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	Sect Leader Arrested on Child-Sex Charges By John Holusha New York Times May 6, 2008 http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/sect-leader-arrested-on-child-sex-charges/ Law enforcement officials in the Southwest are once more on the offensive against a leader of a fringe religious group accused of sex with children. This time the action is in New Mexico, where today the state police arrested Wayne Bent, also known as Michael Travesser, who claims to be the Messiah foretold in the Bible. The Associated Press reports that Mr. Bent was taken into custody without incident at his remote ranch in the northern part of the state. Child welfare officials said there were allegations of inappropriate contact between him and children at the compound. They recently removed two girls and a boy from the site. Mr. Bent faces three charges of criminal sexual contact. He has no connection with the F.L.D.S., the sect at the center of the highly publicized polygamy case unfolding in Texas, though there are strong echoes in the charges in each case. There are developments today in the Texas case as well: A court there released documents showing that one man at the polygamous compound in Eldorado had 21 wives ranging from 24 to 79 years of age. The Salt Lake Tribune, which has been following the case closely, has a detailed report. The man — Wendell Loy Nielsen, 67 — also listed 36 children on an internal census document kept by the sect and known as the Bishop's Record. The document was one of a number recovered in a police raid on the compound last month, and was used as evidence by a county judge to separate 464 children from their parents. The documents, also known as Father's Family Information sheets, list 24 men with multiple wives, along with some young, apparently monogamous, couples and a handful of 16- and 17-year-old wives. Until 2005, girls in Texas could legally marry at 14 with their parents' permission; the minimum age was raised that year to 16, apparently in reaction to the practices at the compound. Texas child-protection authorities said that sexual exploitation of underage girls was the motive for the April 3 raid on the compound, the Yearning for Zion ranch, operated by the sect, whose full name is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; it is an offshoot of Mormonism but no longer has any link to the mainstream Mormon church. Of the 37 families who filled out the internal census forms in 2007, 24 apparently were polygamous, and the men in the plural marriages tended to be older than those in the apparently monogamous relationships. One 46-year-old man listed wives who were 43, 29, 22, 21 and 17 years of age. Another, Isaac S. Jeffs, 32, listed 10 wives ranging in age from 19 to 28. The documents generally list a man's wives and children without noting which woman is the mother of each child. This lack of specificity obliged state authorities to take DNA samples from most of the residents of the compound, to try to establish family relationships in preparation for upcoming court hearings on whether the children should remain in foster care. Some of the polygamous men divided their families, with some of the wives and children living on the Texas ranch while others lived in "Short Creek", church shorthand for the twin towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz. where the sect has its main base. Considering that these were supposed to be internal documents, some of the listings were nonetheless unusually obscure. Some wives and children were simply described as living "elsewhere" or in a "house of hiding." Because a 1953 raid on a F.L.D.S. compound in Short Creek turned into a legal and public relations fiasco, this time around the authorities are focusing less on pressing polygamy charges and more on the question of whether underage girls have been abused at the Yearning for Zion ranch.
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