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	Texas Grand Jury Indicts Polygamist Sect Members By Michelle Roberts Associated Press July 23, 2008 http://wvgazette.com/News/200807230063 ELDORADO, Texas (AP) -- Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, already convicted in Utah of rape as an accomplice and awaiting trial in Arizona on other charges related to underage marriages, is now accused of assaulting a girl in Texas in January 2005. A grand jury in this tiny western Texas ranching community indicted Jeffs and four of his followers Tuesday on charges of felony sexual assault of a child. Another was indicted for failing to report child abuse. The charges came nearly two months after the Texas Supreme Court ruled that child welfare officials overstepped when they took all the children from the polygamist sect's ranch in a separate child custody case. The state had accused the sect of forcing underage girls into marriage and motherhood. While authorities sorted out the custody dispute in civil court, law enforcement continued a criminal investigation by sifting through hundreds of boxes of documents, photos and family Bibles seized from the Yearning For Zion Ranch during an April raid. State Attorney General Greg Abbott said five members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are charged with one count of sexually assaulting girls under age 17, a felony. One of them, not the 52-year-old Jeffs, faces an additional charge of bigamy. Abbott said a sixth member of the FLDS is charged with three counts of failure to report child abuse. "Our investigation in this matter is not concluded,'' said the attorney general, whose office is acting as the special prosecutor in the case. The grand jury will continue consideration of other possible criminal charges on Aug. 21, according to a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity because proceedings of the panel are secret by law. The identities of the Jeffs' followers who were indicted were not released Tuesday because the indictments remain sealed until authorities can arrest the men. Jeffs is in custody in Arizona. "There will be an aggressive effort to apprehend them,'' Abbott said when asked whether he was concerned the men might have fled Texas. FLDS members have historically lived around the Arizona-Utah line and bought the YFZ ranch in Eldorado about five years ago.
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