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."
She’s much more efficient at that sort of thing. Got the truck inspected with an April registration sticker.
Of course, she got the wrong one in April, it won’t jump off my desk and onto the truck. ;)
I happen to think the women are salvageable. Those kids can have normal lives if the women get mental help, get away from the all controlling men and develop common sense.
Saundra, Saundra, what do you think this cult is all about? Men having sex. With a wide variety of females. Lets face it, men are born with that desire. What do you think the bed in the temple was for? Just a weary passerby?
“What do you think the bed in the temple was for?”
I don’t think we really know for sure.
The claim they found some female hairs on that bed, really prove nothing.
If there is some proof that their practices included conjugation of the marriage in the temple, right after the ceremony, then it might be worth considering.
However, I think it is one of those things that is not that important in the long run, and will likely not be used as any kind of evidence in any upcoming trials.
But, I could be wrong.
I’m not very efficient.
To get tags for my truck, it took two visits to the Insurance office, two visits to City Hall Records, Three visits to DMV, and involved apologies from City Hall and DMV for making me run around so much, and cost me almost $500.
Glad that day is over.
Grand jury adjourns without action in FLDS criminal case
Guess it wasn’t that much of an emergency after all.
I used to buy seized vehicles at county auctions and that paperwork resembled yours. You’d think buying from the state, who made their own titles, would be simple. Uh no.
And she wouldn’t touch those with a 10’ pole. LOL
The bed in the temple . . . hmmmm . . . . let me think . . . maybe when people got tired, they rested in it. This issue is going to come up again in a lawsuit, though, cuz I read where that brilliant attorney is going to accuse TX authorities of “defiling” the temple and destroying property. Oh, how the media and pro-raid FReepers love to ponder the bed in the temple.
The presence of a STD would be a good indicator someone was having sex. Per Carolyn Jessop, the FLDS women have a lot of infections because “they do not wash themselves.” My two cents, behaving like one is in a brothel (swinging, group sex, multiple partners) tends to spread the love around.
The girls, as Rod Parker hinted, all claimed the Fifth Amendment right and Malonis was able to get around testifying about what she believes Teresa told her in confidentiality by claiming attorney-client privilege.
By July 22, the state will have gotten state and Federal immunity papers prepared for all the girls, so that they will be compelled to testify (possibly against their parents, their community, and each other) or be held in contempt.
Malonis by that time will make good on her threat and break attorney-client privilege, since Teresa will continue to spurn her and since Teresa, according to Malonis, is waiving her attorney-client privilege by disclosing private email conversations between them to the media.
Look to July 22, for the real blood, gore, and guts, indictments flying, contempt charges, and maybe even a 16 or 17 year old or two being led out of the courthouse in chains, just to show the world that Texans don't mess around when it comes to polygamy.
Have you seen the Keate videos yet? We were discussing it on this very thread last night - see post #484. One of our esteemed posters, patton, called Mr. Keate a drooling idiot, lol.
“because this time around no one talked”
You were in there? Wow! My husband’s theory keeps ringing in my ears - that they are after the FLDS property which is worth kazillions. No other concept makes sense. That the State of TX would spend all these millions to try to destroy a pathetic group of religious people. They are after that ranch property.
Ammo for my husband’s theory about the ranch property (that is worth kazillions now):
http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/flds-raid-and-the-nafta-super-highway-by-devvy/
Also, did you hear that the TX CPS director is quitting . . . but of course it has nothing to do with the raid or the $14 million of tax-payer’s hard-earned money thrown down the dark hole thus far.
I am not an esteemed poster - I am a mathematician.
;)
Saundra, that property theory thing...well, it is not credible. I have problems with suspension of disbelief. Honestly, I think TX will pay WAY more in damages, than that property could possibly be worth.
Oh, you misunderstand about the FLDS ranch property. The TX authorities involved in the raid and round-up are just useful idiots for some big wig developer or some greedy creep(s) who wants that land. Follow the money trail. Some cowboy sittin’ ‘round just a’waitin’ for the other shoe to drop so he can swoop in and clean up!
Received an e-mail re. the FLDS ranch property:
“its location is right on the intersections of Hwys 190 and 277, just 10 miles North of major rte, U.S.10. Nearest populated town that I see on the map is San Angelo, Tx. some 60 miles due north of Eldorado..It appears to be right in the path of the planned NAFTA superhighway, which is supposed to connect to a major seaport to be built on the Mexican coast, just across the inlet from Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of Baja, Calif (Mexican territory). Perhaps to use the town of Mazatlan as the hub of shipping. The port of Long Beach, California, now one of the fourth largest U.S.seaports will become an empty vessel; excuse the pun.”
“One of our esteemed posters, patton, called Mr. Keate a drooling idiot, lol. “
Yes. I saw the videos of three FLDS men, and of three FLDS women, and some of them are very ‘slow’, and ‘confused’.
I haven’t seen the Keate video, so I don’t know if he was a drooling idiot, but chances are....
“that they are after the FLDS property which is worth kazillions.”
Besides, while it may be true someone is after the money and property, I hardly think it is the State.
The action to try to seize the money and property of the FLDS, in order to offset the expenses of Texas, was done in the Senate, and of course, failed.
It wasn’t the CPS, or LE.
And they have no other legal recourse that I know of, to try to take the property or money. The UEP fund is tied up in conservatorship, and the rest of the FLDS, and some of the EX MEMBERS are suing to get to it.
So, if anyone is wanting the property right now, it is the rest of the FLDS.
They are kinda upset Warren took control of all the money, the children, the wives, and conned them into going to Texas.
And the ex members who lost their wives, children, and property, want recompense.
The money is supposed to be shared. Warren wanted it all.
Um, Saundra?
I think that you are giving too much credence to conspiracy theorists.
Let go, take a deep breath, and realize that the TX CPS did not need a reason to conduct the illegal raid, outside of their desire “to help the victims” of the flds.
CS Lewis said, folks that mean to rule you for your own good, are the most dangerous of all - for they will never rest. And make no mistake, they mean to rule.
My little-noticed tagline is from that essay of his - it was a very sarcastic remark he made, “the experts are to be believed.”
He meant the CPS of his day, and he was calling them idiots.
I agree with him.
But, that does not require me to believe that TX wants to steal 1700 acres of barren dirt from an idiot church to do all this - I find it much more likely, that TX meant to rule, went in with preconcieved notions, and - stupidly - acted accordingly.
It requires no conspiracy theory, just a belief that social workers think that they believe what is best for you really is, and it really doesn’t matter to them, if you agree or not.
And that is what I think happened.
The conspiracy theory, that TX did all this to get title to 1700 acres of san, in my mind, is absolute bullshit.
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