Shurtleff skips meeting with FLDS leader

Mark Shurtleff's absence from a scheduled meeting between a leader in the Fundamentalist LDS Church and the Utah Attorney General's Office was conspicuous to at least one participant.

"There were some very good people at that meeting, but Mark Shurtleff didn't bother showing up," said FLDS member Willie Jessop. "Making a relationship work can't be one-sided. It's pretty shortsighted if it's always all the other guy's fault."

Chief Deputy Kirk Torgensen and several other representatives of the Attorney General's Office met with Jessop on Thursday in Salt Lake City. Torgensen said the fact that Shurtleff wasn't at the meeting was "appropriate."

"At this point I think it's appropriate for Willie Jessop to be talking to me. That's all I want to say," Torgensen said on Friday.

Jessop traveled to Utah from Texas, where he has been serving as spokesman for the polygamous sect since Texas authorities raided the group's Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado.

"Of course, I hoped that Mark Shurtleff would be there. Part of the reason why the governor's office helped set up this meeting was for us to talk to Utah officials about how our people felt about the raid in Texas. A lot of them felt like it happened because of the tainted, bad information Utah provided," Jessop said.

Texas authorities raided the ranch in early April, eventually removing more than 450 children after a judge ruled there was reason to believe each child was in danger of abuse. Two higher Texas courts eventually overruled the district judge, who was then forced to send the children home to parents with some restrictions.

The raid, which garnered worldwide attention, involved dozens of law enforcement officers and Child Protective Services agents. An armored personnel carrier, SWAT teams, automatic weapons and a helicopter were used in the raid, which lasted over a three-day period.

"Utah has said that they would never do to us what Texas has done," said Jessop. "But where did this paranoia start? At Warren Jeffs' trial, they profiled us and made us out to be demons. All we did was show up to a court hearing."

He was referring to a Deseret News report earlier this week about dossiers of himself and 15 other FLDS men and women deemed a threat by the Washington County Sheriff's Office. The profiles were sent to Texas officials in April. Some of the information came from intelligence gathered at the Jeffs trial last year in St. George.