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	6 Sect Youths Return to Custody of State By Paul A. Anthony San Angelo Standard-Times August 20, 2008 http://gosanangelo.com/news/2008/aug/20/rulings-give-custody-of-6-sect-kids-to-state/ A series of agreements and a ruling by state District Judge Barbara Walther placed six children from the FLDS in state custody. However, only one - the 14-year-old girl alleged to have been married to polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs at age 12 - will be placed in foster care. A gaggle of attorneys representing the state's Child Protective Services agency, four sets of parents and seven children arrived at three agreements Tuesday afternoon covering five of the children. Earlier in the day, Walther ordered the alleged Jeffs bride to be removed from the custody of her parents, leading sect couple Merril and Barbara Jessop. "The court has heard incontrovertible evidence of the marriage of the child," Walther read from her ruling shortly after noon. "The court is concerned that the mother was unable to provide assurances that she would be able to protect the child in the future." The girl's 11-year-old brother, however, will remain in Barbara Jessop's care. Walther apparently agreed with the boy's attorney, Larry Hance, that CPS failed to present any convincing evidence that the boy had been abused or was in danger of abuse from members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The San Angelo judge, presiding over the 51st state district court, also criticized the state's Child Protective Services agency and admonished its attorneys to make the communication process easier for Barbara Jessop to comply with her orders in the case. Walther placed part of the blame for an inability to gain access to Jessop's Converse home with CPS caseworkers and investigators. In closing arguments, attorneys for CPS and the Jessops disputed whether Barbara Jessop was cooperative in providing access to her home for the CPS and other agencies in the past two months. "We are not convinced that Barbara Jessop will be able to protect her children," said Valerie Trevino, a Court Appointed Special Advocate representing the two children. She added that CASA employees also had trouble contacting Jessop and visiting the apartment in which she has lived with her children the past two months. The two children are the first CPS has sought to remove since the state appellate courts ordered the agency in June to return 440 children from the sect's YFZ Ranch compound in Schleicher County. The other three cases ended without a hearing - all of them granting CPS custody in exchange for the children remaining with their parents under a series of restrictive conditions. The agreements include measures requiring mothers to keep their children away from family members alleged to have participated in or condoned underage marriages, including Merril and Barbara Jessop; Orval Johnson, the father of one 13-year-old girl; and Wendell Loy Nielsen, the girl's stepfather. In the Jessop case, the children's attorneys argued their clients wanted to stay with their mother. San Angelo lawyer Gonzalo Rios, Barbara Jessop's attorney, argued that Walther could impose additional restrictions on his client, but that she should retain custody of all her children. Walther appeared skeptical, noting Jessop invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 50 times Monday, including on such questions as whether she believes she should prevent her children from participating in underage marriages. "When a parent can't affirm to the state what steps they would take to protect their child," she said, "what recourse does the court have?" The pleas - 56 of them in 57 questions from CPS attorney Jeff Schmidt - were particularly damaging because, in civil cases, pleading the Fifth can be used as a factor in reaching decisions. "It obviously did" hurt Jessop's case, Rios said after the hearing. Ultimately, Jessop kept two of the three children of whom CPS initially sought custody in its Aug. 5 motion. The agency dropped a 17-year-old boy from the motion before the hearing. "We've got two out of three," Rios said, "but that's not a victory in her mind." Rios said he plans to appeal the ruling to the state's Third Court of Appeals in Austin, which ruled against Walther and CPS in May. Sect spokesman Willie Jessop condemned the splitting of the family. "It looked like a bunch of barbarians to me," he said, "to tear families apart like that without evidence." For CPS, it's the first time Walther has rejected the agency's request to remove a child in the sprawling case. She glared at the agency's attorneys as she instructed them "to advise" Jessop of a single contact for the agency "so there will not be any continued confusion as to who they need to contact with regard to these orders." In the Jessop boy's case, Walther restated many of the orders she put in place after the court-ordered returns, and prohibited contact between both children and their father, who was head of the ranch and a sect bishop but has not been seen or heard from since the raid. Jeffs remains in an Arizona jail serving time for his role in a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin. He was convicted in Utah and faces similar charges in Arizona. Walther also set child support at $180 per month for each parent to help provide for the girl. "It's never an easy thing for a child to be taken from their parents' care," said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner. "We will continue to work with the courts and the family to implement the judge's decision. It's a difficult decision for a judge to have to make, and we certainly respect her decision."
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