SAN ANGELO, Texas, May 25, 2008
12 Sect Children Reunited With Parents
Families Will Be Supervised While Texas Appeals Court's Decision On Custody Of Minors From Polygamist Ranch
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Dan Jessop and his wife Louisa Bradshaw are surrounded by cameras as they leave the Tom Green County Courthouse, May 23, 2008 after a custody hearing on their newborn son. Jessop said it was only the second time he had seen his child. (AP/Trent Nelson, Salt Lake Tribune)
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Play CBS Video Video Polygamist Families Reunited A dozen children removed from a polygamist ranch in Texas have been reunited with their parents amidst allegations of child abuse and underage marriages within the compound. Hari Sreenivasan reports.
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Video YFZ Representative Speaks Out Jeff Glor speaks with Will Jessop, spokesman for the controversial polygamist YFZ ranch, who says that his children were unfairly taken away from him by Texas state officials.
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Video Polygamists Get Big Court Win An appeals court ruled Texas officials did not prove the children of a polygamist sect were in immediate danger. Hari Sreenivasan reports.
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Photo Essay Separation Anxiety Some mothers in polygamist sect separated from children as part of abuse investigation.
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Photo Essay Polygamist Compound Raid Secret calls from alleged abuse victim lead to raid of religious sect's compound.
The lawyer for a couple whose three children were among the hundreds removed last month by Texas authorities says the family is celebrating.
The attorney says a "little boy just grabbed for his daddy" when he and his two sisters were reunited with their parents.
Among those released was newborn Richard Daniel Jessop, born while his 22-year-old mother Louisa was in state custody. Friday was only the second time Dan Jessop had been allowed to see his 12-day-old son.
"It's tough being separated," Jessop said.
"We're just so grateful that there's some good people who want to do right and get these children back with their parents," said grandmother Gloria Jessop.
The children are spread out at group shelters across the state, reports CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasan.
The agency has agreed to allow the parents to live with their children in the San Antonio area under state supervision.
The three families are not allowed to return to the Yearning For Zion ranch, where they lived before the raid.
Among other concerns, the child protection agency was worried that some underage girls were compelled to marry older men in the sect.
On Friday an appeals court ruled the state had no right to keep the children, and that the department had failed to prove that a system of belief which allows underage girls to marry puts other children in danger from physical or sexual abuse.
"To take on every child in the community as they've done is a mistake," said sect family spokesman Rod Parker. "It was more harmful to the children than anything that could conceivably happen to them in 20 30 40 years"
But in a custody hearing Friday, the state presented what it said were wedding pictures of a 12-year-old girl kissing Warren Jeffs, the jailed leader of a related polygamy group, the FLDS. The pictures were an apparent effort to show evidence that the community supports underage marriages.
But the Jessop family in San Angelo sees no connection to their two-week-old son.
"You see far worse, immoral, disgusting, gross things than a girl kissing a man in the streets of your own community," Jessop said outside the courthouse.
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Add a Comment See all 36 Comments
- I see the liberal PC media has accomplished its goal.
Freedom of religion does not translate into violating the rules of the United States, let alone that of common decency. If you live here, you abide by our laws. Period.
The government waited a long time to build up its case. It did not descend on the FLDS based on a few allegations. There have been many grown up women who have escaped this cult in recent years and provided a wealth of information about abuse, etc.
The FLDS supposedly does not allow women to cuddle, hug or otherwise show love for their babies, according to grown escapees. All that fuss may have just been a "show" put on for the media.
Had can anyone support polygamy, child abuse, statutory rape etc.? That women in this world are pieces of property, traded around like cattle? And BTW, those who are so outspoken against the raid--do you realize you are nothing but devils and the height of evil in their eyes? How do you feel about that?Funny how these cults who hate the real world turn to it so quickly and use we devil people to get them whatever they want.
IMO the cult belongs to the realm of Jim Jones and his ilk. Educate yourself before you condemn those who tried to protect the young from a life of mental and physical slavery. Someone had to do it.
P.S. Look up the "lost boys" who were thrown out of this cult. Maybe that will open your eyes. - Reply to this comment
- Sorry about my last post coming up so many times. I don''t know how or why that happened. Hopefully this one will only post once.
- Reply to this comment
- CPS employs disgruntled high school dropouts who at this critical moment complain about gas money and we expect them to have a better judgment?
What do they care about rights, diversity, and constitution?
These idiots have risen from the bottoms of the public school system into such an environment that they can play the king. And so they do, passing judgment and condemning others about their life arrangements.
Things are getting tougher.
We are on our own, to save ourselves, there is no hope in any system. - Reply to this comment
- When I first heard this story on the news I knew it was phoney. Anonymous phone call with a fictitious 16 year old victim. They just wanted another Branch Davidian thing to happen.
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Posted by Soldat69 at 06:32 AM : May 26, 2008
Is that the kind of religion that you like? A bunch of sick old perverts waiting for the next available little girl virgin to become avaailable.
One that kicks all the young boys out on the street so they have no competition?
Did you not get it? 69 men, 168 women, and 437 children, and out of those 437 children only about 27 teenage boys? They only let the most subservient men stay so they can use them for slave labor.
You people need to stop your whining! And CPS needs to have proof those children aren''t abused before turning them back over. As far as I''m concerned ONE 16 year old girl with four babies is proof enough! If I were a CPS employee, I''d be up the behind of everyone of those idiots until the end of time to make sure those girls were protected. - Reply to this comment
- They should line all of the people responsible for *** with this groups rights up and shoot them.
Posted by lamotte4 at 06:59 AM : May 26, 2008
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And then let the 45-year-old men go back to slipping the sausage to 12-year-old-girls 2 at a time. That''s teach CPS and the Government.
You sound like a Fake Republican Apologist. Which ones would Jesus do from behind? - Reply to this comment
- They should line all of the people responsible for *** with this groups rights up and shoot them.
- Reply to this comment
- a view from behind bars; what a mistake, state took them out of harms way only to give them back. next week we will be reading about their deaths from suicide koolaid....
have a nice day. - Reply to this comment
- When I first heard this story on the news I knew it was phoney. Anonymous phone call with a fictitious 16 year old victim. They just wanted another Branch Davidian thing to happen. I hope they sue that city out of existence. How dare they presume to know better than the parents of these children. Freedom of religion? How about some freedom from persecution? Whenever Americans start teaching our own and learning how to live apart for the sheeple and TalmudVision (TV) our Government steps in to kill them all. I''m surprised that Bush didn''t call them all terrorists. Isn''t that the ticket? Anything the Gov doesn''t like is automatically a terrorist cell or group.
- Reply to this comment
- When I first heard this story on the news I knew it was phoney. Anonymous phone call with a fictitious 16 year old victim. They just wanted another Branch Davidian thing to happen. I hope they sue that city out of existence. How dare they presume to know better than the parents of these children. Freedom of religion? How about some freedom from persecution? Whenever Americans start teaching our own and learning how to live apart for the sheeple and TalmudVision (TV) our Government steps in to kill them all. I''m surprised that Bush didn''t call them all terrorists. Isn''t that the ticket? Anything the Gov doesn''t like is automatically a terrorist cell or group.
- Reply to this comment
- When I first heard this story on the news I knew it was phoney. Anonymous phone call with a fictitious 16 year old victim. They just wanted another Branch Davidian thing to happen. I hope they sue that city out of existence. How dare they presume to know better than the parents of these children. Freedom of religion? How about some freedom from persecution? Whenever Americans start teaching our own and learning how to live apart for the sheeple and TalmudVision (TV) our Government steps in to kill them all. I''m surprised that Bush didn''t call them all terrorists. Isn''t that the ticket? Anything the Gov doesn''t like is automatically a terrorist cell or group.
- Reply to this comment
- Freedom of religion is becoming more and more like China''s "freedom of weeligion"
Texas has some big appologees and backpeddling to do if they find only a couple cases of underage marriages.
That would be like arresting every person living in a neighborhood when they suspicion that there is a child molester in the viscinity! - Reply to this comment
- I come in here to get a good laugh at some of you. Get over it. There has been no abuse in this Tx. FDLS raid. Maybe next time...not this one.
- Reply to this comment
- "Krazy Lesbians Kult (KLK):
A lesbian sect generally considered to be Extremist or False, with it''s followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of one or more Authoritarian, Charismatic leaders. Obsessive, especially faddish devotion to or veneration for a person, principle or thing." - Reply to this comment
- i recommend the following book for more information on the filthy violent nature of the KLK (krazy lesbians kult) which is still trying to obtain control of the mormon children:
No More Secrets : Violence in Lesbian Relationships
http://www.amazon.com/No-More-Secrets-Violence-Relationships/dp/0415929466/
"This study of abuse in lesbian relationships looks you in the eye and dares you to turn away. Far from being a prurient study of a fringe group of violent lesbians, this book demands that the queer community at large--afraid of straight disdain --recognize its accountability. No More Secrets illustrates that despite what many lesbian feminists believe, acts of violence are not committed solely by men." - Reply to this comment
- Posted by RowdyWicca
Posted by cneron
Posted by denn034
Posted by fibonacci_gr
Posted by michaelcook2
It appears that you and several other people are being mind-managed by the KLK (krazy lesbians kult), which conspired to provide a false police report that resulted in the raid on the Texas Mormons.
The objective of the KLK (whose members include the Texas social workers and trial judge on the case) is to obtain the humble, white Mormon children and adopt them out to infertile lesbian couples, and that is happening right now at an accelerated pace in spite of the latest court ruling.
Once these kids are in the hands of the KLK, they''re told there is no such thing as too early for ***. Whenever the head lesbian tells them to go ''marry'' an old lesbian, that''s who they''re given to. They''re groomed to be pedophile fodder. Information presented shows that they''re given to be concubines (not wives - lesbians can''t have wives) at puberty or before, and have un-natural $ex while still children themselves. - Reply to this comment
- i see that all of the nasty little lesbians from the KLK (krazy lesbians kult) are really whining at this piece of good news.
just admit it: you are wrong about the texas mormans.
wha, wha, wha! - Reply to this comment
- You assume that because I question the motives and actions of the state that I support that sect or anyone within it. Then by your own logic, you apparently support fascism.
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Posted by VoidMaster at 01:25 PM : May 25, 2008
No, I assume your support of giving Texas a whoop azz for taking those children away from those sick perverts speaks for itself!
Sick! - Reply to this comment
- I wonder...if you take the older man/younger girl *** part out, and the multiple marriages...would you still condemn them?
And has any of the men or women said, "thank God we were rescued" or "liberated at last" or anything or that sort?????
Knowing what they know now, would the members like to go back to their former way of living - ? - Reply to this comment
- Utah AG Mark Shurtliff has suggested that FLDS kids should be given to non-polygamist relatives in Utah and not put into Texas foster homes. I like that idea. One needs only talk to the Lost Boys in Utah, who were kicked out by the FLDS for disobeying and being a threat to older men''s access to little girls, and women with Tapesty Against Polygamy that left the FLDS to see that little girls and boys are being abused by the FLDS. Expect this to be overturned by either the Appeals or Supreme Courts.
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- If anything I hope that this at least teaches these loony religious brains to obey the law of our country - no *** with women under 18 for 50 year old men. No multiple marriages.
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