Articles labeled: YFZ ranch

Texas Child Protective Services has petitioned the court to get 8 children they were forced to return to a polygamist sect back into state custody.

In affidavits that provide the best view yet of what CPS has found in its investigation of possible sexual abuse of young teenage girls, four child-abuse investigators said removal of six girls and two boys, ages 5 to 17, are necessary because their mothers won’t agree to keep them away from men practicing and promoting underage marriage.

The affidavits reveal stories that are sad and dismaying.

A 10-year-old girl told CPS investigator Kerrie Blair that she was brought to the sect’s West Texas ranch in the middle of the night more than two years ago. She and a younger sister lived there with Bishop Merril Jessop and his wife, Barbara. The two girls haven’t seen their 41-year-old birth mother since coming to Texas, Ms. Blair said.

Parents are being reunited with their children that were taken from Warren Jeffs’ polygamist sect, after a Texas judge ordered that the removal of the children was improper. And in order to keep further heat off them, the sect’s leaders have now outlawed underage marriage within their ranks. How nice, since the state of Texas had already outlawed it for them…

Late Monday, Willie Jessop, an elder for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, said the church won’t allow underage girls to marry. Jessop told the AP the new policy will forbid any girl to marry who is not of legal consent age in the state where she lives.

Jessop said the church has been widely misunderstood, but he said the church will not sanction marriages of underage girls and will counsel members against such unions. He insisted marriages within the church have always been consensual.

Earlier, Texas District Judge Barbara Walther, responding to a state Supreme Court ruling last week, signed an order filed by attorneys for the parents and Child Protective Services, allowing the parents to begin picking their children up from foster care facilities around the state almost immediately.

Texas officials have told the mothers of the children rescued from a polygamist sect that they need to abandon some of their religious teachings or they will lose custody of their kids.

Some lawyers believe this could mean women would never be able to return to the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, and would have to choose between some of their beliefs and their children.

But other experts said adults who have tolerated underage “marriages” of girls to older men and apparently have cast out teenage boys might have forfeited all rights to raise their children – and are lucky to be given a shot at regaining their youngsters.

In advance of court hearings that begin Monday, Child Protective Services has drafted 10 goals and 14 tasks that parents will have to work toward to regain custody of their children.

At least nine of the children taken from Warren Jeff’s polygamist sect have needed hospital care since taken into protective custody, and the children’s mothers are none too happy that they have not been informed of why, or how their kids are doing.

“We can’t seem to get anyone on the phone with authority to make that happen and the mothers don’t even know the seriousness of the situation,” said Amanda Chisholm, a TRLA attorney.

The legal aid society, which represents 48 mothers, said one 2-year-old child lost a severe amount of weight while staying at the San Angelo Coliseum.

TRLA said the organization was told two days ago that the child was in shock and lethargic, but has received no new information since then about where the child is or regarding her current health situation.

The mother is not being allowed to be with this child or her other nursing children, Chisholm said.

Texas state authorities are going to begin DNA tests on the children rescued from the Warren Jeff’s polygamist sect a few weeks ago, in order to determine who their mothers are, and more importantly, to then determine if those women were underage when they gave birth.

“It is a cheek swab and it is very non-invasive,” said Patrick Crimmins of the Texas Department of Children and Family Services of the tests.

A judge on Friday ordered the tests to determine parentage and relationships within the community. Meanwhile, the children must remain in the department’s custody.

Crimmins said the DNA testing will continue for several days. For the tests to be useful, the adults would also have to give DNA samples. However they can legally refuse to do so which could complicate matters further and delay legal decisions about the fate of the children.

The count of children removed from Warren Jeff’s polygamous sect compound has risen to over 400, and stories are starting to come out that life wasn’t exactly some idyllic religious experience there. Rather, many of the women and children that lived on the sprawling Texas ranch may have stayed out of fear of punishment, or even death:

he 16-year-old girl whose call for help sparked a massive raid at a polygamous sect’s compound in west Texas said her spiritual husband would “beat and hurt” her whenever he got angry - sometimes choking her and once breaking her ribs.

During these attacks, another woman in the home held her infant child, the girl said in March 29 calls to an unnamed family violence shelter.

The new details about the call that led to an unprecedented evacuation of children from the sect’s YFZ Ranch near Eldorado are laid out in a chilling affidavit released Tuesday by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

Jeeze,, what took so long?

Isn’t Warren Jeff’s brand of religion just an excuse to try to find a loophole for pedophilia?

ELDORADO, Texas (CNN) — Authorities say they removed 52 children, ages 6 months to 17 years, from a West Texas ranch occupied by followers of imprisoned polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs

Eighteen girls have been placed in the temporary custody of the state under a court order, said Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

Authorities said they continue to search the 1,900-acre YFZ ranch, and at least one suspect is being sought by police.

Meisner said troopers and child welfare officials arrived at the secluded ranch Thursday evening with arrest and search warrants. They were responding to a report of “physical abuse” and neglect involving a 16-year-old girl.

Another Child Protective Services spokesman, Darrell Azar, said the 18 girls were placed in state custody because it appeared they “had been abused or were at immediate risk of future abuse.”