KEYE
April 9, 2008
http://www.keyetv.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=e6d8e9ce-2136-4bed-9c93-0b9eacab326f
A judge in San Angelo on Wednesday will consider a request to stop law officers from searching a West Texas polygamist compound.
Attorneys for the church have filed motions asking a judge to quash the search on constitutional grounds -- including the warrants being too broad.
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| The YFZ Ranch is home to members of a polygamous sect from Utah known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). |
A call from a 16-year-old mother -- who allegedly had been abused -- led to the searches, which began last week at the Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado.
Texas authorities now have legal custody of 416 children from the ranch. Nearly 140 women left on their own.
The Associated Press reports an unknown number of men and women were still at the ranch while authorities completed the search of the group's temple and other sites.
At least two FBI agents were seen entering the back entrance of the temple.
Court papers detail life inside polygamist ranch
Meanwhile, court documents are revealing a 16-year-old girl's account of life on the inside.
The documents detail secret calls the girl made to a family violence shelter. The teen claimed she had been forced to marry a man more than three times her age, becoming his seventh wife.
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| Some of the children taken from the ranch could be seen playing in San Angelo. |
She said her husband sexually assaulted her and would beat her while other women held her infant. The calls prompted an investigation of the ranch, which was raided last week.
The church and church leaders have filed motions asking a judge to quash the search on constitutional grounds, saying authorities didn't have enough evidence and that the warrants were too broad.
More than 400 children from the ranch are now in the state's custody. Court papers say a number of teen girls are pregnant.
Sect married girls at puberty, Texas officials say in documents
A series of secret calls to a family violence shelter triggered an investigation of a polygamist sect in West Texas.
The scared girl said she was already a mother at 16. She'd been forced to spiritually marry a man more than three times her age, becoming his seventh wife.
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| People were escorted from the compound behind sheets. |
That husband sexually assaulted her, and when he was angry, he would beat her while other women held her infant.
The girl had looked for opportunities to escape from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado. But she was warned that outside was a world completely foreign to her.
Court documents detail the hushed phone calls, but days after raiding the compound, officials still aren't sure where the girl is. She is not named among the children in initial custody petitions by the state.
Texas authorities have legal custody of 416 children, all of those believed to have lived at the ranch.
Court documents say a number of teen girls at the compound were pregnant.
Church lawyer Patrick Peranteau did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.
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