Identities disclosed on two of three new FLDS indictments
 
The Associated Press
San Angelo Standard-Times
 
ELDORADO - Two of the new indictments issued by a grand jury against members of a polygamist sect added bigamy charges against men already accused of sexual assault of a child.

The indictments, issued by a Schleicher County grand jury Thursday, accuse Michael George Emack, 57, and Raymond Merril Jessop, 36, of bigamy. Both were served on Friday.

The clerk's office has not released the name or charge on a third indictment issued Thursday because it has not yet been served.

The indictments against Emack and Jessop include few details of the accusations, but sect records released as part of a separate custody case show Jessop, who was already married, was married to the daughter of jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs the day after she turned 15.

Male members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints engage in multiple spiritual unions - that are meant to be acceptable to society - with female members. The sect split decades ago from the Mormon Church, which renounced all polygamy in the late 19th century.

Under Texas law, someone younger than 17 cannot generally consent to sex with an adult. The crime of bigamy includes legal marriages and the lower standard of purporting to marry.

Bigamy involving a person 16 or older is a second degree felony, punishable by 2 to 20 years in jail and a fine up to $10,000; bigamy involving a person younger than 16 is a first degree felony, punishable by five years to life in prison and a fine up to $10,000.

Authorities raided the sect's YFZ Ranch ranch near Eldorado, about 45 miles south of San Angelo, in April, looking for evidence of underage girls forced into marriages and sex on phone call ips now believed to be a hoax.

In addition to Emack and Jessop, Jeffs and two other men - Allan Eugene Keate, 56, and Merril LeRoy Jessop, 33 - were charged in July with sexual assault of a child on accusations of engaging in underage marriages with sect girls. Jeffs is serving time in an Arizona prison, and the four others are free on $100,000 bond.

Another member, Dr. Lloyd Barlow, was charged with failing to report child abuse and is free on $5,000 bond.

It was not immediately clear whether Raymond Merril Jessop and Emack had been rearrested on the new charges.

Standard-Times staff writer Michael Kelly contributed to this report
 
gosananelo.com
Originally published August 25, 2008
 
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