Posted on 05/20/2008 3:23:27 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
SAN ANGELO — Texas child welfare officials acknowledged today that the agency has isolated the children it removed from a polygamist community from any mention of the group's spiritual leader, who was convicted as an accomplice to rape last year for arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl.
The name of Warren Jeffs cannot be uttered, even by family members visiting their children in foster care at facilities around the state, a Child Protective Services attorney confirmed.
And Jeffs' picture cannot be circulated, even in religious literature, a CPS caseworker confirmed in court today during the first week of custody hearings for children taken from a Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints' ranch in West Texas.
There now are 460 children who remain in temporary state custody as CPS investigates its concerns about child abuse at the 1,700-acre ranch. Evidence of underage marriages, pregnancy and motherhood there led CPS to allege all the children were at risk.
At this week's hearings, parents are seeking to regain custody.
CPS caseworker Daniel Medrano confirmed that children in his care at the Cal Farley Ranch in Amarillo could have access to the Book of Mormon "as long as it doesn't have Warren Jeffs' picture or his signature."
"I'm just following the rules of the department," he told the court in a case involving Janet Jeffs Nielson, a mother of five.
At a custody case involving a younger brother of Jeffs named Seth Jeffs, a CPS attorney confirmed that family members were barred from mentioning the religious leader in visits with their children.
"He's the children's uncle, so they're saying you can't even tell stories about growing up," said Nancy DeLong, an attorney for one of Seth Jeffs' five wives.
DeLong noted that the agency's family service plan makes no mention of such restrictions.
"I think they'd be very careful having any abridgement of religious freedom in writing," she said.
Leaving the courtroom, Seth Jeffs, who has 18 children, called the restrictions "not very pleasing," but said "we'll do whatever it takes to get the children back."
The FLDS is a breakaway Mormon sect that has continued to practice polygamy for more than a century after mainstream Mormonism renounced it.
Warren Jeffs is "a family member and a priest in our church," said Carl Kolb, an attorney for Seth Jeffs.
Marleigh Meisner, a CPS spokeswoman, clarified later that members of the Jeffs family can discuss Warren Jeffs with their own children. But the agency will not allow Jeffs to be discussed with any of the other children, despite the fact that he is still the church's recognized leader.
"He is a convicted sex offender and we have an issue with Mr. Jeffs," Meisner said.
No resident of the Yearning for Zion Ranch has been charged with a sex-related crime. The compound was built at Warren Jeffs' direction, starting in 2004, and was raided April 3 in response to an anonymous sexual abuse complaint that now is believed to have been a hoax.
In two custody hearings, attorneys complained that copies of the Book of Mormon were taken from the children while they were in foster care.
Meisner said that's not true.
The state conceded this morning that two more mothers whom CPS had considered minors were actually adults, making five such acknowledgements in all. That resulted in 460 children now in custody, down from a high of 465.
An attorney for CPS said the agency now considers Janet Jeffs to be "18 or older." But in a conference call to the court, Janet Jeffs, now 19, revealed that she was a month shy of her 17th birthday when her daughter, Ziona Beth, was born on Aug. 19, 2005. Jeffs said she was born on Sept. 16, 1988.
She also told the judge that she had not seen her husband in about a year and did not know his whereabouts.
Wow!
I am ok with that too.
Ping
They've been done out of their religious rights, their parental rights, their privacy rights, free speech rights, and the list grows longer by the week.
Who is the government to tell these ladies that they need to live a more modern lifestyle??? They gonna tell the Amish that too? Besides, they have watches, they have glasses, they have cell phones. They live a modern lifestyle as far as I'm concerned.
And to hold their children hostage to the government's dictates??? That's something straight out of Nazi Germany.
There but for the Grace of God, goes any one of our lives.
And where's the charges and evidence? Nada
Works for me.
Well, since Jeffs has, now that he is in custody, claimed he is not and never was the legitimate prophet of the sect, there really is no reason to bring him up anyway.
Of course none of his claims explain why his picture is still expected to appear in every household, school, office...
They NEVER had 465 children. The MISTAKENLY COUNTED 5 adults as children. So there were ALWAYS 465 children in custody.
And of course, for a few weeks there were 5 adults being held in custody by the state with no criminal charges.
And there could be more.
but apparently we can incarcerate people against their will and without criminal charges if we simply assert without evidence that they are under 18.
Of course, I meant there were NEVER 465 children in custody.
From Nancy Grace & no I don't care for her but since it was FLDS I watched it.
excerpt:
GRACE: To Paul Anthony with the "San Angelo Standard-Times," where are the prosecutions of the deadbeat dads? Where are the prosecutions for the forced marriages on young girls? What are we waiting on?
ANTHONY: I believe at the moment the key is the DNA testing. You know, the -- once that comes in you`ll have a much better idea especially provable in court who the different fathers are, who`s related to whom, and from there the investigations can move forward talking to local prosecutors here. They believe that there will be prosecutions that will come out of this case and the federal agency, the FBI also investigating.
Not sure because everything`s been sealed what exactly they`re investigating but people have discussed things like welfare fraud and these kinds of allegations. Obviously the FBI is very much into things like the money trail and how this ranch was even funded and built in the first place and whose money was used to do it.
GRACE: What about it, Michael Board?
BOARD: That`s a good question. They`d like to know that. He did say the FBI is involved in investigating. The state attorney general, the Texas attorney general, he`s the one, he`s the main prosecutor in this case. He`s rallying his troops. And he said, yes, he will investigate the group here. And if it has ties back to Utah and Arizona, I`m told, yes, he will go and try to get people out of Utah and Arizona and charge them with crimes here in Texas.
I think its a fine idea too. I have no use for groups who practice underage sex in the name of any religion!
If you look, my comment was about how CPS took 5 adults from their homes, and kept them against their will without a criminal charge for over 3 weeks, simply by claiming without evidence and now admittedly falsely that those adults were actually children.
I have a teenage daughter, and if she was 18 and CPS decided to call her a minor and force her to live with a foster family I’d be more than a bit upset.
I thought so & so would I be. Yet we would willingly get our child's id, ours & all we could to prove she was ours & was of legal age wouldn't we? These people were certainly not honest with CPS. I dislike DYFS (NJ) CPS. Yet I know enough that you do what is asked of you or they take your children. Some of these girls look very young because they don't wear makeup etc. Being the mother of 4 young adult sons I have chased girls out of my house when my sons were in their teenage years who were years younger but you would have thought they were 18 yrs old. Just by the way they were allowed to dress & wear makeup. I know Sassy isn't going to look like a mini hooker in her teens. I don't like this whole mess. I just don't know what else was to be done . I copied the Nancy Grace info for you in case you had not seen it. But I do ask again....Would you allow your daughter to be married because some Prophet or your religion told you to marry her to a man , young or old? Or would you give your daughter the freedom to marry or not? To leave your house & go to college or live her life as she pleased? If you would rather not answer I can understand & hope I have not hurt your feelings. I am not trying to be rude...Pandora
They are not letting the children or the adults say the name of a living person? What on earth are they thinking? This is the weirdest thing I have ever heard. This case gets more and more horrific as the days roll by. Those poor kids.
It’s just your question had nothing to do with the article or the point I was making from the article.
Of course I would not, and it would surprise me if you found a single person posting here who would answer yes.
I do ask people pointed questions, but generally they are based on something the poster has just said, and the questions have some mystery about their answer.
I for example would never think to ask you if you would tell your daughter she could make a lot of money if she moved to Vegas and was a callgirl.
I'm sure thru the years that authorities have picked up juveniles who they arrested as adults, not having a true age on them, and minus having a parent to release them to, kept them longer than had they been readily identified as a juvenile.
“These people were certainly not honest with CPS. “
And the swat teams and law enforcement and CPS were not honest with FLDS. Please don’t forget that the whole thing got started with a lie from some nut pretending to be an abused teenager. The man accused by the nut was not even there.
Here’s the rub. I would never trust CPS after the way they have treated these innocent little children, ripping them right out of the arms of their mothers and dumping them in scary foster homes. They even took 1 yr old babes away from their mothers. That just can’t be right. Please say it can’t be right in my America. And all based on a lie.
I’m sure. Of course, in that case they were arrested, presumably because they committed some crime, and the only question is whether they would be tried as adults or as juveniles.
In this case, 5 adults were held as children, against their will, with no charges against them, and no suggestion they committed a crime.
Is it the worst thing in the world? no. It’s what happens though when the state takes shortcuts with the law and the truth. And it happens when everybody can just see how BAD the thing is the state is fixing for them.
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