PHOENIX, April 12, 2008
Cultist Hand-Picked Children For Loyalty
Officials Say Jeffs Moved Young Members Of Sect Into Seclusion In Tex. To Ensure Obedience
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Adult members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, stand around as children play with bottles of bubble water at their temporary housing, Fort Concho National Historic Landmark, in San Angelo, Texas, April 7, 2008. (AP)
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Jeffs, the imprisoned leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, transferred people to Eldorado, Texas, to escape growing government scrutiny on the sect's base in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said.
"This was Warren Jeffs' all-star cast," said Goddard, who has been investigating the sect since 2004. "They had the strongest sense of obedience."
As a result, their extreme devotion could make it hard on Texas authorities as they push for prosecutions, said Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.
"All these girls are taught from the cradle not to trust anybody from the outside," Shurtleff said. "Especially the government. We're the beast. We're the devil."
Authorities raided the Eldorado ranch April 3 after a girl from the clan made a whispered telephone call for help to a family violence shelter. Texas has since taken legal custody of 416 children on suspicions that they were being sexually and physically abused.
Jeffs, who was convicted last year in Utah of being an accomplice to rape, wanted "to isolate and perhaps purify the sect from any kind of outside influences," Goddard said.
Eldorado "is the most concentrated version of this particular style of life," he said.
Prosecutors in Arizona and Utah struggled for years to gain the trust of witnesses in abuse cases, but many young girls still refused to speak out.
"We've had them come out and make statements, and then they disappear, or they recant," Shurtleff said.
The FLDS split from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints more than a century ago when the mainstream Mormon Church renounced polygamy. The Mormon Church excommunicates members who practice plural marriage.
Until recently, Arizona and Utah authorities had left the FLDS communities in Hildale and Colorado City alone.
The last time Arizona officials focused their attention on the FLDS homeland was a notorious raid in 1953. That action turned into a public relations debacle as pictures circulated of children being pulled from their mothers. Afterward, authorities left the FLDS to police themselves.Read Hari Sreenivasan's blog post from San Angelo.
However, Goddard started talking with Shurtleff about the FLDS in 2002 shortly after he was elected, his spokesman said.
Arizona officials put up a billboard in Colorado City with a toll-free number for young women who felt abused. They got rid of local police officers, who had pledged loyalty to Jeffs, and opened an office in the community manned by Mohave County officers.
The Arizona Board of Education took over the Colorado City school system and Utah officials cut off a major source of assets from the sect's United Effort Plan trust, which was estimated to contain as much as $114 million.
"We were increasing the pressure," Goddard said. "That's when they started this escape to Texas."
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In 2005, news started circulating about a new FLDS community that was being built on 1,700 acres in Eldorado.All these girls are taught from the cradle not to trust anybody from the outside. Especially the government. We're the beast. We're the devil.
Utah Attorney General Mark ShurtleffFLDS leaders said publicly at the time they weren't expecting any apocalyptic event or mass exodus to Texas. But former FLDS member Flora Jessop, 38, said she heard a different story from family members who made it to the Texas compound. Eldorado, Jessop said, was to make up for the failures Jeffs perceived in Colorado City and Hildale.
"Warren thought it was there were too many unfaithful people in Colorado City," Jessop said. "So he started the culling, if you will."
"He started moving all the most faithful to Texas so that God would be able to lift them up while he swept the evil wicked outsiders off the face of the Earth."
Following his Utah conviction, Jeffs is in jail in Arizona while awaiting trial on four counts of incest, four counts of sexual contact with a minor, one of sexual conduct with a minor and one of conspiracy to conduct sexual conduct with a minor. The charges predate the Eldorado raid.
Attorney: Call From Abused Girl May Have Been Hoax
An attorney for polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs says Texas authorities may have been duped by a fake phone tip into raiding a West Texas ranch occupied by Jeffs followers.
Attorney Michael Piccarreta tells The Arizona Republic in Phoenix that he "smelled a rat from the beginning."
He was referring to the call from a 16-year-old girl at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints commune in Eldorado that prompted the raid. In his words, "I think the Texas authorities need to make a careful analysis of whether they have been part of a ruse."
A spokeswoman for Texas Child Protective Services tells The Associated Press that the agency believes the call was genuine. Spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales says the agency has no "reason to believe that it was a prank or a ruse in any way."
Authorities have said their April 3 raid on the Eldorado ranch came after a girl's whispered telephone call for help to a family violence shelter. Texas has since taken legal custody of 416 children on suspicion that they were being sexually and physically abused.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 71 Commentsthey are the only ones who have been truthful.
there was no 16-year-old girl
there was no phone call
there was no abuse
there was no bed with long girl''s hair in the temple (although the lesbian investigators may be specially trained to sniff out female pubic hair)
the only truth is the government raid and imprisonment of hundreds of children.
Posted by darnedsocks at 03:28 PM : Apr 13, 2008
Maybe they share--after all, the females have no rights--why not pass them around if need be. They are not following the bible anyway---so what does it matter?
Polygamy can end up looking like the Jerry Springer show.
I am also curious whether the murder / suicide rate is higher in these polygamist communities where so many adult men are most likely rejected or cast out at some point and whether there are crimes of passion due to jealous rages?
It also seems to me that there is an imbalance of power between the older male and the female child who is being raped: Does she ever develop "self-reliance" "self-esteem"? If not, this imbalance can lead to the man''s abuse of the young girl; since she has no way to "balance the power."
posted by darnedsocks at 03:28 PM : Apr 13, 2008
Yes.
The boys who are kicked out, because they are not loyal, become the LOST BOYS.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week205/cover.html
I fear the 16-year-old girl, and her babies, have been absconded to the British Columbia, or the Mexico compounds, where she cannot be extradited as a witness!
Hahaha, now ALL your posts are gone!
You are such a baaaad boy!
Call it what you want but Sexually Siolent Predators and Pedophile''s do not need to be with young children, teens.
You can say it for religion if you must sounds like a lame excuse to me.
I am chrisian and we have never practiced anything of this nature.
King James Version My entire life, same Bible for the last 40 years. I have never read in the Bible any of this, and My parents and grandparents who were both ministers and had their own churches for years and years never ever spoke of this. In the eyes of god this is a sin.
We all have our own versions of religion. We all have our own religions and I respect that.
I never speak out about this. But I am disgusted that one man did this to so many people and children.
Remember you reap what you sow...7 times over
Karma.. what goes around comes around..
Posted by fibonacci_ at 06:20 PM : Apr 12, 2008
Why do you blame religion? Define, religion. What does ''religion'' eat? Where can I see, religion? Does religion have any chldren? Is there any possibility at all that human beings might be involved in ''religion''? If they are, how did ''religion'' change them. Are human beings responsible for their ''own'' thoughts, desires, actions or are they grabbe by ''religion'' and forced to commit improper actions by ''religion''? I use to have a better regard of your posts til lately. But now you seem bent on killing religion and condemning anyone that embraces it. Show me one thing that religion has done, (Just one) failing that maybe you might take a different look at what you are saying. A totaly inanimate conception cannot do a single thing. Just like a gun, it requires a human to use it to produce anything. Self worship is a form of ''religion'' Atheists are ''religious'', do you want to get rid of them also? I don''t, and I am christian. When I see the troubles of this world blamed directly or indirectly on GOD I am saddened and ashamed of my fellow humans
where have we heard that before?
Loyal Bushie ring a bell?
How''s it hangin''?
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