Indicted FLDS men to appear before Texas judge today
 
By Ben Winslow
Deseret News
 
Five members of the Fundamentalist LDS Church indicted by a Texas grand jury are expected to make their first court appearances today.

The men will all appear before Schleicher County Justice of the Peace James Doyle sometime today, where they will be handed papers spelling out their rights.

"All I do is an admonishment," Doyle told the Deseret News. "I read the warrant so they know what's been charged by the grand jury. I go through their rights."

The court appearances will take place at the jail. Normally, such proceedings are done quickly and without much fanfare. Doyle said today's proceedings have been delayed while authorities wait for a representative from the Texas Attorney General's Office to arrive in Eldorado.

The next court appearance will then be set by the district court judge, who is based in nearby San Angelo.

Raymond Merrill Jessop, 36; Allan Eugene Keate, 56; Michael George Emack, 57; and Merrill Leroy Jessop, 33, are all charged with first-degree felony sexual assault. Merrill Jessop is also charged with bigamy, a first-degree felony. Lloyd Hammon Barlow, 38, was indicted on misdemeanor counts of failure to report child abuse.

Also indicted is FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, who remains in an Arizona jail where he is awaiting trial there on sexual conduct with a minor as an accomplice charges. Jeffs, 52, is accused of performing child-bride marriages.

Texas authorities have said they will seek to have the FLDS leader extradited as soon as possible to the Lone Star state to face a sexual assault charge. Jeffs was convicted in Utah of rape as an accomplice for performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin and was sentenced to a pair of 5-to-life sentences.

In April, child welfare authorities and law enforcement raided the YFZ Ranch outside Eldorado, Texas, on a phone call from someone claiming to be a pregnant 16-year-old in an abusive marriage to an older man. Once on site, authorities said they saw other signs of abuse, prompting a judge to order the removal of all of the children.

The ranch's 440 children were ultimately returned to their families when two Texas courts ruled the state acted improperly and there was no imminent danger of abuse. The original calls that sparked the raid are still being investigated as a hoax.

Hundreds of boxes of evidence were seized from the ranch, including diaries, photographs, thousands of pages of dictations by Jeffs and other FLDS records. These are believed to have contributed to the indictments, which may be the first of a series. The Schleicher County grand jury will meet again next month.

Raymond Merrill Jessop is believed to have married Teresa Jeffs (now 17) a day after her 15th birthday. Jeffs repeatedly has gone public denying she was a sex abuse victim, but was subpoenaed to testify before the Schleicher County grand jury anyway.

Merrill Leroy Jessop is believed to have married another underage girl on the same day, in a ceremony performed by Jeffs.

"I was mouth at performing the marriage sealings," Jeffs said in a dictation filed with a child-advocate's court report and obtained by the Deseret News.

"Merril Leroy Jessop received (the girl), and Raymond Merril Jessop received my daughter Teresa Jeffs. I allowed the family to see Teresa with her husband after she was married out in the hallways."

According to the dictation, the FLDS leader himself married a girl in the same ceremony. Texas child welfare authorities believe she was 12-years-old at the time.

A Bishop's Record seized by law enforcement and entered into court evidence in a San Angelo court said Allan Keate had a 17-year-old wife, and may have fathered an underage child with her. Emack, according to the same records, has a 19-year-old wife and had a 1 1/2-year-old son with her.

Barlow is an FLDS community physician and in interviews has denied a pattern of abuse at the YFZ Ranch. He was also Jeffs' personal physician when the FLDS leader was in the Purgatory Jail facing charges in Utah.

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
 
DeseretNews.com
Originally published Tuesday, July 29, 2008
 
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