Cultist Hand-Picked Children For Loyalty

(CBS/AP)  Polygamist sect members who were moved to a Texas compound from their longtime homes along the Utah-Arizona line were hand-picked for their fierce loyalty to leader Warren Jeffs, and that allegiance may be a stumbling block for law enforcement, authorities say.

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.

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Read Hari Sreenivasan's blog post from San Angelo.

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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.

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."

In 2005, news started circulating about a new FLDS community that was being built on 1,700 acres in Eldorado.

FLDS 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.

[dcamp2909]

Somebody, please dig up that compound and report how many male children have been buried there!

[michellem99-2009]

Be careful..I was a mormon and demanded out as they are not the true church...I learnt that the hard way..It is the wrong church..I have met lovely mormons..

[cpaide]

i believe the mormans before i believe the state of texas and the cr@p posted here.

they 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.

[michellem99-2009]

Have ye ever gone to a homeless shelter..The first thing they do is preach to them poor souls..IT IS FORCED ON THEM..It is wrong that way. I have no problem with grace at meals or prayer for that matter. I will add mine to theirs..I may not believe as they but church can be used to hurt the children in a sexxaul way..Yep..Not all..Parents should teach their kids paws off...I must use sighted guide and ask for that help. That is different. The areas of the body where it is wrong.. We must change the church so asres the like of this man and others are dealt with..the here and now..

[michellem99-2009]

I saw something on TV about what they do with the teen boys --throw them in the streets.. WHY..When they get to dating the old man don''t want them. Tool ye right it is people..Not God Allmighty..

[honestabe8]

Another problem with polygamy: MULTIPLE MOTHERS IN LAW.

[b-easy63]

WHERE ARE THE BOYS? OBVIOUSLY, HALF THEIR CHILDREN WILL BE BOYS? WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM, IF ONE MAN HAS 10 WIVES, THAT MEANS THERE ARE 9 MEN WHO HAVE NO WIFE; CORRECT?

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?

[b-easy63]

They don''t need these girls and women to say a word. They just need DNA scrapings from each child and match them to a mom and a dad. Of the mom is under the age of consent, arrest the dad and if any match the Barlow guy whose victim called in, you may have found the person who complained in the first place. All this can be done (via a few scrapings of cheek cells) with nary a word from any man, woman or child. Let science help those who refuse to cooperate or help themselves.

[darnedsocks]

In countries where there are lots of men with NOT ENOUGH WIVES FOR EACH OF THEM, these men usually turn to lifestyles of CRIME or JIHAD. This is a problem for China and Islamic societies.

Polygamy can end up looking like the Jerry Springer show.

[darnedsocks]

THE PROBLEMS WITH POLYGAMY: 1.) It is impossible for the father to spend quality one-on-one time with each of their children each day. 2.) When the boys turn into men, since 9 out of 10 are denied a wife (since just a few men take all the women for themselves), what happens to these men''s lives? Are they forced to become Eunichs or what? 3.) A true intimate relationship can never be achieved between one woman and one man, because there are too many to share. 4.) The woman must live with the battle of her own self-esteem each day, wondering if he favors one of the other wives better than her (unless of course she is the favorite)

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."