FLDS members fear possibility of a second raid

ELDORADO, Texas — The wind whipped across the prairie as Fundamentalist LDS Church member Willie Jessop stood at the gate, facing off against child welfare workers who were seeking to be let onto the sprawling YFZ Ranch.

Texas officials wanted to search the ranch for more children believed to be on the polygamous sect's property in the aftermath of a raid that resulted in more than 450 children in state protective custody. The FLDS denied them access to the ranch without a search warrant.

"The people they are looking for, I cannot produce because they don't exist," Jessop said Wednesday. "They assured me that they do exist. If they bring in their heavy law enforcement and raid us again, there's nothing I can do to stop it."

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services said it had information that there were more children at the ranch, despite a judge's order that removed all of the children.

"We're going to check it out and see. That's all we can do at this point," said Texas CPS spokeswoman Shari Pulliam.

Confrontation

Jessop and other FLDS men bolted from the courthouse in San Angelo — 45 miles away — when they received word that CPS workers had showed up at the ranch gate. The men were in court for another day of status hearings to determine whether the hundreds of children taken from the ranch will eventually be returned to their parents.

When CPS workers walked up to the gate, they were turned away.

"They said they were just looking for more children is all," said FLDS member Guy Jessop, who was standing inside the gate. "I told them there was none here."

Without a search warrant, they were turned away.

"If they get a warrant, we'll look at what it says and what it's about," said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney acting as a spokesman for the FLDS Church.

Willie Jessop said he met with CPS workers and Schleicher County sheriff's deputies in Eldorado, who told him they were looking for as many as five children, ages 15 and younger. An eyewitness, CPS workers claimed, put them on the ranch.

"I asked them if they got their information from the same source as the last one," Jessop said, referring to the call that sparked the April 3 raid, now under investigation by Texas authorities as a possible hoax. "They assured me that was not their source. Our skepticism is, it probably was."