Posted on 12/22/2009 8:08:53 PM PST by delacoert
SAN ANGELO, Texas — Allan Keate raised his two cuffed hands Thursday, shortly after he heard the sentence of 33 years in prison for sexual assault of a child, and smiled briefly at the gallery, at more than a dozen fellow members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — men and women, adults young and old.
They had sat there regularly for more than a week to follow Keate’s fate.
Lead defense attorney Randy Wilson went to the FLDS members after Keate was escorted to the nearby Schleicher County Jail.
Wilson embraced one of the older FLDS members. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Outside the makeshift courthouse, lead prosecutor Eric Nichols stepped into the harsh light of television cameras at about 10 p.m. and read a prepared statement.
He said Keate’s victim, 15 years old at the time of the assault, which occurred around April 2006, had been in a “celestial marriage” twice.
Celestial marriages are unofficial religious betrothals that FLDS members use to practice polygamy.
Nichols said Keate had given away three of his daughters in marriage to older men. Two of those daughters were 15 and one was 14, and the last was given away to Warren Jeffs, then prophet of the FLDS who has been imprisoned for aiding in child rape by transporting a young girl across state lines.
Nichols said he was satisfied with the sentence.
“Any time a jury in Texas assesses punishment, it’s a good day for the justice system in Texas,” he said. “Justice was again served today.”
That “again” referenced the trial of Raymond Merril Jessop, convicted in November by a Schleicher County jury on a child sexual assault charge and sentenced to 10 years and an $8,000 fine. He is in the Tom Green County Jail.
Staff at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said the decision about where both men will go to prison is a process that can take a few months.
Jessop is in the Tom Green County Jail as a prisoner of Schleicher County. The Schleicher County sheriff’s office staff refused to comment on Keate’s location.
The jury’s decision for punishment was different in the two cases because of the enhancement in Keate’s indictment. Rather than a second-degree felony with the option of two to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000, which is what Jessop faced, jurors in the Keate trial were to choose a punishment for a first-degree felony, with five to 99 years or life in prison if they believed the enhancement applied.
The enhancement says that the second-degree felony of sexual assault of a child becomes a first-degree felony if the person is prohibited from marrying or living with the victim under the appearance of marriage.
Attorney General Greg Abbott released a statement on the punishment, commending the jurors for choosing imprisonment rather than probation.
“Despite the defendant’s request for probation, the jury recognized the seriousness of his crime and decided he should spend 33 years in prison for this criminal offense,” Abbott said.
Abbott was in the Eldorado courtroom at the beginning of the trial for the jury selection.
FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop said the attorney general’s appearance affirmed that the trials and the historic raid on the ranch in April 2008 amount to political persecution.
“It doesn’t matter how many children you take, how many women you put on buses, it doesn’t make it right,“ Willie Jessop said. “For the AG to come in here, he has an agenda against the church. ... It doesn’t matter how much they want to make it a noble cause. It’s not. There was no victim.”
Throughout the trial, jurors heard from state witnesses who described life inside the FLDS, including the testimony of Rebecca Musser, who said that if special events were not properly recorded on Earth, they would not be recorded in heaven, and without the blessings of heaven the person would “burn in hell.”
The defense brought in an expert on Mormonism with some FLDS familiarity to say that Musser’s testimony wasn’t true of all who believed in the same sacred Mormon writings, that examples of “the Book of Life” in heaven and “the Book of Remembrance” on Earth are spiritual metaphors.
The importance of the sacredness of the writings reflected how much weight the jury would give documents recovered from the FLDS Yearning For Zion Ranch.
Law enforcement personnel described in detail how they went throughout the ranch collecting the evidence that placed Keate and his family on the ranch near the time of the assault.
Trials for the other indictments have been scheduled through December of next year. The next trial, for sexual assault charges against Michael Emack, is scheduled for Jan. 25. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for Jan. 7, when the location of Emack’s trial likely will be determined.
Keate and Jessop are two of 10 FLDS men indicted by a Schleicher County grand jury in November 2008 on charges of sexual assault of a child in connection with allegedly illegal marriages to underage girls. Emack will be the third to stand trial.
Most evidence against the men was gathered during the state’s historic raid on the Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado in April 2008, when truckloads of documents were removed along with women and children in the largest child custody case in U.S. history.
I’m glad they gave that scum rapist 33yrs. I hope they lock up every one of those pedophiles and shut that pervert cult down.
This case is interesting in many ways:
1. Why do folks trust that the Gov’t gave us the truth in this case, but do not trust the Gov’t on giving us the truth on many of the bills being passed in the last year?
2. Why do many look at the Koresh compound as a bad thing but the Weaver's at Ruby Ridge were totally innocent?
3. I have heard of groups wanting to set up John Galt type compounds and disconnect from society and the Gov’t as much as possible. Would you want to see the Gov’t impose it's will on them?
4. Why is the FLDS looked at with suspicion and worse and the Amish are looked at with fascination or really not given any thought at all? Does any outsider really know what goes on in those groups?
5. Why does the MSM not care that Obama’s father was a Polygamist but does in the case of the FLDS?
6. Assume for a minute that this was not child rape. Forget that it was a FLDS camp. Let's say it was an isolated camp of people that practiced polygamy but committed no other “crimes” and only wanted to be left alone. 95% of the occupants had absolutely no contact and knowledge of our “outside and modern” society. Would you want to see the Gov’t tear these families apart in this manner? Would you want to see totally naive kids thrown in a foster home with “modern” teenagers that have been exposed to drugs, crime, abuse, child prostitution, etc?
I just find it interesting how we have come to mistrust the Government when it comes to fears of them taking away our guns, speech, and freedoms. But we somehow have almost a knee jerk trust that the Government did not infringe anyone’s rights and handled everything properly in this case...
Apparently you’ve never read the New Testament.
I call for the heads of ALL child rapers, and if any teacher ever TOUCHES my 15 year old son, she will WISH she’d gotten 33 years in prison. :)
Can't you people read? THIS IS NOT ABOUT MORMON OR LDS! DUH!
Whyk haven’t you?
There is no provision in Texas law, at this time to remove male perpetrators. The only lawful choice was to remove the children.
catarac, you have no idea what you're talking about. If you think the Honorable Judge Walther is a joke, go into her Courtroom and tell her so. I see in every pro child abuse paper the word HOAX used over and over again. Well, it was pretty accurate for a hoax, now wasn't it? The phone may have been a Colorado number, but it's never been established that the actual phone was in Colorado. There were also pre-paid phones that were obtained with false identification from Tennessee. That is not all. Lots of false identification. Stay tuned.
You're killing me with your 4th amendment nonsense. All rescue calls to Texas Abuse lines have to be investigated. The warrants you believe will be invalidated were obtained after Texas LEOs, specifically Rangers, obtained warrants #2 and #3 where they observed crimes. Good luck with your fantasy, hoss. Warrant #1 was obtained when they refused entrance, which is mandatory under Texas law. (See above.)
Children weren't ripped from their mother's arms. The Court graciously allowed mother's to accompany them, even though they wouldn't give their names. It is a fact that females lied about their ages and even their children. Some children were found to be the offspring of women who were in Short Creek, some from Canada entering the United States illegally. I hope Greg Abbott brings charges of lying to a police officer for those behaviors, especially against the women. Accomplice or co-conspirators, also harboring a fugitive.
You can drive around ghetto's or Eldorado or anywhere else and screech about 17 year old’s being pregnant. Well, they may have made a mistake, but it was their choice to make. A fifteen year old in the FLDS who has been passed between two husbands at the whim of a false profit, had no choice. Oranges and apples. Also, probably no ghetto adolescent was left in labor for 72 hours with no medical care, because her profit didn't want to get busted raping children. Read the dictations of WSJ. It's all in there.
Historically, the average age of marriage in the United States was 23. All the way back to our Country's inception. Crack a freakin book. Your Grandmothers age of matrimony carries no weight. Whether she had a choice or not is the determining factor. These children do not have a choice. By their own statements to LEOs. “Prophet chooses who and when we will marry.”
Rebecca Mussar gave some very interesting testimony. In non compliance to the old FLDS “sex is for procreation, not recreation” line, she was asked by Rulon, a 90 year old man for oral sex.
When she would not comply, at the tender age of 15, the profit cried to his son Warren. He said he would make her comply. After she was ‘handled,’ she ran. As in RUNNOFT. I can only guess at your response to her testimony. She's a slut? Guess what, the jury decides, not you. 10 years with no probation and 33 years respectively so far. I guess they believed Ms. Mussar. The dictations backed her up.
If you think it's all sunshine and roses, no one can help you. A jury hears the facts, most of it DNA and birth dates. It's easy to figure backward. There is no provision in Texas law for marrying or purporting to marry a minor child. A minor child cannot consent to be assaulted. This is especially true when the man is already married to someone else. It's called Bigamy. Another crime.
Keep screeching “HOAX” and “Kangaroo Court” to your hearts delight. I don't think anyone with half a brain will take you even slightly serious after the evidence in the coming trials comes to light.
Texas will prosecute men who rape children. It is against the ‘laws and dignity of the state.’ There need not be a victim. Read the pleadings.
1) If you somehow want to associate the Texas Rangers with the rats in the House and Senate, what could one say? You ain’t from here. Technically, I guess, they are both ‘government,’ but Texans don’t see it that way. A DPS officer stopped a criminal in Texas. The criminal shot him. A hunter shot the criminal. To the hunter, Texas gave her highest award, and sealed his name forever. There was no hue and cry in Texas against ‘our government.’
2)I don’t see Koresh as bad and Weaver as innocent. Weaver sawed off a shotgun against the law. Koresh didn’t have Jerry Spence saying “Poor Idaho.” Spence is a really good attorney. Both shows were run by the Federal government. I had a DPS officer in Waco tell me that they could have walked in and gotten Koresh to come out. Blame Janet Reno. How many Texas Leo’s were in on the raid in Waco? Do you know? I do. None. But the Rangers cleaned it up.
3) As long as they comply with the law, no problem
4) Yes, we do. Carolyn Jessop wrote a book about her life within the FLDS, John krauthammer wrote “Banking on Heaven.” Flora Jessop wrote “Church of Lies.” “His Favorite Wife: Trapped in Polygamy” was written by Susan Ray Schmidt ... Irene Spenser wrote “Shattered Dreams.” There are many more. If you read them, and use critical thinking to assess what they’re each saying - they make a compelling argument. They were written over a fairly long span of time. If they existed on an island that would be one thing, but they seem to validate Fanny Algers original writings on the subject of polygamy, and how women are handled when they resist it.
As the Texas trials progress and evidence is entered, their statements are validated. Dates, times and persons jibe against the dictations. Simple as that. R. Mussar was a ‘scribe,’ or file clerk for Rulon. Her testimony was quite damning to the FLDS.
5) Why does the LSM not care Obama is a marxist? If they are your yardstick of reality, get a better ruler. I hear they make them now with laser beams.
6) I will not forget for a moment this was child rape, because that is exactly what it is.
7) Nice try, Wayne. You want to exploit the currant mistrust of a crew of Marxist elitist people in DC and transfer that to Texas DPS, Texas Rangers and County Sheriffs? Here’s the thing. The crew in DC, including Booby Hatch from Utah, plays piano with the pligys and says if they’re abusing children bring it to him, and he’ll be the first to denouce it.
Texas brought it to him. What’s he doing Wayne?
In Texas, County Sheriffs, DPS and Rangers work for a salary. They don’t make laws, they enforce them. They’re our friends and neighbors. Nothing to fear unless you’re breaking the law.
You seem to be having some difficulty with associating your replies to the correct comments.
Yeah, and they also had slaves during the time of Moses, including child sex slaves. Children then had NO choice in matters of marriage or mating. You can go back to living in those days if you want, not me.
Really? And you know this....how? What law school did you attend? Have you passed the bar? Are you allowed to practice law in Texas?
Freepers had better have an interest in the Koran, or else they’ll never come to understand just what Islam really is. I’ve read it, which is why I regularly snort any time someone calls it a religion of peace. I celebrate the fact that I was born into a Christian household—and, although it might be politically incorrect to say so—a Christian country.
Read up, woodheart. The only choice was to “marry” (not real marriage mind you) into the harem or suffer beatings and possible banishment. The pattern is described in countless books, including some Pebcak listed, and there a lots and lots of court transcripts.
Nonsense. They use the Book of Mormon for their basis, and even a lot of Mormons (source: various blogs) will say that their practice is much closer to how Mormonism was intended than the LDS today. You can try to distance yourself from this bunch all you want, but they’re mormon, just as the Lutherans are Christian.
Merry Christmas to you too, MizSterious. You have misunderstood me. My early-marrying gr. gr. grandmother had the choice of whether to marry or not, and which man to marry. I know the girls in these polygamous do not have those choices; see post 12.
yep.
FLDS would argue that they are the true mormons and that since Sec 132 of Doctrines and Covenants (the 'revelation' commanding polygamy as an eternal principle) has not been rescinded, they are the faithful and restored church.
In my advanced psychology classes (under graduate)I learned in the abstract the mental defense mechanism of “rationalization”. I now have the classic example in your posting.
We need to go into East St Louis with tanks and gestapo to arrest men over 18 that impregnated girls 17 and under and give then 33 years!!WE can find thousand!!How about that? Did you know people can leave the YFZ compound at will?? Many have. I understand your guilt regarding this dark moment in American jurisprudence but try to live with the truth. Walther should have recused. She will be over-turned {again) but this time for her lack of knowledge of fundamental law of search and seizure and probable cause. She should be impeached as incompetent.
I’m not biting on your personal attacks.
If you want gestapo to go anywhere and do anything, you’re a little off base. I’m sure in your psych class you learned the word ‘histrionics.’
There have been two motions to recuse Judge Walther. Both have been denied by other Judges.
So what now? Are all Texas judges crooked?
Yeah. Right. (snicker)
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