52 Girls Removed from Mormon Sect's Ranch in TX
NYT - April 5, 2008
HOUSTON — Responding to an accusation of sexual abuse of a 16-year-old girl, Texas enforcement officers and child welfare investigators raided a West Texas ranch founded by the convicted polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs and removed 52 children, officials said
Officers shown in Eldorado, Tex. A nearby ranch was raided in response to an accusation of sexual abuse of a 16-year-old girl.
The authorities escorted buses on Friday from the West Texas ranch founded by Warren Jeffs, a convicted polygamist sect leader.
All were girls. Eighteen of the children, ages 6 months to 17 years, were believed to have been abused or at risk of abuse and were placed in foster care by Child Protective Services, said Darrell Azar, communications manager for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. Thirty-four were taken to a nearby civic center for questioning, Mr. Azar said.
There were no immediate arrests and no resistance, officials said. But state troopers, Texas Rangers and other investigators with search and arrest warrants late Friday were still inside the 1,700-acre compound, the Yearning for Zion Ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect. The compound is in Eldorado, roughly 160 miles northwest of San Antonio.
An armored police vehicle stood by in case officers had to be evacuated quickly. Roads to the compound were sealed off by police roadblocks.
Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said an undisclosed number of people, but fewer than 10, were named in the arrest warrants. Investigators with the department, Ms. Mange said, “were able to talk to the folks they wanted to talk to.”
Mr. Azar said the raid, which began late Thursday, stemmed from a complaint to child and family services on Monday that a 16-year-old girl at the ranch had been sexually and physically abused. On Friday, he said, child welfare investigators workers “legally removed” 18 girls and transported 34 for questioning to the civic center.
“We haven’t talked to any boys yet,” he said. “We will be interviewing boys, too.”
Mr. Azar said the girls were removed “because we had reason to believe they had been abused or were at immediate risk of future abuse.”
The ranch was built in 2003 by followers of Mr. Jeffs, who was sentenced last November in Utah to 10 years to life in prison for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her 19-year-old cousin and to submit to sexual relations against her will. Mr. Jeffs is in jail in Arizona awaiting trial on separate rape charges involving the arranged marriages of two teenage girls to older relatives.
Local authorities monitored the compound over the years. But aside from a few traffic tickets, there were no problems with sect members, said Raymond Loomis, the Schleicher County attorney.
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — with an estimated 10,000 members in the West — split from the mainstream Mormon Church after church leaders in 1890 repudiated the polygamy prescribed by its founding prophet, Joseph Smith, and excommunicated members practicing plural marriage. The breakaway group continued to teach that a man must have three wives to reach heaven’s highest realms.
Mr. Azar said religion and lifestyle played no part in the action. “Our only interest,” he said, “is in protecting children from abuse and neglect.”
52 Girls Removed from Polygamist Ranch in TX
