Posted on 06/11/2008 4:59:10 AM PDT by Flo Nightengale
Texas police have been standing guard outside the home of the Texas judge who ordered the removal of all the FLDS children from the YFZ Ranch. The heightened security was ordered after authorities from Utah and Arizona warned them to be on the lookout for FLDS "enforcers," the Deseret News has learned.
Every officer guarding Judge Barbara Walther's San Angelo house was provided dossiers and photos of 16 FLDS men and women whom Utah police deemed a threat. However, e-mails obtained by the Deseret News from the Washington County Sheriff's Office warned Texas authorities to be suspicious of everybody, not just those on the list.
"There are many individuals who are willing to give up their life for the cause and you can never underestimate what a religious fanatic is capable of," according to the e-mails, which were obtained through Texas' public records law.
Police were also keeping close tabs on witnesses, as the "enforcers" might try to "intimidate kids and other witnesses, watch foster homes where kids may be placed, bribe witnesses, appear at court hearings, and make attempts to contact FLDS kids," according to an e-mail from an investigator with the Tom Green County District Attorney's Office.
Law enforcement in Texas has been on alert since a Fundamentalist LDS Church-related Web site published Walther's home address and work and home telephone numbers.
Walther signed the original order to remove all of the FLDS children from the YFZ Ranch in April and place them in state custody.
An attorney for the FLDS Church said its followers are peaceful people and that law enforcement has nothing to worry about.
"Have they ever seen an act of intimidation or violence against law enforcement from the FLDS community at all, ever?" Rod Parker told the Deseret News. "Before they start spreading those kinds of rumors, they ought to be able to ID an example of them ever doing that in the past."
As for the threat to "pay Ms. Walther's home a visit," on the site www.flds.ws, Parker said the site is not sanctioned by the FLDS Church. The site is run by Bill Medvecky, a Fort Myers, Fla., man who has donated to the fund for captive FLDS children, Parker said.
Once Parker told church leaders that the post could be construed as a threat, they contacted Medvecky and had him remove the judge's address, he said.
However, Walther's work and phone numbers are still listed on the Web site. The site calls Walther the "leader of the Gestapo," and includes a link to a petition to impeach the judge.
Medvecky doesn't see the harm in publishing Walther's address on the Internet. After all, it's in the phone book, he said.
"They are not confrontational whatsoever. I am," Medvecky told the Deseret News. "They are not me, and they have nothing to do with the site. We support them 100 percent."
Texas law enforcement wasn't aware of the threat until early June, but the dossiers "regarding any FLDS members who may engage in acts of intimidation or violence against law enforcement and/or potential witnesses" started circulating April 16.
The dossiers track individuals in FLDS leader Warren Jeffs' circle of trust, as well as a few "wild cards" that make Utah authorities "uncomfortable."
The list includes Willie Jessop, who has acted as one of the main spokesmen for the FLDS Church after the April 3 raid on the Yearning For Zion Ranch. The dossier calls him — William Roy Jessop — "the most serious threat associated with the FLDS religion."
Others included on the list are Lyle Steed Jeffs, Warren Jeffs' brother; and Lindsay Hammon Barlow, who witnesses described as Warren Jeffs' "muscle," among others.
"It is very obvious that Washington County officials do not let the facts get in the way of a good story," Willie Jessop said. "These are the types of paranoid allegations that can hurt a lot of innocent people if they are allowed to go unchecked.
"I don't know what the remedy is, but it should alarm everyone when an investigator does not even bother to fact check what he is supposed to be investigating."
The dossiers include the persons of interests' last known address and possible vehicles.
Washington County sheriff's deputies compiled the dossiers by tracking individuals during Warren Jeffs' 2007 trial, where he was convicted of rape as an accomplice after performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin. He was sentenced to a pair of five-to-life prison terms.
Police believe Jessop, also known as "Willie the Thug" or "King Willie" in the dossiers, is the primary FLDS "enforcer" and has a passion for violence, weapons (legal and illegal) and explosives.
On the third day of Warren Jeffs' trial, Jessop was banned from the courthouse after "it was determined he was attempting to intimidate the witnesses, after he was observed numerous (times) staring menacingly at the witnesses," according to the dossiers.
Jessop said he and other FLDS men and women who attended Jeffs' highly publicized trial were there as observers, nothing more.
"The fact that we would show up in court and then to have them turn that around on us shows how biased these public officials are," Jessop said. "There are no facts, no history of violence, not a shred of evidence to support these irresponsible allegations. Not one bit of it is true and these officials know it."
Other FLDS members showed up on the dossiers for a variety of things, from staring down and intimidating witnesses, being an active member of Warren Jeffs' security team, or holding a high rank in the FLDS Church's hierarchy.
Utah police also warned Texas officials of so-called "wild cards" or "religious fanatics," including Ruth Cooke, a woman police said is "blindly devoted to Warren and the FLDS religion," according to the dossiers.
"She is just the kind of person who may be capable of doing something crazy but justified in her head," the dossiers state.
Dee Yeates Jessop is another "intimidating enforcer" who police described as a fanatic who blindly follows Jeffs. Witnesses told police Dee Yeates Jessop is "relatively unimportant" in the church's command structure.
"His social status makes all the more dangerous. What would he do to improve his standing?" according to the dossiers.
Several other high-ranking church officials show up in the dossiers, like William E. Jessop, a high-ranking elder in the FLDS Church, and David Allred, who is involved in the church's finances and is "fairly high in the FLDS pecking order." However, the dossiers said the men were unlikely to be considered a threat, but could be involved in the decision-making process because of their positions of power.
Both Willie Jessop and Parker, who has also acted as a spokesman for the church, discounted the dossiers.
"If they are going to malign people's character like that, they ought to have something better than someone staring at somebody or looking at them funny," Parker said. "This is the same kind of rumor-mongering that I've been complaining about for a long time. These rumors tend to feed on themselves."
THere are quite a number of us that certainly think she is special!
THere are quite a number of us that certainly think she is special!
_________________________________________
Ditto to that
(((HUGS)))
:)
“Additionally, in the trial court,”
They are not my words, they are the words of the Judges.
Just over ten years before that the "San Patricios", soldiers in the US Army, took up arms against their fellow US soldiers and in support of their fellow Catholics. Am I supposed to judge Roman Catholics of today, or even just Irish ones, by their actions during the Mexican War?
My former CO, a Colonel, by the name of Fitzgerald (or as he said, Fitz's bastard), would not be happy with me if I did that. (OTOH, he hated the Kennedy's with a passion. :))
Sorry about the triple post. The sear on my mouse must be worn. I’m on a different machine now.
So who is Willie Jessop? Many assume that he’s an ecclesiastical leader or even Warren Jeffs’ right hand man, but he is neither. Jessop is Jeffs’ bodyguard.
“Willie was always the strong arm,” said private investigator Sam Brower. “He was the guy who showed up just to intimidate people.”
In his home community along the Utah-Arizona border, he’s known as “Big Willie” or “Willie the Enforcer.” To those who no longer believe in Warren Jeffs, he is known as “Willie the Thug.”
He showed up at trials, including the trial of Warren Jeffs. He showed up in Eldorado following the raid. At first, he remained in the shadows. Then he started to share the microphones with Salt Lake attorney Rod Parker.
It was Jessop who announced that the FLDS church leadership was apparently ready to give up the practice of marrying underage girls, a practice that Jessop had denied any knowledge of the week before.
“The church will counsel families that they will never request nor consent to any underage marriage,” said Jessop.
Ross Chatwin is a former FLDS member who grew up with Jessop and faced him down when he was kicked out of the church.
“If they say ‘counsel’ then they’re just playing a game and they plan on continuing with underage marriage,” warned Chatwin. “And it really worries me when Willie gets up there and starts saying that ‘I don’t know of any underage marriages.’ That’s an absolute lie.”
“They will put him up front because he’s the type of guy that will say and do anything,” said Brower. He said that the real leaders of the polygamist group, Lyle Jeffs, William E. Timpson (a.k.a. Willie Jessop), Wendall Nielson and Merril Jessop, are all in hiding.
“If that were the case, while spending several months outside the church - don’t you think one or more than one would have talked about the injustices you make up or others manufacture ? One?”
“The church will counsel families that they will never request nor consent to any underage marriage,” said Jessop.
Ross Chatwin is a former FLDS member who grew up with Jessop and faced him down when he was kicked out of the church.
“If they say ‘counsel’ then they’re just playing a game and they plan on continuing with underage marriage,” warned Chatwin. “And it really worries me when Willie gets up there and starts saying that ‘I don’t know of any underage marriages.’ That’s an absolute lie.”
“They will put him up front because he’s the type of guy that will say and do anything,” said Brower. He said that the real leaders of the polygamist group, Lyle Jeffs, William E. Timpson (a.k.a. Willie Jessop), Wendall Nielson and Merril Jessop, are all in hiding.
Willie has been left to be their voice to the outside world.
“His role is to be out there, keep talking to the public, keep talking to the media, while the real leaders vanish,” said Brower.
http://www.abc4.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=9124b57f-277e-4539-8e13-335ad4c9f4ef
As both higher courts pointed out, restricting the movement of the children, and of the parents, was something that CPS and the district Court could have done from day one, without seizing the kids. The law even allows that absent imminent harm. If they had, we'd be where we now are, without all the hysterics and gnashing of teeth. There'd be time for the individual hearings the law requires. There'd be time for further criminal investigations to, producing indictments that would not be endangered by "fruit of the poisoned vine".
It's still wrong. It was in the dissent at the Supreme Court. The majority correctly refers to the proceedings as a "hearing", not a trial. not that that it matters much.
“It’s still wrong. It was in the dissent at the Supreme Court. The majority correctly refers to the proceedings as a “hearing”, not a trial. not that that it matters much.”
I agree. You are absolutely correct.
No but Catholics were accused of wanting to impose Papal edicts on the US, and all manor of other anti-Catholic charges were made. And just as with Obama, many Catholics voted for Kennedy because he was Catholic, not because they supported his positions. (Although most probably did, beings they were "working class" folks, who almost always voted Democratic in those days anyway, religion aside). (But not the CO I mentioned above was both Irish and Catholic, and his family did NOT vote for Kennedy, because his father said, as he did, that the Democrats were the Party of Treason, due to Old Joe's actions cozying up to Herr Schicklegrubber (Never mind that JFKs older brother was killed in the service of fighter Adolph's minions).
The men are trained by the priesthood in techniques that control the women. Techniques such as guilt, brainwashing, isolation, and economic control. The women never have a chance to find themselves and their true worth, they only sees themselves as the husband allows.
NT: Hey, listen... since you negotiate with multigazillionaires every freaking day, I’m curious — do such flawed logic and asinine pseudo-clever demands work pretty well with them?
Well, actually, I seem to be doing rather well with them, thanks for asking (in your gutteral way). Multimillionaires do not suffer fools lightly, they are are quite a bit more difficult to read than yourself, who seems stuck on a debate model akin to a rabid dog chained to a red ant pile.
NT: [Not really, but reading your excrement brings me near to projectile /vomiting/. That’s close to projection, I guess.]
Now that is certainly the writing of a class act. You certainly demonstrate you are on a par with the FLDS (in whom you are unable to find a single item of fault).
I suspect we have in you the prototypical Danite, a person so consumed with hatred of non-Mormons that they are reduced to spittle spewing rage. You make a fine spokesperson for the FLDS.
So, you position is that since you disagree with them, they should be denied the right to register and vote on the same basis as other citizens?
[The laws you say they want to sidestep are not local laws, and not enforced (exclusively) by the local sheriff, Chief of Police, DA and judges. They are state laws, and in some cases may be federal laws. The actions against those at the YFZ “compound” were not by the local sheriff although he was on hand. The actions were by the Texas Rangers, the Texas CPS, and a Texas district judge. Do you think they are going to take over the whole state of Texas? ]
Don’t put words into my mouth. Sure, they have every right to vote. All I’m saying is that the results will then end up being the same as at Zion and Far West and Nauvoo and in the near Utah War.
But please, don’t read any original history and don’t read about Mormon wars and Blood Atonement because it will only confuse you.
That ridiculous comment allows ALL of us a second of comic relief, about a serious matter, to LOAO. Thanks for inadvertently admitting that forced marriages of young girls, or anyone, for that matter, is something you find humorous.
The truth is, it's criminal and disgusting, and that is the basis for Texas' attempt to stop it.
REYNOLDS v. UNITED STATES. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 98 U.S. 145 OCTOBER, 1878, Term
The SC said the religion could not be used to justify polygamy, and that historically our European heritage had never found the practice acceptable.
After spending time here on FR with LDS folks, I now have to agree. A couple of years ago, I would have said you were exaggerating. Now I know better.
If I hadnt been there I would have said the same..
You know how they kept calling this case(s) unprecedented? Well, it was. Especially for some Lady judge (a conservative lady judge BTW) in Podunk,Tx.
Her over reaction is a good example why women shouldn’t be President but,shows how women are genetically tuned to care for and protect the young.
I’m happy the Constitution was upheld and the rules of engagement are set for next time something like this arises. And believe me, there will other situations.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.