The two affidavits recite the original claims of CPS, including the phone calls from "S.J." to a San Angelo, Texas, family crisis shelter. It states that CPS quickly determined that her purported husband, Dale Barlow, pleaded no contest to criminal charges in Arizona accusing him of a purported marriage to a minor and he was sentenced to jail time, probation and is a registered sex offender.

CPS caseworker Ruby Gutierrez wrote in the affidavits that during a March 30 conversation, "Sarah" said her parents in Colorado City, Ariz., "were preparing to send her 15-year-old sister to live at the YFZ Ranch." "At the conclusion of this conversation 'S.J.' began crying and then stated that she is happy and fine and does not want to get into trouble and that everything she had previously said should be forgotten," Gutierrez wrote.

In an affidavit filed two days after the raid began, Gutierrez wrote that while on the ranch, child welfare caseworkers observed "a number of young teenaged girls who appeared to be pregnant, as well as several teenaged girls who reported to the Department that they have already given birth and have their own infants," she wrote. "It appears that the culture and moral climate at the ranch is one in which young girls are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch. The Department has also been advised that children at the ranch are deprived of nutrition as a method of punishment, as well as being forced to sit in closed closets as a method of punishment," Gutierrez wrote, adding that children questioned were unable to give them their parents' names or their own birth dates.

The affidavits prompted a Texas judge to order the removal of all of the children. However, the 439 children were returned two months later when two Texas appellate courts ruled the state acted improperly, and there was no evidence the children were at immediate risk of abuse.

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com