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."
Bah, leave ‘em intact, good entertainment...
I have never seen anything negative written here on FR about Ann Romney and the Romney sons.
Ann Romney is a classy lady. I don’t think you will find many who disagree with that.
That is very true. We stuck to Mitt alone whilst his adherents here, including a particular LDS member, refered to Jeri Thompson as a whore...
We will not approve of that kind of thing, anymore. It is a perversion of the true religion. Our fathers have spoken... You may not use Thule racks, either. They are OURS!
ROTFL...so hard I can't even type!
Now, primary season can bring out the worst in people but this particular season saw many here on FR sink to new lows and, unfortunately, you, wittingly or not, led the charge.
So it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that people who loathe and detest disagree and say as much about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and therefore opposed Romney on that the basis that anyone that thinks they can be god can't be all there!, would perceive your attitude as one that was sympathetic to their beliefs. Let me be perfectly clear on this: Your complete lack of integrity and balance regarding JimRob encouraged the behavior that you now claim to find so distasteful rational disagreement. If you want to address this on this site, you will need to address this issue within yourself first. I intended my first remarks as constructive criticism.
Reaganwannabe then sez: Take this posting however you like. This is your site, but I'm not leaving. I just wanted to kick you in the balls (editorially added for proper emphasis!) and spit on your dog.
Yeah, but you allow two to a boat. Of course they will come. But, the true believers have just one.
I see I must investigate your religion ... if you’re from West ‘By God’ Virginia, where Greenbank Observatory is located. [Sorry, FastOne]
The forefathers promised their own islands. Pictures are not allowed, but some ancient aerial drawings reveal details of their homes.
Scientology is a newer religion than Mormonism...
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Don't make fun of them,
they have a right to have
their moronic beliefs respected.
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Keep it up and the MiB will visit you with their Forgetter Machine.
Don't you mean the "Grand Dragon" Robert C. Byrd Greenbank Observatory?
Ha ha! You dudes have been OUTTED now!!
--Anti-MormonDude(Gotcha!)
A fellow came around my corner property too close and took out my fence.
The title is drawn from an 1880 address by John Taylor, the Mormons’ fourth president, defending the practice of polygamy:
“God is greater than the United States, and when the Government conflicts with heaven we will be ranged under the banner of heaven against the Government. The United States says we cannot marry more than one wife. God says different.”
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