by Warlock 44 Replies latest watchtower scandals
I hope that the Texas authorities have their ducks in a row and can make the charges stick and clean up the FDLS compound. Every day that goes by with those kids still in custody supports that there is evidence of wrong-doing.
Bullshit.
Well, no, because testing a mother's DNA wouldn't tell the state who the father is.
Excuse me. I forgot how precise we have to be on this site. I should have said test the CHILD of the mother.
Warlock
who da fk said that ???
By MICHELLE ROBERTS – 2 hours ago
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — More than half the teenage girls taken from a polygamist compound in west Texas have children or are pregnant, state officials said Monday.
A total of 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 are in state custody after a raid 3 1/2 weeks ago at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado. Of those girls, 31 either have children or are pregnant, said Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar. He didn't specify how many are pregnant.
"It shows you a pretty distinct pattern, that it was pretty pervasive," he said.
State officials took custody of all 463 children at the ranch controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, saying a pattern of teen girls forced into underage "spiritual" marriages and sex with much older men created an unsafe environment for the sect's children.
Under Texas law, children under the age of 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult. A girl can get married with parental permission at 16, but none of these girls is believed to have a legal marriage under state law.
State officials said earlier that they had found girls who were pregnant or had children of their own at the ranch, but they had not provided more than rough estimates until Monday.
Church officials have denied that any children were abused at the ranch and say the state's actions are a form of religious persecution.
FLDS spokesman Rod Parker said he does not believe the CPS count is accurate. He said that from talking to ranch residents, he believes at least 17 of the girls may actually be adults but have been labeled by CPS as minors.
Agency officials have called into question claims of adulthood among the girls since the raid and have in some cases disputed documentation provided, saying the girls look younger than 18. Because many FLDS members share similar names and have complicated family relationships, identifying all of the children taken into custody has been a challenge.
"I do have serious questions about how they are determining age in there," said Parker, who is trying to get a better count from FLDS families.
He noted though that since law enforcement confiscated every document that might show family relationships as part of its weeklong raid, the sect is at a disadvantage in proving names and ages.
The latest information from CPS comes with "absolutely nothing to back it up other than it's coming from them, and they think we should trust them," Parker said.
All the children are supposed to get individual hearings before June 5 to help determine whether they'll stay in state custody or that parents may be able to take steps to regain custody of their children.
Civil-liberties groups and lawyers for the children have criticized the state for sweeping all the children, from nursing infants to teen boys, into foster care when only teen girls are alleged to have been sexually abused.
No one has been charged since the raid, which was prompted by a series of calls to a domestic abuse hotline, purportedly from a 16-year-old forced into a marriage recognized only by the sect with a man three times her age. That girl has not been found and authorities are investigating whether the call was a hoax.
On Monday, CPS also revised its total count of children in state custody to 463, up one from Friday. Azar said the change resulted from finally getting the children out of the San Angelo Coliseum and into foster facilities around the state, where they were able to get a more accurate count.
Of those 463 children, 250 are girls and 213 are boys. Children 13 and younger are about evenly split — 197 girls and 196 boys — but there are only 17 boys aged 14 to 17 compared with the 53 girls in that age range.
Azar said the numbers could still change slightly because authorities have not seen documentation on all the children and have struggled to positively identify everyone.
On Monday, all were assigned caseworkers, who will work only on FLDS cases.
The sect, which broke from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints more than a century ago, believes polygamy brings glorification in heaven. Its leader, Warren Jeffs, is revered as a prophet. Jeffs was convicted last year in Utah of forcing a 14-year-old girl into marriage with an older cousin.
Ummmmm......Warlock......do you have a dog in this fight?
By the way, how are YOU?
Warlock
Geeeezzzz, thanks for asking. Don't get all freaking grumpy and sideways on me......you know what happens then!!
I'm good, busy, busy at work!! Got a promotion!! Grandkids, and the damn werewolf game is driving me nuts. Come to think, you'd make a fine werewolf!!
Did you forget how to use email??? Or pm's????
Get your head out of you a$$!!
OH, love ya!
shell
I'm w/BusyBee.
We have all BEEN in a cult. We know how much children in a cult are allowed to express themselves or have any autonomy w/o consequences? Those girls didn't have freedom to CHOOSE to be mothers when they were teenagers. They didn't even choose to marry or have sex. 10% nearly of the children found (I heard 30) were pregnant. Are any of you imagining this is some Juno/Murphy Brown/knocked up scenario? Living on a 'compound', raising MORE children to follow in their footsteps cause that is all they know.
Sure, the little boys and girls weren't 'abused'-seems like men mostly come there to impregnate women, and most women do not ritually abuse children for kicks. They were raising the boys to BE abusers, and the little girls were only safe until they were 'not so little girls'. 11-13, then they are eligible for marriage. To whomever the church leadership or their fathers give them to.
I think they had probable cause to go in, and a ranch full of pregnant teenage girls/mothers and others who won't give you straight answers about husbands/fathers, etc are not anything to just ignore. This will all have some fallout, and it may not all be positive for the state of Texas, and it will likely further harm (no matter what specifically happens)the church. Some of those girls are safe now and will NOT have to return to that-but most probably will if given permission-same reason why there are many JWs here that have not broken away yet. These are children who really have NO where else to go (family/community wise) My worry is that some little children, who have loving mothers, are probably going to be traumatized to be separated from them-even if they have perfect(ha!) foster care. They don't know that they are being raised for abuse,they have a little child's perspective. But many of the older girls are probably relieved and hopeful right now.
I attended the hearing.
I represent (by the state's order) two of the 'children w/ children'.
There was evidence of abuse presented.
Ummmmm......Warlock......do you have a dog in this fight?
No, but when someone can make a bogus phone call, and trigger something like this, don't you see a problem here?
To me, that is the main issue.
Am I wrong?
Warlock
Warlock, I was thinking if I was a neighbor of a crackhouse, or what I thought was a crackhouse or methlab....a place that can ruin peoples lives......and I called as a frustrated neighbor, I would get nada. But if I called the cops and said someone had been shot there, or a girl was being held against her will????..........you figure....................oompa
CNN) -- One of the telephone numbers used to report claims of abuse at a polygamist sect's Texas ranch was previously associated with a Colorado woman whom authorities have named a "person of interest," a court document says.
Rozita Swinton, 33, has been arrested in a case that is not directly related to the Texas raid.
The telephone calls in late March prompted authorities to raid the Yearning For Zion (YFZ) Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, where 437 children were removed.
The ranch is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon offshoot that practices polygamy.
Rozita Swinton, 33, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, was arrested this month on a charge of making a false report to police.
The charge relates to an incident in February, but the Texas Rangers have said she is a person of interest in connection with the ranch calls.
In the February incident, Swinton is accused of calling authorities using the names "Dana Anderson" and "April," reporting abuse by male relatives, according to an affidavit in support of an arrest warrant.
Authorities have not clearly said that they think Swinton made the March phone calls that prompted the raid. But the affidavit says she is "known to make false reports of sexual abuse to the police and other agencies." Watch how a hoax may be behind the ranch mystery »
Calls were made to a Texas family shelter March 29 and 30 from a female identifying herself as Sarah Barlow, the affidavit says.
The caller said she was 16, had a baby about 8 months old and was pregnant again. She said that her 49-year-old husband was physically and sexually abusive toward her and that they were living at the YFZ Ranch.
The phone calls were made from a prepaid cell phone with no available records, according to the affidavit. However, it has been used in other cases linked to Swinton, the document says.
Although Texas officials said they have not found the woman who made the calls, they said they have found evidence that girls as young at 13 are forced into marriages with older men at the ranch.
The FLDS has denied that any abuse takes place at the ranch.
The woman identifying herself as Sarah Barlow also called a battered women's shelter in Snohomish County, Washington, using another phone number, the affidavit says.
That phone number was traced to Swinton's address, the affidavit says.
On April 10, the woman called the Washington shelter again and was put on the line with a Texas deputy. She said she felt that she would be punished for the trouble she had caused, was worried that her baby might be taken away and was angry with a woman she had contacted March 29 for prompting the raid by law enforcement.
During that conversation, the affidavit says, the woman used terminology common to the FLDS, referring to her "sister wives," for instance.
The phone number used in the Washington call was traced to the Colorado Springs apartment where Swinton lives, the affidavit says. The number was also used to call a Utah organization for women escaping polygamy and an abuse counseling center in Fort Myers, Florida, phone records showed.
Swinton pleaded guilty to a charge of false reporting in June 2007 and was under a 12-month deferred sentence, the affidavit says.
At a custody hearing last week, a Texas judge ruled that the state will temporarily retain custody of the 437 children removed in the raid.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening, laboratory workers at San Angelo Coliseum completed taking DNA samples from mothers and children, said Janice Rolfe, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office.
She did not say how many samples were taken.
About 100 of the seized children from whom swab DNA samples had already been taken were bused Tuesday from the San Angelo Coliseum to group foster homes, the Texas Department of Health and Family Services said.
On Wednesday, workers in Eldorado continued to take voluntary DNA samples from adults who live on the YFZ Ranch, Rolfe said.
Rolfe said that at least 54 samples from adults have been taken there.
The DNA samples will be sent to Laboratory Corporation of America, based in Burlington, North Carolina. It could take longer than a month to get results.
Judge Barbara Walther, who last week ordered the DNA testing of the children and ordered that they remain in state custody, signed an order this week authorizing the children's move to foster care, officials said.
At a meeting Wednesday afternoon, Walther and the state's Child Protective Services Division agreed that 18 mothers with breast-feeding babies that are 1 year old or younger will be allowed to stay with their children in the homes where the children are placed.
Also, 23 mothers with 28 children ages 1 to 2 years will be allowed to stay in the same towns as their children.
The remaining children, 2 to 18 years old, will be split up into available homes.
The original order signed by Walther called for every effort to keep siblings together, especially in the case of small children.
Rod Parker, a spokesman for the FLDS families, blasted the action in a news conference from his Salt Lake City, Utah, office.
"The CPS department of Texas is afraid of due process," he said. "They would lose in a fair fight in this case, and that is why you're seeing them move so quickly, and that is why you're seeing them move unilaterally."
He said the court ignored motions asking that the children be placed with their relatives.
The FLDS launched a Web site this week to promote its side of the issue. The site, captivefldschildren.com, contains photos and videos taken inside the ranch during the raid.
The site says donations are needed to help cover the "massive litigation costs associated with these lawsuits."
A link on the Web site allows online donations. E-mail to a friend
CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen and journalist Cheryl Getty contributed to this report.
