Sect members face more indictments
 
By Lisa Sandberg
San Antonio Express-News
 
ELDORADO — More felony charges were handed up Thursday against members of a West Texas polygamist group.

Neither the Texas Attorney General's Office nor Schleicher County officials would identify the three indicted suspects or say what they were charged with until they are in custody.

They also refused to say whether the individuals were different from the five men charged last month with sexual assault of a minor in connection with underage marriages.

Amy Hennington, an attorney hired by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, said she expected any men or women who were charged would surrender right away.

A Schleicher County grand jury returned the indictments Thursday afternoon after meeting for more than seven hours and hearing from at least eight witnesses, including seven young women from the group and Willie Jessop, a spokesman for the group.

Standing outside the courthouse Thursday after testifying, Jessop called the whole ordeal "a very painful process." He said the group would mount a vigorous defense for all those charged.

A source close to the group said prosecutors were getting absolutely no help from any of the members called as witnesses. To every question asked, he said, "everybody is taking the Fifth."

That legal strategy — a right protected by the Constitution to protect people from self incrimination — was also used by girls the state believes are victims, both Thursday and at the previous two proceedings, the source said.

The tactic was infuriating prosecutors, stated the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret.

The charges handed down Thursday may not be the last against members of the breakaway Mormon sect, which is accused of promoting a culture of sexual abuse and "spiritual marriages" between minor girls and older men. The FLDS is not affiliated with mainstream Mormonism, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.

Documents seized during a raid on the group's Yearning for Zion Ranch last spring and introduced as part of a separate custody hearing link several men not charged last month to unions with minor girls. The same grand jury panel is scheduled to reconvene on Sept. 23 to consider additional evidence, Schleicher County District Clerk Peggy Williams said Thursday.

Last month, the grand jury indicted five men, including the group's prophet, Warren Jeffs, on charges of sexual assault with a minor — charges that could net the men life sentences, if convicted. The four others are Raymond Jessop, 36; his younger brother Leroy Jessop, 33; Michael Emack, 57; and Allan Keate, 56.

Merril LeRoy Jessop was also charged with one count of bigamy. A sixth man, Lloyd Barlow, the community doctor who lived at the ranch and used to deliver babies, was charged with three misdemeanor counts of failing to report child abuse.

With the exception of Jeffs, who was convicted of sex abuse charges in Utah last year and awaits trial in Arizona on similar charges, each of the men surrendered to authorities within days of being charged. The men charged with felonies were released after posting bonds of $100,000 apiece.

Thursday's charges come more than four months after authorities raided the group's ranch outside this tiny town after receiving a call from a woman claiming to be a 16-year-old member forced into an underage marriage. The tip is now believed to have been a hoax.

But it led authorities to place more than 440 children in foster care, where they remained until the courts ruled that the state had overstepped its authority and ordered their return.
 
mysanantonio.com
Originally published August 22, 2008
 
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