Rampant Sexual Abuse Alleged At Texas Sect

Polygamist Sect Married Girls At Puberty, According To Documents That Reveal Teen's Rape Claim

(CBS/AP)  A polygamist compound with hundreds of children was rife with sexual abuse, child welfare officials allege in court documents, with girls spiritually married to much older men as soon as they reached puberty and boys groomed to perpetuate the cycle.

The documents released Tuesday also gave details about the hushed phone calls that triggered the raid, by a 16-year-old girl at the West Texas ranch who said her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her. Days after raiding the compound, officials still aren't sure where the girl is.

Officials have completed removing all 416 children from the ranch and have won custody of all of them, Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner told reporters in San Angelo, about 40 miles from the compound in Eldorado.

Court documents said a number of teen girls at the 1,700-acre compound were pregnant, and that all the children were removed on the grounds that they were in danger of "emotional, physical, and-or sexual abuse." Another 139 women left on their own.

"Investigators determined that there is a widespread pattern and practice of the (Yearn for Zion) Ranch in which young, minor female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch upon being spiritually married to them," read the affidavit signed by Lynn McFadden, a Department of Family and Protective Services investigative supervisor.

McFadden said the girls were spiritually married to the men as soon as they reached puberty and were required to produce children.

An unknown number of men and women were being held at the ranch while authorities completed the search of the gleaming 80-foot-high temple, a cheese-making plant, a cement plant, a school, a doctor's office and housing units. Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety, said Tuesday the adults were not being held, but if they left the compound, they could not return while the search continued.

Church lawyer Patrick Peranteau did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Tuesday.

The compound was raided Thursday after the 16-year-old girl called a local family violence shelter March 29 and 30, using someone else's cell phone and speaking in hushed tones to avoid being overheard, McFadden's affidavit said.

The girl said she was not allowed to leave the compound unless she was ill. She told the shelter that her husband would "beat and hurt" her when he got angry, including hitting her in the chest and choking her while another woman in the house held her baby.

The girl also said her husband sexually assaulted her, and that she was several weeks pregnant. The girl told the shelter her husband went to "the outsiders' world" but didn't know where.

Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for church member Dale Barlow, who is believed to be in Arizona, but the girls' husband is not identified in the court documents released Tuesday.

In the March 30 call, the girl told the shelter she was being held against her will. If she left, church members told her, "outsiders will hurt her, force her to cut her hair, to wear makeup and (modern) clothes and to have sex with lots of men."

At the end of the call, she began to cry.

Meisner said the agency still didn't know whether the 16-year-old was among the children removed from the ranch. Child welfare officials have been interviewing the children in search of the girl and to investigate allegations of abuse.

Investigators said some of the children were unwilling or unable to provide the names of their biological parents or identified multiple mothers.

The boys were groomed to be ready to marry underage girls upon adulthood and engage in sexual activity, "resulting in them becoming sexual perpetrators," the affidavit said.

Children in the sect were deprived of food and forced to sit in closed closets as a form of discipline, the affidavit said.

Former members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints predicted an uneasy adjustment to foster care. They are likely the grandchildren or great-grandchildren of those taken by Arizona authorities 54 years ago in a similar raid.

That raid a half-century ago and the one this week pulled children of polygamist families from the only community and culture they'd ever known - an event that decades later a former community member recalls as traumatizing.

"It was total misery for them," said Ben Bistline, now 72. He was 18 when authorities raided the remote community of Short Creek

now known as the twin towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah. Authorities took 200 children into custody as part of an effort to wipe out a "nest of polygamy."

Bistline, who is now a Mormon, was not rounded up in the 1953 raid, but the woman he married later in life was 15 when she and her seven siblings were shipped to Phoenix, pulled from the friends and family who constituted their whole world. Nearly two years passed before they were allowed to return, he said.

Most of the current sect members are descended from families from the Arizona-Utah community.

The 1953 Short Creek raid also changed the community, said Carolyn Jessop, the former wife of the man believed to be running the Eldorado compound.

The distinct pioneer-style dresses, worn over long underwear year-round and sewn by the women, became part of the dress code after the 1953 raid as each generation added more restrictions, said Jessop, who left the community five years ago.

Despite the new hardships for the children and women in Texas, Bistline said the raid is appropriate if children are being forced into marriages.

"This situation in Texas is a justifiable raid," he said.

But an FLDS member now living in the Texas Panhandle, Samuel Fischer, had a different view.

"It's religious persecution," said Fischer, who moved to a ranch near Lockney with his two wives and 12 of his children from Hildale, Utah, last year.

The Texas investigation is the state's first with FLDS, but prosecutors in Utah and Arizona have pursued several church members in recent years, including sect leader Warren Jeffs, who is serving two consecutive sentences of five years to life for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old wed to her cousin in Utah. He awaits trial on other charges in Arizona.

Authorities investigating the Eldorado compound have described FLDS members as cooperative, but the house-by-house search of the temple, factories and living quarters has triggered some trouble.

On Monday, 41-year-old Leroy Johnson Steed was arrested on charges of felony tampering with evidence - a day after 19-year-old Levi Barlow Jeffs was arrested on misdemeanor charges of interfering with the duties of a public servant, said DPS spokesman Tom Vinger.

Authorities say that Steed was being held in a jail near the compound, CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasan reports.

He declined to give details on the arrests or how Levi Barlow Jeffs might be related to the FLDS leader.

Attorneys for the church and church leaders have filed motions asking a judge to quash the search on constitutional grounds, saying state authorities didn't have enough evidence and that the warrants were too broad. A hearing on their motion was scheduled for Wednesday in San Angelo.

[returnwithhonor]

I dislike the fact that the FLDS bring their reputation down on the LDS church's head. We who agreed to stop polygamous marriages and follow the law are labeled with the FLDS. It irks me to know we are getting a bad reputation from them.

[smendicino]

To Puritan9,

This is not Christianity. It is a cult. Christianity is base on Jesus Christ. Jesus never harmed a women or child. He was killed by church leaders because he saw corruption. Jesus is the reason William Wilberforce fought slavery all his life in Britain until he ended slavery with the help of Prime Minister William Pitt.

Since the beginning of time there has always been corruption, but there are people like Wilberforce that read about Jesus and do the right thing. The message of Christ is pure. You just have to learn about it yourself, and not let someone spoon feed you the message.

[smendicino]

To rosesnpearls:

You are correct. This is not a religion. It was a cult. There is a book worth reading about cults called "The Kingdom of Cults".

[cgeller100]

These people are nothing but scummy criminals hiding behind religion. They know nothing of God or God''s word at all; they are using religion solely for control, power, and sexual gratification. They should be in jail for life.

[lambofgoth]

whatinthewld - you jest... or you would know the guy''s name is Limbaugh. Seriously... a trap in the bathroom? Hmmm... what was the trap for? Republicans? Where the naughty dems trying to catch Foley with their cunning bathroom traps? Oh wait... then they would set the "trap" in a preschool. Were they trying to catch Haggard? No... then they would have set the trap in a church. What would you be trying to catch in a men''s airport bathroom???

[brianbwb-2009]

There is a thread here that misses the point totally, these are not religionists, these are people who indulge in their perversions under the guise of religion.

The claim they make of being a religious order is a false one, made simply to justify their agenda, to presume a legal right to practice their sickness, just as the various militia groups in the US, claiming to be a militia as a cover for the ownership of weapons of mass destruction.

The only thing this story has to do with religion is that it is used as a shield behind which are hidden every conceivable "sin".

Same thing happens in Islam, neither are proper, neither represent the collective morality of the vast majority of each religion''s adherents.

Anyone using these pervert groups, and the so-called "terrorist cells" to condemn an entire religion, whatever it may be, is more evil than the people they condemn.

[keithle1]

How stupid does an adult woman have to be to sign on for this nonsense?

[keithle1]

If it''s done in the name of religion, it has to be right.

[shanev137]

Now, if you don''t mind, I have to go and get it on with my 15 hot wives.

--------


I hope you have a good divorce lawyer...odds are that at least 7 of your "Christan" wives will leave you and take you to the cleaners in court. hahahahaha

[krg12171936]

After they are through searching that place and have removed "ALL" of the children, why dont they give the adult''s the choice of leaving on their own, and if they don''t want to leave, let them stay, but "BURN" the place to the ground. Those people are sicko''s and should not be allowed in our society.

whatinthewld wrote:

"Taylor, don''''t let these liberal maniacs discourage you. You are absolutely right!
Liberals don''''t officially believe in poligamy, but they sleep around. They just don''''t stay with a woman long enough to call them their wives. example: Bill Clinton, and more recently Spitzer."

Really? Do you mean to tell me that you can tell what an entire political group are like because of one person?

Man, I guess that means all Republicans are ****.sexuals, and so are all Christians.

Heck, Ted Haggard, Larry Craig - that must mean all Christians and Republicans are flaming ****.sexuals.

And I guess that means you are too!!!

Now, if you don''t mind, I have to go and get it on with my 15 hot wives.

I''ll leave you alone so you can continue lusting after taylor2124, Larry Craig and Ted Haggard.

Don''t drop the soap!!!

[shanev137]

whatinthewld ....when are you people every going to get it?

You fundy Christians are the same as Muslim extremists except you have more more money and think you''re better than them when you do the same things....things they do out in the open that you try to hide and lie about so you won''t get caught.

Come to think of it....that actually makes you sicker than them.

[whatinthewld]

We''re paving the way for Muslims to commit such crimes. What makes you think they will be any different in the US, when they become a majority or gain control of a county, state or the whole country.
They will implement their islamic laws......what kind of laws do you think those are? Definately civil liberties and freedom of speech for ALL!!

[whatinthewld]

Taylor, don''t let these liberal maniacs discourage you. You are absolutely right!
Liberals don''t officially believe in poligamy, but they sleep around. They just don''t stay with a woman long enough to call them their wives. example: Bill Clinton, and more recently Spitzer. You remember the stink they made about the bathroom incident that the liberals set up to trap a republican, and that went on for weeks. We hear nothing about Spitzer anymore, and his actions were not just acusations. His actions were proven and they are covering it up. If Spitzer had been a republican, they would have been squaking like headless chickens. Keep speaking the truth - AND "go Rush Limbough"!!

shanev137 wrote:

"yea...taylor2124....you trying to tell me that all you republicans care about Islamic women and what is done to them?.....your "family values" party of "morals" that cares enough about "human rights" to make torture legal here in the US? LOL

You kool-aid drinking jesus freak republicans make me sick.

Don''t you have a depression to go create or something?"

taylor2124 can''t come to the computer right now - he said something about the police wanting to interview him about his 12 year old wife.

taylor2124 wrote:

"Gee, I''m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that libs and Dumbocrats hate their own country."

If you''ve finished with your ignorant political agenda, I would be more then happy to condemn any Muslims, Jews, Hindus or whoever for the same perverted crimes.

Problem is, that I''m not heading overseas any time soon, and I haven''t seen too many Muslims committing these crimes here in the US.

Do you know any different?

Or were you just b*tching against liberals because you''re a pathetic and ignorant moron?

[shanev137]

yea...taylor2124....you trying to tell me that all you republicans care about Islamic women and what is done to them?.....your "family values" party of "morals" that cares enough about "human rights" to make torture legal here in the US? LOL

You kool-aid drinking jesus freak republicans make me sick.

Don''t you have a depression to go create or something?

But did they get Singinrick?

[swwils]

I agree with a couple of you that this is not protected under any constitutional law.They broke away from the Mormon Church because they don''t believe in polygamy.This is a whacked out bunch of people brainwashed like Jim Jones and his followers.The Davidians in Waco also.At least a bunch of people haven''t died

[swwils]

This should have been handled along time ago.Seems like I have seen a report about this on MSNBC investigates about a year ago.So what took the authorities so long?Probably afraid that another WACO would occur.I mean a lady was on the show I saw with Lucy Ling,and she had escaped with her children and she was forced to marry some old dude because Warren Jeff''s said so.I figured they would storm that compound then ,but I never heard anything else about it.I am sure once they get digging they will find out all kinds of weird things happened out their in cults ville.1900 acres is a big spread,they probably didn''t have to pay taxes either since they are considered a church of some sort.They said most of the women are on welfare.That means America has been furnishing them with money and food.I want to know were are the case workers.I thought they are supposed to check in on welfare recipients occasionally.They do here in Indiana,at least to see if the children are not being mistreated.So some people were not doing their jobs properly.Heads should role on this one,I mean some federal employees should be in the unemployment line,state employees also.All those girls that possibly could be abused were that is obvious.They should seize all his millions if they haven''t already.