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[bacasper]

Phone number in Texas abuse report linked to Colo. woman


COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A phone number used to allege child abuse at a Texas polygamist retreat had been used before by a Colorado woman, who's accused of making several false abuse claims in an unrelated case, according to an affidavit made public Wednesday.

Rozita Swinton, 33, of Colorado Springs, had used the number before it was used to place a call to a crisis center in Texas, the arrest warrant affidavit said. The call came before authorities raided the Eldorado retreat and removed more than 400 children this month, but it was not clear whether authorities suspect Swinton made any of the calls that triggered the raid.

Swinton's whereabouts were unknown and she did not immediately return a phone message. It wasn't known whether she had an attorney.

Swinton was arrested April 16 and later released on a misdemeanor charge of false reporting in a February case in Colorado Springs with no known ties to the raid in west Texas. The affidavit released Wednesday involved the Colorado Springs case, in which she's accused of posing as a teenager.

Swinton has not been arrested or charged in the calls made to the Texas crisis center, but authorities have called her a "person of interest" in that case. Two Texas Rangers were with Colorado officials when they searched Swinton's home.

Texas authorities said the search turned up several items suggesting a connection between Swinton and calls regarding the Eldorado retreat and other Texas and Arizona compounds owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon sect. The items weren't identified.

The calls that prompted the April 3 raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch were purportedly made by a 16-year-old girl who said her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her. That girl has never been identified.

Texas' child welfare agents says their investigation into the ranch, including interviews with children, has found evidence of abuse. They allege that the sect encourages adolescent girls to marry older men and have children, and that boys are groomed to become future perpetrators. Sect members deny the allegations.

Documents related to Swinton's arrest had been sealed by a judge at the request of Texas authorities. The arrest warrant affidavit was released Wednesday after The Associated Press filed a motion to unseal the records Monday.

The document links Swinton to calls made throughout October from a "Dana Anderson." The caller claimed to be a young woman being abused by her pastor at Colorado Springs' New Life Church, and later a 13-year-old student at Liberty High School who said she was being drugged and sexually abused by her father.

The false-reporting charge against Swinton stems from a February 911 call from a woman calling herself "Jennifer." The document said she claimed her father had locked her in her basement for days.

More at link

[bacasper]

More teenage mothers emerge in Texas polygamy probe

By Jessica Rinaldi and Ed Stoddard
Thu Apr 24, 9:13 PM ET

SAN ANGELO, Texas (Reuters) - Texas authorities said on Thursday they identified 25 more mothers below age 18 among those removed from a polygamist compound, raising to about 460 the number of minors at the heart of a huge abuse probe.

An apparent phone tip earlier this month led to a raid on the ranch in a remote part of west Texas and the removal of the children. The compound is linked to a breakaway Mormon sect and is run by followers of jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.

Texas welfare and law enforcement officials say they have uncovered evidence of widespread child abuse on the grounds, with adolescent girls being forced into unions with much older men.

The 25 additional teenage mothers who have been sorted from the adults and who initially claimed to be adults may provide prosecutors with more ammunition if it was found for example that some had become pregnant when they were in their early teens.

Officials would not say how old the mothers were beyond the fact all are believed to be under 18.

Authorities this week have been moving the children into foster homes as well as taking DNA samples in a bid to find out who is related to whom. About 260 remain in temporary shelter in a heavily guarded rodeo stadium in the west Texas town of San Angelo.

Over 60 women left the stadium on Thursday as the wrenching process of separating the women and children continued.

"THESE CHILDREN MUST BE PROTECTED"

Darrell Azar, a spokesman for the Department of Child Protective Services, told a news briefing outside the stadium on Thursday that pulling the families apart as the probe widens was a "difficult thing.... But these children must be protected."

On Thursday, one of the women who left the stadium held a sign outside the window of a bus that read: "SOS. MOTHERS SEPARATED. HELP."

The compound is about 45 miles south of San Angelo in an isolated part of Texas. The investigation is the largest child welfare case in the history of the state and shrouded in confusion.

Local media reports have suggested the calls that sparked the raid may have been a hoax by a woman in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who has a history of such acts.

Azar said it did not matter if it was a hoax or not because evidence of abuse was being unearthed.


Funny, no one besides the original phony caller has alleged being forced into marriage. If it is not bad enough that 500,000 households nationwide may be raided merely because of the presence of a mother under 18, now that the ends justify the means, absolutely ANY home is potentially subject to invasion and disruption by a SWAT team simply due to an anonymous, toll-free, false telephone call alleging child abuse.


Let's see, where did I leave my enemies list...

[bacasper]

A Trampled-On Constitution

Once again the excesses of government and our insatiable need to control our neighbor�s lives and impose our morals and religious beliefs on our neighbors has reared its ugly head. Some members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or FLDS, may have violated the laws of the state of Texas. That point is conceded and has been from the start.

At issue here are the methods employed by the authorities in enforcing our State Laws. Questions arise at to the selective enforcement of certain laws. Also, in question are the rights granted to all citizens by the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

Firstly, let us examine the search and confiscation of certain records and equipment at the ranch. Our government (police) is obligated to investigate when any citizen complains of wrong doing or cries out for help. In this case the complaining victim has yet to be found. Not finding the complaining victim the police decided to search the entire ranch. This is the same as our police going to a domestic dispute and not finding the complaining victim at the address continue to search every house in a two or three block radius. Or the police receiving a complaint at a large apartment complex of someone selling drugs and they decide to search every apartment for drugs and/or drug paraphernalia. Of course, this could never happen in the United States. WAKE UP AMERICA, IT JUST DID.

Although the children are well cared for, the State decided that the children were at imminent risk of sexual abuse and placed ALL the children in State custody. The State concluded that girls as young as 13 were having sex with older men.

Thank God that only happens at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Never in the history of the United States has a girl younger than 18 had sex with an older man, except within the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

How I wish that were true! In my neck of the woods, girls 8 years old and up are sexually active. And by age 13 or so have a baby. Where is Child Protective Services then? Why are the mother�s of these sexually active girls allowed to continue to have custody of their other children. Are the brothers and sisters of these sexually active girls not equally at risk of sexual abuse. When certain women continue to have babies and every baby has a different father, are they required to submit to DNA testing to establish the father of the children? No. The State could care less who fathered those children.

The women and children of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been put through something that closely resembles the trials and tribulations of the Jews when they were sent to concentration camps in Germany. Their homes have been invaded and their babies have been torn from their arms, maybe never to be reunited again.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has in its power to change what is happening. If the only thing our society objects to is the age of the girls contracting spiritual matrimony, then let the girls contract spiritual matrimony at the age of 18. Case closed. If the objection is that men have more than one female. Then let�s apply the law equally. Any man or woman found to have sexual relations with more than one person in a one or two year (take your pick) period shall be guilty of bigamy. No more selective prosecution.

We used to be a nation of laws. I don�t know if I can say that anymore. The laws used to apply to every one. I don�t know if I can say that anymore. Everyone was equal under the law. I don�t know if I can say that anymore. The Constitution and the Bill Of Rights used to mean something. I don�t know if I can say that anymore.

What do I know? I only know what history has proven to me. History has shown that when one class of people lose a right, that same loss will eventually affect all classes. History has shown that a right once lost will never be regained without a struggle. History has shown us that people can only be controlled up to a point before they rebel. We have the power to keep our government on track. Let�s use it before it�s too late.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[bacasper]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[bacasper]

FLDS elder decries 'terrorist acts' in letter to Bush

May 12, 2008

(CNN) -- An elder of a polygamist sect has sent a letter to the White House decrying what he calls "terrorist acts" that have separated the sect's children from their parents.

The Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Texas, was raided last month by authorities acting on tips alleging physical and sexual abuse. The ranch is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a Mormon offshoot that practices polygamy.

Child welfare officials took more than 460 children and teens into state custody, where they remain.

Members of the sect deny allegations of abuse and say the raid was based on a hoax.

The letter to President Bush is signed by Willie Jessop, an FLDS elder.

"Mr. President, it does not require a foreign country to commit terrorist acts on American soil," the letter says. "Terrorist acts can be committed by federal, local, and private entities that are operating under the guise of 'protecting the public.' "

The letter says the April 3 raid on the compound was an "intrusive invasion" by "a heavily armed militant force."

"We are talking about homes being broken into without search warrants, unarmed fathers being forced to the ground with M16 rifles pointed at their heads, screaming children being torn from the arms of their grief-stricken mothers -- all upon American soil and within your own home state of Texas," the letter states.

The letter, dated May 10, says YFZ residents "submitted peacefully" when the April raid began. But the raid "quickly escalated into a systematic terrorization of every man, woman, and child, seemingly designed to provoke a confrontation justifying deadly force, as was used in Waco, Texas."

This is a reference a 1993 federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco. Four federal agents and six members died in a shootout during that raid. After a 51-day standoff, sect leader David Koresh and about 80 followers died when fire swept through the compound.

Jessop's letter to the White House calls the state's April raid "a result of a hoax perpetrated by anti-FLDS crusaders, alleging heinous abuse within the community had been committed" against a member named Sarah Jessop Barlow.

Authorities were informed before the raid that no person named Sarah Jessop Barlow resided at the ranch, the letter states. Despite that, it adds, officials carried out "this massive militant act."

Jessop's letter also condemns investigators' actions after the raid.

"The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services interrogated young ladies, using techniques that showed an appalling disregard for human rights as the young ladies were mocked, vulgarly cursed, and threatened.

"Some were repeatedly and unmercifully interrogated the entire night about issues, subjects, and persons of which they had no knowledge."

When mothers were ordered separated from their children, the letter adds, it represented "the ultimate deception."

"That vast Sports Arena burst into cries and wails of heartsick mothers and screams of terrified children as a vast cortege of attendants swarmed the arena, tearing screaming children from their weeping mothers and physically carrying them away," the letter states.

"All that was missing in this 'Colosseum' was the lions."

More at link

[bacasper]

Finally some sanity:

Texas seizure of polygamist-sect kids thrown out

By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer

SAN ANGELO, Texas - In a ruling that could torpedo the case against the West Texas polygamist sect, a state appeals court Thursday said authorities had no right to seize more than 440 children in a raid on the splinter group's compound last month.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.

It was not clear when the children � now scattered in foster homes across the state � might be returned to their parents. The ruling gave a lower-court judge 10 days to release the youngsters from custody, but the state could appeal to the Texas Supreme Court and block that.

The decision in one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history was a humiliating defeat for the state Child Protective Services agency. It was hailed as vindication by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who claimed they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

"It's a great day for Texas justice. This was the right decision," said Julie Balovich, a Legal Aid attorney for some of the parents. She was joined by several smiling mothers who declined to comment at a news conference outside the courthouse.

Sect elder Willie Jessop said the parents were elated, but added: "There will be no celebrations until some little children are getting hugs from their parents." He said his faith in the legal system will be restored "when I see the schoolyard full of children."

Every child at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado was taken into custody more than six weeks ago after someone called a hot line claiming to be a pregnant, abused teenage wife. The girl has not been found and authorities are investigating whether the calls were a hoax.

Child-protection officials argued that five girls at the ranch had become pregnant at 15 and 16 and that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex with older men and groomed boys to enter into such unions when they grew up.

But the appeals court said the state acted too hastily in sweeping up all the children and taking them away on an emergency basis without going to court first.

"Even if one views the FLDS belief system as creating a danger of sexual abuse by grooming boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and raising girls to be victims of sexual abuse ... there is no evidence that this danger is 'immediate' or 'urgent'," the court said.

"Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may someday have their physical health and safety threatened is not evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal."

The court said the state failed to show that any more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and offered no evidence of sexual or physical abuse against the other children. Half the youngsters taken from the ranch were 5 or younger. Only a few dozen are teenage girls.

The court also said the state was wrong to consider the entire ranch as a single household and to seize all the children on the grounds that some parents in the home might be abusers.

CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said department attorneys had not decided whether to appeal. "We are trying to assess the impact that this may have on our case," he said.

CPS's umbrella agency, the Department of Family and Protective Services, issued a statement defending the raid, saying it removed the children "after finding a pervasive pattern of sexual abuse that puts every child at the ranch at risk."

"Child Protective Services has one duty � to protect children. When we see evidence that children have been sexually abused and remain at risk of further abuse, we will act," the department said.

The decision technically applies to only 38 of the roughly 200 parents who challenged the seizure. But Balovich said she expected attorneys for all the other parents to seek to join the ruling.

Balovich said the court "has stood up for the legal rights of these families and given these mothers hope that their families will be brought back together."

Of the 31 people the state initially said were underage mothers, 15 have been reclassified as adults, and one is 27.

Five judges in San Angelo, about 40 miles north of Eldorado, have been holding hearings on what the parents must do to regain custody. Those hearings, which began Monday, were suspended after the ruling Thursday.

The custody case has been chaotic from the beginning. During the first round of hearings, held two weeks after the April 3 raid, hundreds of lawyers crammed into a courtroom and nearby auditorium, queuing up to voice objections or ask questions on behalf of the mothers who were there in their trademark prairie dresses and braided hair.

CPS has struggled for weeks to establish the identities of the children and sort out their tangled family relationships. The youngsters are in foster homes all over the sprawling state, with some brothers or sisters separated by as much as 600 miles.

[jkelly80]

[agentX]

Once again, Texas disappoints me.

How in the hell did they decide that the "state was wrong to consider the entire ranch as a single household "

Look at it!



It's on flippin' building! and it sure as hell ain't an apartment complex!

What, does the father have to be standing over one of the girls with a dildo in hand before the state will act? Because in Texas they get all uppity over sex toys, but hey, stacking 400+ kids in one household, that's supposed to be OK?

Once the kids are back, these fruit-loops will probably wall themselves up further and if another incident occurs, Texas will have another Waco on their hands.

[ontheway]

OK. Look at the picture. How much of that is the ranch? All of it plus more that is not in the picture? Isn't it quite a large place with scores of separate buildings?

The fascist state didn't raid a single building where someone was in danger.

They raided a whole town and attacked the innocent, violating the constitution and the natural rights of every human being present without any evidence of any crime. They have been trying ever since to manufacture some evidence to give themselves an excuse for their actions.


The logic and reasoning of the perpetrators of this attack and of those who support such abusive totalitarian state actions is the same as the logic and reasoning of both Hitler and Stalin and their supporters, past and present. The terrorism practiced by the state in this case is just as evil as any attack by any rapist or murderer. The state is the criminal.



Liberty or Statism:

There is no middle ground.

[Pluto]

[ontheway]

I was quite happy to see the court ruling. The actions of the state in this case were so egregious that the courts could only fail to rule against the state if they were themselves being coerced in some way. The state officials who authorized and conducted the raids should be arrested and jailed for civil rights violations of the parents and especially the children.

The founders were quite right in trying to limit the powers of the government and sometimes the "checks and balances" are still able to limit the actions of the executive and legislative branches.

But the courts should have stricken down nearly every law, tax and program ever passed throughout American history as there is very little the government does at any level that is not patently unconstitutional, harmful to the peace and prosperity of the individual citizens, and does not violate the basic principles of liberty.

[jkelly80]

[Zaria32]

The photo earlier in this thread shows a small part of the "ranch," which is a total of 1700 acres. There were many hundreds of buildings and many, many homes...it's not one huge room or building in which they all lived.

The comments relative to boys as young as 13 being thrust out on their own is inappropriate, as no allegation of anything even close to this has been made about this group. To use it as reason for what happened in Texas is no different than sayding because someone two states over killed someone with a shovel, all people possessing shovels are in danger of killing someone.

Although I find their lifestyle abhorrent, I don't see that the abuse of underage girls (and apparently this rarely, rather than frequently, happens) through forced marriage means that there is "imminent danger" of physical abuse to 1) boys, and 2) girls who are, say, 6 months or 3 years old. There's been zero evidence of any sort of child abuse other than the forced "marriage." But it was this "imminent" danger that the state of Texas used to seize more than 400 children.

Texas child welfare workers also, for weeks, refused to accept certified documents such as birth certificates, and commonly accepted documents such as driver's licenses, as proof of the age of some of the "underage" wives who turned out to be as old as 27. And in response to what someone else wrote...no, if the girl is underage or not, there are no marriage certificates as the "spiritual" marriage of this group is not a legal marriage in Texas. However, all of the children have valid Texas birth certificates.

To separate nursing babies of 6 or 7 months from their mothers, and place them as far as 9 hours driving time (Texas is a very big state) from the forced location of the mother (I mean forced in the sense that the mother is told "you will stay in this place or we won't permit you to visit your baby") is abusive on the part of the state. One woman had 8 children, and they were placed in 8 different homes, so far apart that it took her many days to visit them all. Again, Texas is a very big state.

I've lived in many states, including California, Montana, South Carolina, North Carolina, New York, and 13 years in Texas. I've never lived anywhere that treated citizens of the state in as high-handed a manner as does Texas.

I would use small examples as well as large ones such as the current situation to demonstrate what I mean ... 1) one might think it a ticketable offense to park too far from the curb in a residential area, but two friends, in different cities and some years apart, had their cars towed for this reason...one was told her car was 1/2 inch too far from the curb...and both had to spend more than $500 to retrieve their cars... 2) a person who brought suit against his city because animal control routinely left dogs and cats they had picked up in the truck for over 8 hours, sometimes resulting in the death of all animals in the truck (Texas is hot in the summer) was assessed court costs and a special fine totalling over $15,000 when the judge ruled in favor of the city, saying that the fine was for "daring to object to the working of the government." Although an appellate court reversed the fine, it was representative of attitude. Yes, people shouldn't let their pets run free, but that's not the point, is it?

Again, I find the lifestyle of this religious group abhorrent, but absent the apparently much exaggerated incidence of forced early marriage, there is absolutely nothing that has been alleged against them ... certainly not any other form of child abuse, of either small children, boys etc.

And yes I do indeed believe the leaders/those involved in forced early marriage should be charged, tried, and if juries agree with the prosecutor, convicted and punished.

I agree that forced DNA testing, banned in virtually all circumstances except incarcerated prisoners, is completely inappropriate. Why are these people any more inherently likely to lie about the parentage of a child than anyone else? (And no one has alleged that a single one of them has lied about this, only that they "probably are.")

However, I believe that members of this organization have the right to pursue and live life according to their beliefs... I believe that the seizing of the great majority of these children is abuse on the part of the state.