More felony indictments issued in FLDS case
 
By Ben Winslow
Deseret News
 
A Texas grand jury investigating crimes within the Fundamentalist LDS Church issued more felony indictments this afternoon against four men.

One FLDS man was indicted for conducting an unlawful marriage ceremony involving a minor, which is a third-degree felony, according to a statement from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. A second man was indicted on three counts of bigamy, a third-degree felony.

A third man was indicted on four charges: first-degree felony bigamy, second-degree felony bigamy, third-degree felony bigamy, and tampering with physical evidence, a third-degree felony, according to the attorney general.

The fourth person indicted Wednesday was FLDS leader Warren Jeffs. He was indicted for aggravated sexual assault, a first-degree felony. "Today's sexual assault charge is in addition to Jeffs' July 2008 indictment for sexually assaulting a child," Abbott said.

"To date, 12 people associated with the polygamist compound in Eldorado have been indicted as part of the ongoing and continuing criminal investigation," he said.

The names will likely not be released until arrangements are made for the indicted individuals to surrender to the Schleicher County sheriff. Schleicher County Clerk Peggy Williams told the Deseret News that some some of the charges were handed down against people who have already been indicted, but it's unclear if she meant anyone other than Jeffs.

"The attorney general's office will arrange for their surrender through their attorneys," Sheriff David Doran said Wednesday. "We'll handle it from there."

Nine men, including Jeffs, were previously indicted by the Eldorado grand jury on charges ranging from sexual assault of a child to bigamy to failure to report child abuse in connection with cases of alleged underage marriages.

The grand jury will meet for a final time on Dec. 16. If prosecutors wished to pursue it further, they would have to convene a new grand jury and present their case all over again.

Meanwhile, the woman suspected of making the hoax phone call that launched the raid on the YFZ Ranch appeared in a Colorado court for a review hearing in an unrelated case.

Rozita Swinton, 33, appeared briefly in El Paso County court as a judge canceled her January 2009 trial on a misdemeanor charge of making a false report to police. She is still undergoing a mental health evaluation, prosecutors said.

"Essentially the case is on hold while she's undergoing this mental health evaluation," said El Paso County District Attorney's spokeswoman Lin Billings.

A review hearing has been scheduled for Dec. 19.

The Deseret News first reported last month that she was entering an in-patient mental health facility for treatment sometime in November. Court documents in connection with a case in Castle Rock, Colo., indicate hearings on a probation violation were delayed until after a trial in Colorado Springs on a charge of making a false report to police.

Swinton, 33, is accused of pretending to be a drugged teenage girl who called police claiming she was chained in a basement and being abused. In Castle Rock, prosecutors say she claimed to be a 16-year-old girl who was going to abandon her baby and kill herself.

Texas authorities have labeled Swinton a "person of interest" in connection with the phone call that led to the April raid on the YFZ Ranch in Texas. But investigators are keeping quiet about the status of their ongoing investigation and whether any criminal charges are imminent. A recent records request by the Deseret News about Swinton's alleged involvement in the YFZ raid has been unfulfilled in part because many of the records are considered protected as part of the ongoing investigation.

"The responsive records in this instance comprise e-mail communications between DPS investigators and the assistant attorneys general assigned to assist those investigators in identifying and developing cases that can be criminally prosecuted," lawyers for the Texas Department of Public Safety wrote in a letter to the Texas Attorney General seeking a ruling on whether they are public or not.

"Although this is not the classic attorney-client scenario, the investigators were relying on the assistant attorneys general for guidance on how best to proceed with the complex cases under investigation."

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
 
DeseretNews.com
Originally published Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008
 
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