FLDS Criminal Cases Building

SAN ANGELO, Texas — While the custody fight for the hundreds of children seized from the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch has devolved into legal chaos, a criminal probe is quietly moving forward. "The investigation is continuing," Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said in an e-mail to the Deseret News. "When we have completed our investigation, we will present our case report to the prosecutors for their action."

An Austin appellate court's ruling that Texas child welfare authorities overstepped their authority in removing all of the children from the FLDS property has no bearing on the law enforcement investigation, Mange said. More than 400 boxes of evidence taken under the search warrants that were executed in the early days of the raid are still being examined.

Utah and Arizona authorities remain hopeful that they may be able to see some of that evidence to assist in their ongoing criminal probes into the FLDS Church and its leader, Warren Jeffs.

"We know there's going to be all kinds of stuff," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff told the Deseret News on Monday. "The photographs, I think, are just the beginning."

Shurtleff was referring to a series of bombshell photos put into evidence during a custody hearing on Friday that show Jeffs kissing what Texas Child Protective Services lawyers said was a 12-year-old girl "how a husband kisses a wife." That hearing resumes here today. A handwritten note on the photos indicates they were taken in July 2006, a month before Jeffs was arrested outside Las Vegas. Jeffs was later convicted in Utah of rape as an accomplice for performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.

In Arizona, Jeffs is facing charges of sexual misconduct and incest as an accomplice. He is also facing a federal grand jury indictment for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, stemming from his time on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

During a court hearing for Jeffs in Kingman, Ariz., earlier this month, the Arizona Attorney General's Office raised the possibility that evidence seized from the raid on the YFZ Ranch might be used to pursue evidence against him.

"We have not yet provided anything to out-of-state investigators but expect that we will," Mange wrote.

Lawyers for the FLDS Church have objected to the search warrants that were served, noting that it appears the raid on the YFZ Ranch was sparked by a hoax call. Authorities have dubbed a 33-year-old Colorado woman a "person of interest" in their investigation into the calls to family crisis hotlines, in which someone claiming to be a 16-year-old girl named "Sarah" said she was pregnant and in an abusive marriage to 49-year-old Dale Evans Barlow.

Barlow, a convicted sex offender who lives in Colorado City, Ariz., was questioned but not arrested. A warrant for him is not being pursued, and lawyers for the FLDS Church accuse Texas authorities of knowing that he wasn't on the YFZ Ranch, even as they raided the compound.

"The State's actions in invading and searching a place of religious significance raises important and sensitive issues which lay (sic) at the intersection of religious liberty and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures," Gerald Goldstein, an attorney for the FLDS Church and leaders Merril Jessop and Lyle Jeffs, wrote in court papers.

He also suggested that any evidence seized may be protected because of clergy-penitent privilege.

On the final day of the police search of the YFZ Ranch, the FBI executed a federal search warrant. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas will only say it is part of a "pending investigation."

A task force examining polygamy-related crimes is gearing up. Shurtleff and his counterpart, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, are scheduled to meet next month with U.S. Justice Department officials, the FBI, the U.S. attorneys for Utah, Arizona and Nevada, as well as local law enforcement and prosecutors, to coordinate efforts.

"Right now, all I'm going to say is good stuff about the feds," Shurtleff said. "We're expecting great cooperation." The task force was born out of a public feud Shurtleff and Goddard had with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who accused the two states of doing nothing about polygamy.

U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman told the Deseret News earlier this month that his office has tried to pursue mafia-style racketeering, corruption and child-bride trafficking cases but has been stymied by a lack of witnesses and other evidence to establish probable cause.

In San Angelo, Tom Green County prosecutors have said they are still interested in pursuing their own charges, which could include bigamy. The Texas Attorney General's Office has been named a special prosecutor for any criminal cases that may come out of the investigation.

The Mohave County, Ariz., attorney recently served a subpoena on the United Effort Plan Trust's court-appointed special fiduciary, demanding evidence seized from the Cadillac Escalade that Jeffs was riding in when he was arrested in August 2006.

The subpoenas seek iPods, CDs, notes, letters to the FLDS leader, religious papers, laptops and thumb drives by Friday. UEP fiduciary Bruce Wisan is fighting the subpoena, saying that he has a confidentiality agreement with Jeffs' defense attorneys. Copies of the evidence are in the possession of the FBI, Jeffs' defense team and Jeffrey L. Shields, the fiduciary's lawyer.

"Except for the requirements of the stipulated protective order, the fiduciary and Shields are ready, willing and able to comply with the subpoena as to all of the Escalade documents in the possession of the fiduciary," wrote Jeffrey Goldberg, another lawyer for Wisan. Wisan has served his own subpoenas on Tom Green County prosecutors in San Angelo, seeking to look at the evidence that law enforcement officers seized from the YFZ Ranch.

"Please produce all documents or tangible objects that mention or relate to possession or ownership of the structure referred to as 'The Temple,' located on the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas," one subpoena said. "Please produce all documents or tangible objects that mention or relate to the funding used to acquire the YFZ Ranch located in Schleicher County, Texas."

Wisan is trying to collect on an $8.8 million default judgment against Jeffs and the FLDS Church. In 2005, the courts took control of the UEP Trust amid allegations that Jeffs and other FLDS leaders mismanaged it. The UEP Trust controls homes, businesses and property in the FLDS enclaves of Hildale, Utah; Colorado City, Ariz.; and Bountiful, British Columbia, in Canada.

Warren Jeffs: The Godfather

May 27, 2008

(CBS) The western United States is home to a man thousands of his followers call simply "the prophet." Some say his teachings are directly linked to those alleged abuses in Texas.

"Some even believe him to be God on Earth," explains Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.

Not that you'd guess that by looking at him - 52-year-old Warren Jeffs comes across as rather ordinary. But as leader of the radical FLDS, he is anything but. His critics believe he has transformed the church from a quirky religion to something much more sinister today.

"There's a certain brand of FLDS under Warren Jeffs that is also, I believe, similar to an organized crime group," says Shurtleff, who says he sees parallels to the mob in the FLDS' organization, finances and lack of respect for the law.

The best example of that, Shurtleff says, is the practice of underage marriage. "I've gone on record as calling them the American Taliban, in the way they treat women," Shurtleff tells correspondent Susan Spencer.

Utah Private investigator Sam Brower has been keeping an eye on the FLDS for years, first helping members who'd left the group, and later working with law enforcement.

"He controlled every detail of a person’s life. Where they work, who they’re gonna marry, where they’re gonna live, almost down to when they’re gonna have sex and why," says Brower, who has a pretty low opinion of Jeffs.

Some of the 10,000 or so FLDS members who follow Jeffs' lead are scattered around the U.S. and Canada, but most live in two small towns on the Utah-Arizona border: Hilldale and Colorado City.

Wherever they are, members accept on total faith whatever the prophet tells them. "He came in one day and decided that dogs were evil," Shurtleff explains. "And every single dog in town was eliminated."

"They’ve been totally brainwashed and brought into this culture that's taught them they're gonna go to hell if they deviate from it," Brower says.

Before Warren Jeffs, his father Rulon was the group's prophet. When he died six years ago at age 92, Warren, who by then was helping run things anyway, formally took power and became the new prophet. He sealed the deal by marrying many of his father's wives.

"Warren has somewhere between 50 and 80 wives," Brower tells Spencer.

Jeffs has resisted all attempts to stop underage marriages. And 48 Hours has obtained a copy of a birth certificate which may help explain why: it names Jeffs the father of the baby; the mother was underage when she got pregnant.

Brower says young girls are routinely married to older men. "I know that the FLDS wanna make this about religion. They wanna make it about polygamy. But that's not it. It's about child abuse. It's on a scale that's never been seen before in this country," he charges.

One unassuming young woman, Elissa Wall, turned out to be Warren Jeffs' worst nightmare and the main reason he's in jail. In 2001, Jeffs abruptly ordered Elissa to marry her 19-year-old first cousin.

Not only did she intensely dislike the cousin, she was only 14 years old. "He didn't treat me nicely. I didn't want to be married at all," she says. "I ended up talking to Warren and his father and pleading with them."

Her tearful pleas were ignored and Jeffs pronounced them man and wife. She says she that while she tried to look happy in photos, she was repulsed by her new husband, and, at only 14, totally unprepared for what came next.

"I didn't have any idea where babies came from. I had no idea what had to happen physically to have a child," Wall says.

After three miserable years, Wall fled both her marriage and the FLDS, and in 2005 told her story to authorities. That led to a warrant for Jeffs' arrest.

But by then, he had disappeared. "The FBI did the extraordinary step of putting him on the 10 Most Wanted list," Shurtleff says.

Jeffs was captured a few months later during a routine traffic stop near Las Vegas. In the car were disguises, cell phones, computers, envelopes stuffed with member’s contributions, and $50,000 in cash.

Last year Jeffs, considered God on Earth by his followers, was put on trial in Utah, facing two charges of rape as an accomplice.

"Trial was tough, it really was, the hardest thing was I felt like I was baring my soul," Wall tells 48 Hours.

Her face hidden from cameras, Wall testified about the first night she says she was raped by the man Jeffs forced her to marry. "He said it is time for you to be a wife and do your duty. I said please don't do this, and he just ignored me. He didn't say anything and he just laid me on to the bed," Wall testified in court.

"And no matter what you said, no matter how many times you told him no, if he wanted to have sex with you, he would?" Spencer asks.

"Yes, by force or not by force," Wall says.

She says that aspect never changed.

Jeffs was convicted and is currently serving 10 years to life, but he still has influence in the FLDS' huge financial empire, estimated to be worth $100 million or more.

Not that individual members see much of that: "They were commanded to basically go to work every day, work hard, and give me your money," Brower says.

Since polygamous marriages aren't legal, technically all the wives are simply single mothers, fully eligible for government programs.

Attorney General Shurtleff says they "game the system in that way."

48 Hours found that in the two small border towns, Hilldale and Colorado City, where most of the 6,000 residents are polygamists, the food stamp bill will run to $2.5 million this year alone. "The rest of the society shouldn’t be paying for their lifestyle choices," Shurtleff argues.

More of the secrets of that lifestyle may soon come to light when Jeffs goes on trial, this time in Arizona, on new charges: sexual conduct with a minor.

And Elissa Wall may once again testify against her former prophet.

"I think she needs to be very careful," Brower says. "Ten thousand people hate her because of what she’s done to the prophet."

Asked if she's concerned about this, Wall tells Spencer, "You know, I am."

But she's thrown herself into the public eye by writing a book about her ordeal.

As for Jeffs, he's not taken well to prison, has at times been on suicide watch, and, in an astonishing moment, was caught on jail surveillance tape last year admitting to his brother that he is not the prophet of his church and that in fact he is a bad man.

"I’m not the prophet…I never was the prophet," he told his brother. "I have been a liar and the truth is not in me."

His attorneys dismissed the tape, saying Jeffs was just depressed.

But Utah's attorney general hopes his unquestioning followers were listening very carefully. "I think that was the one truthful moment in that man’s life. He realized that he hurt a lot of people."

Source.

As long as the law is followed and the state of Texas can prove their allegations, then fine by me. There are problems at the FLDS compound that need to be addressed, but so far, many people on this website have been judge, jury, and executioner. We live in America where everyone is innocent before they are proven guilty. They should have the opportunity to defend themselves. I thought the couple with the new baby did a poor job, the mother didn’t know who lived in the house with them, all she knew was that the women were all “sweet.” The father didn’t see anything wrong with Warren Jeffs kissing an underage girl.

But again, we cannot say that in the years down the road all the children will be abused. The state must prove it on a case by case basis. It is a big can of worms, and I don’t know what the solution is. In the 1953 Short Creek Raid, the federal government swooped in and took the women and children. 3 years later, every single person was back at Short Creek living the same lifestyle. The people at the YFZ ranch are descendants of those people.

And quite honestly, when some women get away from the men, they don’t want to go back to the polygamous lifestyle. Others go back immediately.

And finally, please don’t think that because I condone the FLDS because I do not. However, they have rights just like the rest of us do.

The answer to your question is "no"

Can you see how laughable that statement is? If the abuse is only alleged, what makes you think they are necessarily preventing anything, especially in an instance such as this where there is simply no evidence that any of the seized children have been abused?

Every actual case of abuse that surfaces starts with an allegation, just like most suicides starts with signs. Not every suicidal sign leads to an actual attempt, just like not every allegation of abuse (smoke) leads to the fire of abuse.

You would never get anywhere with abuse accountability if you treated all initial allegations as only that.

...instance such as this where there is simply no evidence that any of the seized children have been abused?

My understanding, and I haven't kept up with the latest developments, is that they are now showing that more than a quarter of the women they identified as pregnant or with children who they thought might either be minors or would have had to have been minors when they were pregnant are now listed as either adults or were of consentual age (parental consent for marriage).

I don't have the exact figure but that would still leave up to almost two dozen girls who either are pregnant minors or would have had to have been pregnant at a pre-consentual age.

Pregnancy of a minor is in itself evidence of abuse.

what makes you think they are necessarily preventing anything...

Follow the leader. The leader, Warren Jeffs, has between 50-80 "wives." Court documents have already been entered that he held mock weddings for a 12 & 14 yo, with accompanying pictures of him kissing each of them. The fLDS have intensified this practice of underage child brides - a practice already common among all Mormon polygamists.

Even a more scholarly pro-Utah polygamy organization that has sought to put forth a better image of polygamy and includes both independent Mormon polygamists as well as others tied to specific groups brought together 100 plural wives willing to be interviewed in-depth for a book. Six of them (6%) said they were "married" at age 15.

If 6% is a loose, informal figure you can get from those willing to come more out of the closet and from their authors trying to spin the positive side of polygamy, what's the % of those still in the closet?

They have rights, but they do not have MORE rights than the rest of us. I can’t get over the people who insist their constitutional rights have been somehow breached—they haven’t. The authorities had valid warrants, and acted accordingly on the evidence they found once they entered.

The wrangling now is whether or not the children should have been seized: I guarantee this, if the name had been Bubba instead of Jessop, and the same conditions had been present in their private home, the children (all of them, however many they had) would have been placed in CPS custody just as the fLDS kids were. Once the children were out of danger, the investigation would have proceeded. If problems were found, charges would have been forthcoming (as they might yet be here) and getting the kids back would have taken awhile until Bubba and his wife/girlfriend/whoever got some counseling on childraising. If child rape and incest had been present, Bubba would have a hard road to go to get his kids back, and it might not even happen.

THIS scenario happens every day somewhere, not just in Texas. So why the outcry over the Texas case? Why not for Bubba, who some might think has every right to molest his kids because they’re his property—as Warren Jeffs (and thus, those who follow him) seems to think.

To me, if there is a valid warrant and the search is conducted properly, that negates the rights complaint. I think they were following TX law when they took the kids, but that IS being decided in a court of law. What more can you ask? The case is being decided in a court of law. That’s more due process than you’ll get in Timbuktu or Havana Cuba or even Mexico City in most cases. And it’s a hekkuva lot more due process than a scared little girl receives when she’s given to some drooling old man in YFZ and told to do what he says.

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