BishopAccountability.org
	Prosecutors to Bring New Allegations in FLDS Trial By Michael Kelly Standard-Times September 30, 2009 http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2009/sep/29/state-files-intent-to-introduce-new-allegations/ San Angelo, USA - State prosecutors intend to bring a host of additional allegations to the trial of Raymond Merril Jessop scheduled for Oct. 26 in the 51st Judicial District, the Texas Attorney General’s Office said. Jessop, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is set for a jury trial on charges of child sexual abuse in connection with allegations that arose after the April 2008 raid of the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado. Authorities swept onto the ranch seeking a woman who had called in complaints about being abused at the polygamist compound. Ultimately, the state removed more than 400 children from the ranch because they were deemed to be in danger of abuse. The children were eventually restored to their families, but evidence seized during the raid resulted in criminal charges against 10 of the men living on the ranch. Jessop is the first of the 10 to go to trial. In a Friday filing in Austin, styled “Notice of State’s Intention to Introduce Extraneous Offenses or Acts” the Attorney General’s Office entered four pages of allegations against Jessop, claiming he engaged in a number of illegal marriages in Utah and Schleicher County, violated banking regulations in connection with an account related to the YFZ Ranch and aided sect leader Warren Jeffs while he was a fugitive in 2005 and 2006. The state said in an e-mail it intends the allegations to be “introduced to the court as a list of other bad acts that the State is aware of and may wish to bring up in the punishment phase of the trial.” Mark Stevens, the San Antonio attorney representing Jessop, said Tuesday night he intends to file a response Wednesday.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.