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."
“so she may have been in a tough spot.”
I, for one, would not want to have to face the decisions Teresa now has to face.
She is between a ‘rock’ and a ‘hard spot’.
I wasn’t real clear. I was refering to the prospect of CPS getting conservatorship at the final hearing (if there ever is one), not to any past ruling.
Grasp of the obvious there eh? LOL
IIRC, you are right.
Had the Appeal not gone their way, do you think the Writ would have ‘held water’?
“I wasn’t real clear.”
Yes, you were. I didn’t read it right.
“Would that justify the court giving conservaorship to CPS of male children or really young children?”
I would say no.
If there was evidence of abuse ‘other’ than ‘child-brides’, then the answer could be yes.
The stories of “breaking the baby”, and possible violation of child labor laws, have yet to be dealt with.
Whether the ‘breaking the baby’ is just a myth, and if not, whether it could even be proven, are ‘another story’.
Yep.
How are you?
Sweet dreams.
Hitting the sack myself, good night all.
It was a well thought out pleading. On it’s face it had merit. The big problem the lawyers faced was trying to get a court to undo something another court of equal standing had already done. Usually, once a district court has properly assumed jurisdiction over a controversy, another district court will defer and not enter into a jurisdictional competition with the first court.
Good, hope you are the same. Haven’t been able to keep up with things, other than the SCOTUS ruling today.
Sent wife to get an inspection and registration on different vehicles today. :)
ALice, have you seen this?
The girl, Teresa climbs a tree during the grand jury proceedings.
Pictures of her in a tree! After seeing all those women together, I don’t think any of them said one word which could send their men to jail. Abuser enablers.
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/jun/26/grand-jury-leaves-sect-case-in-limbo/
It has disappeared!
I don’t think some of them know how many kids they have. Recently one couple was in severa newspapers saying how happy they were to get their kids back.
Come to find out the man has 5 wives, and the wife he was with has 6 kids she left in Utah, the youngest 10 years old.
She has 5 younger ones with this bozo. She was on Larry King and said her first husband was dead. So now she has kids out there who are parentless. She left them to go live on the ranch. Crazy bitch.
Just for the record let me state my position as a LDS member which I have stated NUMEROUS of times before!
Texas throw the book at them and HANG the MEN for child molestation! And put the women away for life!
Trust me, there’s a wide range of findings that don’t rule out virginity, but don’t prove it, either. I’ve seen one woman that I’d swear was a virgin. She needed surgical help before her wedding night. I’ve seen a girl the day after delivery of a full term baby that looked virginal exteriorly. The cervix was obviously that of a mother, but without a speculum, you’d never know.
The extremes, with thick, nearly intact hymens that interfere with tampon use vs tears and abrasions of acute trauma are not that common. Even non-consensual sex may not leave signs.
I’m really worried about that little girl. And surprised that NBC and other media haven’t picked up on the obvious denial that she exists.
It has disappeared!
Who can fathom the working of the collective Q mind?
If one is “spiritually married” to another, does that necessarily mean they are having sex?
Very good question.
It does not ‘prove’ they were.
However, what is the purpose of getting ‘spiritually married’ to multiple wives, if not to conceive children?
They admit that is the goal, their practice, and there is plenty of proof, as they seem to have an OVERABUNDANCE of children.
According to their practice, it isn’t because they ‘fell in love’. It isn’t because their wife wants to be a career woman, and not have children.
Is that picture of Warren french kissing an obviously underage girl, a picture of a ‘young couple in love’?
How many ‘girls’ is he in love with? How many ‘wives’ does he have?
Since Warren was the only one who decided WHO married WHO, for what purpose on earth was the marriage?
Why would anyone want to be married to multiple women who were forced to be married?
“She was on Larry King and said her first husband was dead. “
Either that is a synonym for ‘excommunicated’, or maybe Warren and Willie told her that, after they excommunicated him, or maybe both are true.
“Sent wife to get an inspection and registration on different vehicles today. :)”
So, you wanted her out of the house for a couple of days, so you could hog the computer????
: )
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