FLDS criminal cases building

SAN ANGELO, Texas — While the custody fight for the hundreds of children seized from the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch has devolved into legal chaos, a criminal probe is quietly moving forward.

"The investigation is continuing," Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said in an e-mail to the Deseret News. "When we have completed our investigation, we will present our case report to the prosecutors for their action."

An Austin appellate court's ruling that Texas child welfare authorities overstepped their authority in removing all of the children from the FLDS property has no bearing on the law enforcement investigation, Mange said. More than 400 boxes of evidence taken under the search warrants that were executed in the early days of the raid are still being examined.

Utah and Arizona authorities remain hopeful that they may be able to see some of that evidence to assist in their ongoing criminal probes into the FLDS Church and its leader, Warren Jeffs.

"We know there's going to be all kinds of stuff," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff told the Deseret News on Monday. "The photographs, I think, are just the beginning."

Shurtleff was referring to a series of bombshell photos put into evidence during a custody hearing on Friday that show Jeffs kissing what Texas Child Protective Services lawyers said was a 12-year-old girl "how a husband kisses a wife." That hearing resumes here today.

A handwritten note on the photos indicates they were taken in July 2006, a month before Jeffs was arrested outside Las Vegas. Jeffs was later convicted in Utah of rape as an accomplice for performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.

In Arizona, Jeffs is facing charges of sexual misconduct and incest as an accomplice. He is also facing a federal grand jury indictment for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, stemming from his time on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

During a court hearing for Jeffs in Kingman, Ariz., earlier this month, the Arizona Attorney General's Office raised the possibility that evidence seized from the raid on the YFZ Ranch might be used to pursue evidence against him.

"We have not yet provided anything to out-of-state investigators but expect that we will," Mange wrote.