From Deseret News archives:

Texas widens FLDS probe

Rangers investigating 20 cases of sex abuse, 50 bigamy counts

Published: Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008 12:18 a.m. MDT
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"We don't really know what they are up to," Parker said. "They don't tell us. We just take it as it comes."

Child welfare authorities and law enforcement raided the YFZ Ranch on April 3 after a phone call from someone claiming to be a pregnant 16-year-old in an abusive marriage to an older man. On site, authorities said they saw other signs of abuse, prompting a judge to order the removal of all the children.

The ranch's 440 children were ultimately returned to their families when two Texas courts ruled the state acted improperly and that the children were not in imminent danger of abuse. The original calls that sparked the raid are still being investigated as a hoax.

Hundreds of boxes of evidence were seized from the ranch, including diaries, photographs, thousands of pages of dictations by Jeffs and other FLDS records. Evidence from the case is so plentiful that the conference room at the Texas Department of Public Safety's San Angelo office was converted into an evidence locker.

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"The room is almost filled up," Ray Coffman, chief of the Texas Rangers, wrote in an e-mail obtained by the Deseret News through Texas public records laws. He also said all financial records and computers were released to the FBI for its case against the FLDS Church.


E-mail: ldethman@desnews.com

Recent comments


Well gramps..........the military gets a pass on a lot of things...

zxcvbnm | Aug. 15, 2008 at 3:40 p.m.

and I "laugh my hiney off" when people say it IS about religion and...

realitycheck | Aug. 15, 2008 at 3:34 p.m.

Uhm, zxcvbnm, sorry, but must correct one thing. Adultery is still a...

Grandpa Phil | Aug. 15, 2008 at 11:35 a.m.

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