| Tax dollars help FLDS 'lifestyle' | |
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By Lise Lieder Miller Special to the Current West Kerr Current - Ingram, Texas | |
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of a two-part account of the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado, less than 125 miles from Ingram. It was the site of an extraordinary raid by Texas authorities in early April in the wake of complaints about sexual and physical abuse of children. The polygamist communities are pros at working the system. Colorado City, Ariz., the stronghold of Warren Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), got $2 million from the federal government to pave streets and $2.8 million to build an airport that only Jeffs and his members can afford to use. Throw in another million dollars from Block Grants (Community Development /Homeland Security) and you see how taxes are actually supporting their "lifestyle" or improving their polygamist communities. In a 1998 article, Dan Barlow, the ex-mayor of Colorado City, "conceded that government aid has made a better lifestyle possible for many polygamous families." He thinks taking food stamps or WIC is "simply the American thing to do." The practice of getting government assistance is referred to as Bleeding the Beast. FLDS broke way from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), based in Salt Lake City, Utah. FLDS members practice plural marriage, which LDS abandoned in 1890. The Yearning For Zion families were not on welfare; they lived off the labor of Colorado City and Hildale members, plus the $1,000 per month per man tithes convicted pedophile Jeffs (self-proclaimed FLDS prophet) ordered as they admirably tried to make the ranch self-sufficient. The FLDS twin cities (Colorado City and Hildale) had a 70 percent food stamp rate in 2005 and 40 percent welfare rate compared to 2 percent for similar-sized towns in Arizona. Some polygamist men duped the system by having "single" mothers of their offspring claim ignorance of parentage. A father is financially responsible by law for all offspring. Would million dollar homes remain affordable if each man paid child support for all his children? The Bishop's List of YFZ shows one man fathered 36 children. Thousands of FLDS mothers claim "father unknown" to get support. Tom Green became the only recent polygamist convicted of non-support of his children in 2002. Exiled teens find getting public assistance difficult. Lost Boy Gideon Barlow tried to obtain Medicaid and learned his 73-year-old father was drawing Social Security in Gideon's name. Green's dependents drew more than $647,000 in the decade before his incarceration. Green bragged on TV talk shows that he married all 10 wives as minors. One girl was only 13 when he impregnated her; her mother was one of Green's wives, making Green her father. Incest increases birth defects and the cost of public assistance to the Arizona Strip, according to the Phoenix New Times. In 2005, Arizona spent more than $12 million a year on indigent healthcare for Ingram-sized C-City. Arizona provided health services for FLDS Fumarase-deficient victims for 15 years. Now retired Arizona neurologist Dr. Tarby estimates the number of Fumarase deficient could rise to hundreds if FLDS marriage practices continue. Dr. Tarby tried explains the 1 in 4 likelihood of the severe genetic defect if both parents carry the gene. A compelling interest in public health is why laws against marrying relatives exist. After the state took over the United Effort Plan Trust, Jeffs sold off some UEP properties, leaving families as tenants on their ancestral homes and evicting others. When the trust quit even making payments on the city electric power plant, the financial shell game Jeffs played became obvious. These communities were sucked dry, leaving governments flat broke. Jeffs and his elite lived in comfort on the backs of FLDS shut out of Zion The Salt Lake City Tribune reported that in 2002, residents of Hildale, Utah - part of the Utah-Arizona border area with Colorado City - received Medicaid benefits at 10 times the normal rate. Food stamp usage in Colorado City in 2003 was 80 percent. Cash assistance payments and $5 million in free "indigent" healthcare meant the community raked in $8 million a year while paying only $72,000 in taxes. Shady finances and wasted Public Funds The polygamist Kingston Clan, an FLDS splinter group, invested in bars despite alcohol being forbidden to FLDS. Kingston’s illegal video poker and slot machine business was tied to organized crime, according to Denver's Rocky Mountain News. The Colorado City Unified School District has 289 students but employed 104 workers, or one worker for every 2.7 students. The 2004-05 budget was $6,794,474 for a staff of 123 (food service, custodial, bus drivers not included) or more than $19,800 per student. Each administration worker was FLDS although they no longer send their children to public school. Most teachers were not FLDS and none of the students was FLDS. The district spent $220,000 of tax dollars on a Cessna airplane, owned 18 vehicles and 50 credit cards. The administration failed to report tax-funded expenditures to the state. State-controlled receivership resulted in May of 2005 when teachers' paychecks bounced. FLDS bus drivers were paid more than non-FLDS teachers. The state spent $1.3 million to bail out the district and keep the public schools afloat. The state receiver ordered the plane, 10 excess vehicles and other property sold around the same time Jeffs was indicted on the accomplice to rape and other charges that have so far earned him 10 years in Utah prison. The Cessna was rumored to fly underage girls out to other child bride communities. When authorities came to sell the plane, it and Warren Jeffs had vanished. NewEra Manufacturing, an FLDS construction company pays very low wages because all the workers are FLDS men serving the church. NewEra got several defense contracts by underbidding other companies who must pay competitive wages and benefits to get and retain workers. FLDS's Paragon Contractors in Utah and R&W Excavating in Arizona have both been cited repeatedly for child labor violations. A pair of sect-affiliated companies, JNJ Engineering Construction and Paragon T Contractors, filed in May to do business in Texas. Another FLDS company in Lockney, Techsun, has gotten a government contract for work near San Angelo. Tax dollars support the polygamist life even as laws are broken. When the Utah's comptroller took over the UEP Trust assets and Jeffs' were frozen. FLDS workers dismantled several buildings like the grain elevator, machine shop and feed store. The dismantled structures were relocated or sold against court order. The furnishings and fixtures had evidently been previously stripped. Tractors, 18-wheelers and other vehicles disappeared under cover of darkness. To recap, the FLDS church flagrantly ignores laws prohibiting sex with minors, repeatedly lies to officials, mismanaged public funds, dumped raw sewage into dry creek beds, refused to follow reasonable requirements for legal marriage for 16 year olds and counseled innocent children to lie about their fathers and ages so the men could avoid prosecution or financial responsibility. Warren Jeffs has been convicted of accomplice to rape and accused by at least three adult males of sodomy when they were 5 and 6 years old. Jeffs' brothers Leslie and Blaine are also accused. Jeffs was ordered to repay the UEP Trust $8.8 million stemming from mismanagement plus other cases are pending regarding the spiriting away of UEP's assets violating court orders. After clear evidence of FLDS culture tolerating or encouraging criminal activity regarding money and sex, gaming the system of public assistance and child support, and the FLDS splinter sect, the Kingston's raking in (by conservative estimates) millions annually from drinking and gambling businesses, what more could disenchant the public with these fringe polygamists? Racism Notice there were no people of color at the YFZ Ranch? The Mormon church (LDS) only granted priesthood to blacks in 1978 because early church leaders sermonized that black people descended from Cain. LDS stepped way from racist roots 30 years ago but the FLDS kept preaching racism. The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed the FLDS as a hate group since 2005. Jeffs preached that blacks were representatives of the devil. Hear the details of the FLDS racist teachings at www.splcenter.org from recorded sermons the faithful still use in home-schooling of children. Another recorded Jeffs sermon states, "Negroes have no right to rule over the people. They must be servants." Patrick Crimmins, spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, indicated that children, particularly young boys, made "derogatory remarks to staff of color" during custody. Citizens agonize over children separated from mothers; only the mothers appearing 17 or younger were allowed to remain with their toddlers during the search for an allegedly abused underage mother. Carey Cockerell, director of TDFPS, publicized the April 3 exchange when a young mother was asked her age by CPS. She looked at her husband who said the girl was 18. She then said "I'm 18." The assertion that FLDS females do not know their ages is debunked by the YFZ Bishop's List, where each listing includes an age. CPS hoped to interview the teen mother who had made the initial outcry that triggered the raid but FLDS were uncooperative. Ranch Manager Merril Jessop negotiated with Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran for four hours April 3 before allowing CPS workers in, even with court orders. CPS did not enter YFZ before although legally entitled to because "the agency was trying to give the sect the utmost respect," said Investigator Ruby Gutierrez. Jessop finally allowed six, female-only, CPS workers in at 10 p.m. Supervisor Angie Voss testified that CPS immediately encountered changing birthdates, coached answers plus missing identity documents. Those investigators would not leave YFZ for 28 hours. During interviews, concern grew about teen girls, some of whom were mothers. Gutierrez said the sect mothers' accusations of children being ripped way and authorities' rudeness were absolutely false. Voss testifed some mothers were resisting CPS but after Sherriff Doran and Jessop called on speaker phone and told the mothers to allow it, "the women were so cooperative." Investigator Paul Dyer agreed. "It was very calm," he said. While some children were interviewed in the schoolhouse, others were shuffled between residences to thwart CPS. Females, adult and minor, refused to give ages or residences. Cockerell testified that YFZ women share breastfeeding duties making separate residences communally one household. Breastfeeding another woman's infant seems more intimate than just neighborly. Each woman is called "mother" and each man "father" or "uncle." Extended families living in separate trailers, cabins or homes but sharing resources and acting as one unit meet the CPS definition of single household. FLDS obscured the living arrangements which would have shown separate families, leaving CPS with no choice but to designate the entire YFZ as a single unit. Possible perpetrators are asked to leave residences in investigations. Some YFZ men may have gone out the back gates fearing arrest but others would not leave. CPS policy dictates that if the possible perpetrator will not leave, all children must be taken into protective custody. This protects the victim and prevents tampering with potential witnesses. Some reportedly monogamous couples had children removed although there was no suspicion of underage sex. Sympathy overlooks the fact that absolute obedience to the Prophet means inability of parents to resist plans for their children. Nephews detailed Jeffs' sexual appetite for young boys plus Jeffs' brothers Leslie and Blaine's sexual abuse of young boys. Twenty-one men who may have disagreed with Jeffs were thrown out and had their families reassigned, including a 93-year-old bishop. Instead of FLDS members successfully resisting Jeffs' revelations for their children, women like Lenore Holm tell of eviction from her home for opposing her teen daughter's marriage to an older man. Holm's 16-year-old daughter was taken to the FLDS compound in Canada without her mother's permission. A 17-year-old Canadian citizen from the Bountiful polygamists was taken into custody at YFZ. Canada's national newspaper, The Globe & Mail publicized the underground railway that takes young girls across the international border for purposes of bigamous "spiritual" marriages to older men. Elissa Wall, in her memoir of forced marriage at age 14 titled "Stolen Innocence," recounts her mother encouraging her to speak about her unreadiness for marriage to both her new "father" and Prophet Warren Jeffs. Elissa's family had been reassigned when her father was excommunicated. After the only person Elissa loathed seemed selected as her husband, her mother said "He's your first cousin. They wouldn't do that." They did just that. Jeffs dismissed objections. Elissa Wall's testimony convicted Jeffs and sent him to Purgatory Correctional Facility. Jeffs controlled his flock with fear, reprisals or rich rewards for his loyal henchmen. Socialized to desire marriage, even to older men with multiple other wives, means few underage brides resist. Willingness cannot erase illegality. FLDS underage sex is at best statutory rape. FLDS practices habitual child rape by adult men already legally married and frequently 30 years older than victims. A rapist cannot escape charges even with his victim's or her parents' permission. The youngest YFZ children have returned. Spread among 30 households, 143 youngsters reside at the compound. More live in apartments in San Antonio because lawyers advised against retuning to YFZ, where only the most "holy" are allowed. With abusers preaching everlasting damnation for leaving, it's amazing if any YFZ children stay away. Jeffs' regime makes speaking to family impossible for escapees or exiles. Carolyn Jessop, Laura Chapman, Mary Mackert, Flora Jessop, Vicky Prunty, Debbie Palmer and Elissa Wall are a few of the lucky women who escaped. Many try to assist others. None escaped from YFZ, which has newly built guard shacks. Blood atonement Compelling accounts contain threats of Blood Atonement and family members praying for the escapee’s death. Children are asked to pray for the mother's death. Killers prosecuted for Blood Atonement murders believe they will be exalted in heaven. Ron Lafferty used a 10-inch boning knife to slit the throat of his sister-in-law and her 15-month-old baby in Utah in 1984. Lafferty said the spirit of God was with him when he killed the crying child in her crib. Carolyn Jessop, whose ex-husband Merril managed the YFZ since 2006, said Jeffs preached extensively on Blood Atonement. Ross Chatwin, an FLDS exile, explained Warren preaches Christ's sacrifice is not sufficient for some sins. Carolyn Jessop said “There are certain crimes that are considered a sin unto death, that have to be paid for by Blood Atonement. For a woman, that would be adultery or leaving your husband as I did.” Jessop said Jeffs taught "your priested head would slit your throat from ear to ear" so you could be accepted into heaven. "It's an actual FLDS ordinance. It must be performed in the Temple," said Jessop. Cyanide poisoning document In 2006, exiles told ABC TV that Jeffs ordered a thermostat for a YFZ crematorium he wanted to destroy human DNA. Banking on Heaven, the documentary about FLDS, confirms this plan from a separate source. Texas Rangers submitted "a cyanide poisoning document" taken from the YFZ Temple into evidence. Cult experts wondered if Jeffs had been at YFZ instead of Purgatory Prison whether the raid might have become a standoff. The courthouse in Eldorado endured another media frenzy as the second wife of Warren Jeffs, Annette Jeffs and her 16-year-old daughter Teresa both testified before the Schleicher County Grand Jury regarding felony investigations of child sexual assaault at YFZ. Minor Teresa Jeffs sought to dismiss her court-appointed lawyer Natalie Malonis for fulfilling the attorney's legal obligation to inform authorities of child abuse details uncovered. Annette Jeffs, released her daughter Teresa's name in an effort to fire the girl's attorney, which was denied. After giving an affidavit about her own underage "spiritual" marriage at 15, Teresa Jeffs tried to change her story upon release from CPS custody after meetings with FLDS Elder Raymond Jessop and Spokesman Willie Jessop. A restraining order was issued by District Judge Barbara Walther to prevent further witness tampering, preventing Teresa Jeffs from contact with her father Warren or the two Jessops. The order is permanent but subject to review in September. Judge Walther remained under tight security after FLDS sympathizers published a map to her home on the Internet before the site was taken down by the FBI. Attorney Malonis sought the restraining order after Jessop allegedly pressured the girl to repudiate her testimony, become unavailable to her attorney and request Malonis' dismissal. More indictments may surface as soon as July 25, when the Schleicher County Grand Jury meets again. A Sonora lawyer representing a teen who has not returned to YFZ, tells of the girl excitedly wearing fashionable sunglasses, buying flavored chewing gum and other simple joys. Texas law enforcement critics say only five of the 430 (once 460 because parents gave incorrect names to investigators) children eventually taken into protective custody have been victims of sex abuse. "Only" five? With one child assaulted, the raid is justified and prevents not only more assault, but of lifelong servitude to fertility. CBS stated 16 of the 31 girls initially thought to be underage mothers are known minors. Five of 16 girls abused means 31 percent, but even one case is probable cause for investigation or removal. Critics of CPS call them "Texas Nazis" and decry "abuse" of the FLDS children by the unnamed CPS workers. Conspiracy theorists point to the chicken pox outbreak just days after the raid. Because incubation period is longer than the time the children were in custody, the YFZ children had to have been exposed prior to being taken into protective custody. The outbreak spread rapidly because the FLDS do not routinely immunize children. Some observers again saw CPS "abuse." In contrast, a Richardson-based organization called to help during the raid had glowing compliments for the law enforcement and CPS workers. "There was no hysteria or crying children or any of what you might think would happen," said Gene Grounds, founder of Victim Relief Ministries, a volunteer chaplain organization used for crises. "From our observation, the CPS workers to a person have exhibited extreme compassion and professionalism," said Grounds. Eighteen VRM chaplains lent spiritual and emotional support to YFZ children and caseworkers. The media gives more credence and attention to anonymous notes accusing CPS staff of abuse. "I am not the Prophet" A year before the YFZ raid while Jeffs was on trial, his guilt apparently became too much to bear. A photographer from Deseret News snapped a photo of Jeffs holding a handwritten note he wanted to pass to the judge. Upon enlargement and reversing, the note read "I am not the Prophet & I have not been the Prophet." Deciphered segments included "failed (to) lead the people of the fundamentalist church." Jeffs' attorneys stopped him from passing the note to the judge. Jeffs' legal team kept the note from being admitted into evidence. On a lighter note, enterprising YFZ ladies are offering prairie style dresses and other modest clothing favored by the FLDS for sale on www.fldsdress.com. Rebecca Walsh in the SLT said "costume is control" in the FLDS. If you can braid and twist your hair, you can try YFZ for a day but remember, those ankle to wrist clothes and pompadour braids are the first things escapees shed when they forsake "salvation" for the freedom we take for granted. | |
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WKCurrent.com Originally published Thursday, July 17, 2008 | |
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