USA Sect Children Abused & Underage Girl Marriages - Report

December 24, 2008

A high percentage of families at a Texas polygamous compound abused or neglected their children - and more than a quarter of girls age 12 and older were forced into underage marriage, according to a report from welfare officials.

The report marks what amounts to a final salvo from the state's Child Protective Services agency, which has borne the brunt of criticism stemming from its April 3 raid of the YFZ Ranch northeast of Eldorado in Schleicher County.

"People may have lost sight of the fact that the reason we went to the ranch was to do this investigation," said CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins. "CPS did what it was required to do under state law."

The 21-page report, sent by the Department of Family and Protective Services to the state's Health and Human Services Commission late Monday, provides a detailed retelling of CPS' probe into whether members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints fostered a "pervasive pattern and practice" of underage marriage and sexual abuse at the ranch cited in allegations to the court following the raid.

According to data detailed in the report, 274 girls were "subjected to neglect" - including 12 girls married to adult men while age 15 or younger. The alleged victims comprise 91 families, or 62 per cent of the total identified at the compound, and the cases involve 124 alleged perpetrators.

Of the 12 girls the report identifies as victims of sexual abuse, two were 12 when they were married, the report states, while three were 13, two were 14 and five were 15. Seven of the girls had one or more children as a result of the marriage, according to the report.

"The report is saying here's what we found," Crimmins said. "We did find that pattern."

FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop, terming the report's release "a very disappointing situation", rejected the allegations as an attempt to save face after the costly and controversial raid.

"These desperate charges are simply a desperate effort to justify the horrible actions they took on April 3," said church member Willie Jessop. "This department has continually put out information that is inaccurate, unsubstantiated and unfounded."

CPS and law enforcement, acting on a tip now believed to be a hoax, removed 439 children from the ranch, making it the largest such case in American history. State appellate courts later ordered their return, ruling the state had not presented enough evidence to justify the removal.

Since then, the agency has been at the centre of a firestorm of criticism, even as cases involving individual children have progressed through San Angelo courts.

Of the 439 children initially removed, CPS has dropped the cases of 424, according to the report, leaving 15 still pending. The agency continues to work on resolving those pending cases, Crimmins said.

One girl, alleged to have been married at 12 to sect leader Warren Jeffs, has been removed from her parents' care, and her case is scheduled for a hearing Jan. 8.

Seemingly sensitive to much of the criticism levelled at the agency in the past eight months, the report details efforts made by caseworkers and other CPS employees to care for the women and children while in state care.

It also details some of the process behind the decision to remove the children - most of which has been discussed in court and in a Standard-Times interview with CPS investigators in June.

The report, however, does not address allegations made by FLDS members and some state health care workers, who said the agency did not properly care for the women and children, and that some CPS caseworkers and investigators treated them poorly.

"Staff and volunteers worked around the clock to care for the children," the report says, "with some spending nights huddled in blankets outside to give the families more space and privacy."

The report concludes with a final defence, an echo of statements made through the months by Crimmins and other CPS spokespeople.

"For the Department of Family and Protective Services, the Yearning for Zion case is about sexual abuse of girls and children who were taught that underage marriages are a way of life," the report states. "It is about parents who condoned illegal underage marriages and adults who failed to protect young girls - it has never been about religion."

Jessop scoffed at such claims, as he has since the investigation began - noting now-discredited claims from DFPS officials of broken bones among the children as an example of unsubstantiated allegations made against the group in the past.

"This was a stage raid," he said, "and they've been trying to justify this raid".

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