Posted on 06/24/2008 9:41:49 AM PDT by Alice in Wonderland
SAN ANGELO, Texas — A court-appointed attorney for a 16-year-old FLDS girl caught up in a grand jury investigation will go to court today under armed guard. Natalie Malonis confirmed to the Deseret News she has received death threats since she sought a restraining order against a high-profile member of the Fundamentalist LDS Church to prevent him from contacting her client.
"I've been getting death threats and I am being provided a security detail," she said this morning. "That was not even at my request. Law enforcement recognized the need for it."
Malonis said she did not know who has made the threats. She represents four FLDS members — including Pamela Jeffs, for whom she was praised by FLDS supporters when she managed to secure additional rights in court for the woman once declared by Texas authorities to be a minor.
Malonis' 16-year-old client, meanwhile, has fired off several e-mails asking her to step aside.
In e-mails sent to the Deseret News and posted on pro-FLDS Web sites, Teresa Jeffs accuses her court-appointed lawyer of not acting in her best interest.
"My attorney is going against my wishes. Maybe you need a restraining order that you can absolutely have nothing to do with me and you have to stay 1,000 feet away from me! What do you think of that?" she wrote in an e-mail to Malonis.
Jeffs has been subpoenaed to testify Wednesday before a grand jury investigating crimes involving FLDS members. The Texas Attorney General's Office said it could not find Jeffs to subpoena her, and Malonis went to court seeking a restraining order against FLDS member and spokesman Willie Jessop. In court papers, she accused Jessop of coercing the girl to avoid the subpoena and interfering with her relationship with her client. Judge Barbara Walther signed a temporary restraining order that technically prevents Jeffs' mother from allowing her daughter to have any contact with Jessop. A hearing on a more permanent restraining order will be held this afternoon.
On Monday, Malonis said she spoke with the attorney for Jeffs' mother, but no agreement could be reached.
"I hoped we could, but no ... ," she told the Deseret News.
Malonis said she is prepared to call witnesses and present evidence to suggest that the girl is being intimidated and pressured by FLDS members. The judge is not expected to consider Jeffs' request for a new lawyer.
Rod Parker, a Salt Lake attorney acting as a spokesman for the FLDS, believes Malonis is not following her court-appointed duties. Because Malonis is Teresa Jeffs' attorney ad litem and not her guardian ad litem, her job is to be an advocate for the child, he said.
"I think that she's really out on a limb in doing what she's doing and injuring her own client in a very public way," Parker said. "This is just a very unhealthy and dysfunctional attorney-client relationship. The court ought to grant Teresa's wish and give her another lawyer. This system of justice does not work appropriately when attorneys and their clients are at odds with each other." When the Texas Supreme Court ordered the hundreds of children taken in the April 3 raid to be returned to their parents, Jeffs was exempted.
Malonis said in court papers it was because the girl was an identified sex-abuse victim who had been "spiritually united" to an older man at 15. A special order was put in place for Jeffs, preventing her from contacting her father — FLDS leader Warren Jeffs — and a man named Raymond Jessop, who was not further identified.
The Deseret News normally does not name sex-abuse victims, but the girl has gone public in media interviews and in an e-mail forwarded to the Deseret News. She insists she is not a victim. In her e-mail, the girl said neither Willie Jessop nor Raymond Jessop has ever threatened her.
"That have treated (sic) so very kindly," she wrote.
Jeffs wrote in the communication with Malonis that she did not want the grand jury subpoena, but acknowledged being served.
"Well, they want me to appear before a grand jury. I do not have confidence in you and how can I get you to help me in such a situation that I am in when it feels like to me all you are doing is going against me," she wrote. "So, that is the reason that I am asking you to step aside and let me do what I need to do to and get me a different attorney."
Louis Farrakhan’s religious organization does exactly that. Then there are the really nasty fringe groups to his movement out there.
It would also be a tad unlikely for the LDS to excommunicate groups anyway ~ maybe like the Roman Catholics excommunicating the Cathers in the Middle Ages possibly, but I'm not sure how they'd work it out.
I think we need less shorthand and more precision in any discussion that brings up the F(lds) in the same context with any other religious body, or maybe even criminal body.
As far as charges, again the reality is the investigation in CPS cases basically starts at the removal, that is what make them so different. You are further away from a grand jury indictment. Indeed the timing seems about right since GJ actions are really just starting to gain some momentum..
Down the middle is where most of this will go. The only thing unique is the scope and size of the action. The legal issues are still pretty straight forward and not Earth shattering. It will ultimately be found that CPS was perhaps a little lax on their procedure but not outside of prescribed norms if looked at as a single case, that due process was not violated at the time of the action, but after the fact as documents were verified, and the TSC action rectified that. It will also be found that the FLDS will have some violations on the part of a few, maybe not to the extent first thought. New procedures will come about, the FLDS will straighten up more knowing that they are under scrutiny, making those among them who due follow the law more comfortable as well. The country will remain intact and no “Constitutional Crisis” will occur...
The courts, so far, have made decisions only within the framework of a statute. There have been no Constitutional decisions outside of your vivid imagination.
That will fall under scrutiny as well, but will survive the challenge since there were many in the group purposefully evasive. Again, the issue of children and lineage is involved here. Nothing out of the norm given the possibility of criminal intent.
Point of order ~ for non-Mormons, the LDS isn’t the only Mormon group out there. There are, in fact, dozens of such groups ~ maybe hundreds.
“the individuals in question were fully determined to be adults with verified documentation”
Utah has reported that TX never bothered to verify the documents.
I disagree - the food fight was long over - look at the time stamps
Having NEVER been previously asked to stop posting the person in question, I was willing to comply on ecumenical and caucus threads IF the mod was comfortable with that - he responded and said he would prefer I excersized some "courtesy" and honored this initial request. Odd thing, that request in itself was thin skinned, yet no one said anything about it as HE was then the disruptor according to FR rules...
- If the poster in question comments in the open forum, I will comment
#1.) if the idea presented is blaziningly inane, or
#2.) To refute it Scripturally and Theologically....
seems an awful odd standard by which to yank a thread....havent seen it before
couldnt have anything to do with the numerous posts in whcih the poster in question "made it personal" on repeated posts. could it ?
what aspects make the flds a cult ?
Amen.
LOL
I disagree with a 16 year old being of sufficient maturity to make a decision about abortion without parental knowledge and help. But it’s not the issue.
susie
No, since the abortion law is rather an oddity, compared to other law regarding 16 year olds. Are you suggesting we pattern all law regarding children along the lines of abortion law?
susie
So, from the gitgo, your opinion is biased? Thanks for the admission.
susie
Fair question and I am probably guilty of using the term in a way I’ve debated against others use it before. When I have a few more minutes I’ll come back to this.. or... maybe I’ll start an open thread to keep the mods happy.
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