulings were made without the knowledge that there would ever be a need to remove such a large quantity of children.
This case is an exception, and therefore there needs to be an exception of the rules to deal with the reality of the situation.
Even if we can’t cure the rest of the world, we are in this (the State of TEXAS) up to our necks, and we can’t just ignore it anymore.
I believe this. We are on the right path. The question is, will we stay on it, or lose our way?
http://onthescene.blogs.foxnews.com/
*poofer* a young girl who goes missing.
We have been assuming these *spiritual marriages* take place before pregnancy - who is to say the rape has not taken place before the *marriage*?
*******Living well is the best revenge******
LIVING FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
even better;)
“However, the CPS took great pains to pick the “best” foster care for these kids, “
Yes. They did.
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