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	Fall of a 'Prophet': States Hold out Hope for Joint Task Force with Federal Officials By Michael Kelly San Angelo Standard-Times August 20, 2011 http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2011/aug/20/states-hold-out-hope-for-joint-task-force-with/ SAN ANGELO, Texas — Warren Jeffs' world has shrunk to the 50-square-foot dominion of a Huntsville state prison cell, but the pall of his crimes still hangs over the 1,700-acre Schleicher County ranch where he hoped to create a stronghold for his disciples. When the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints fell, he took with him seven of his followers who were convicted with him of crimes considered heinous by those outside the precincts of his belief. But while the world watched the FLDS leader condemned during 13 days of trial, his followers on the Yearning for Zion Ranch remained ignorant of Jeffs' crimes, his demeanor before the public and the court, and his defense, which involved freedom of religion but contained no denial of the crimes of which he was accused other than silence when asked for a plea. "I was the only one in the courtroom," William R. "Willie" Jessop said. "Jeffs and his family ordered people away because they would have been looking at sacred records without authorization." The "sacred records" were volume upon volume of Jeffs' priesthood records, the recordings that captured nearly every hour of his life from the divine to the debauched, and all the other evidence assembled over months by the prosecution and presented page after page, audio clip after audio clip and photo after photo to a world aghast at his acts. Jessop, a sect member who lives in Utah, has been the public face of the FLDS and until the trial of the prophet was a staunch supporter of Jeffs. But with the exposure of evidence proving Jeffs' involvement in group sex with girls as young as 12, Jessop said he has broken with Jeffs' leadership. "I felt like he was a martyr for a long time," Jessop said. "I continued to fight fiercely for him, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting charges we thought were unfair." Now he fears for the future of the YFZ Ranch community, certain that Jeffs will continue to lead the sect members at the ranch and elsewhere in the 10,000-member church from his prison cell, abetted by his younger brother Lyle Jeffs. Lyle Jeffs attended Warren Jeffs' trial and could be seen carrying material into the courtroom daily, but he refused to be interviewed and could not be contacted for this story. No reporters have been allowed on the YFZ Ranch since the trial, and no sect members other than Willie Jessop have spoken publicly. Meanwhile, former sect member Carolyn Jessop, who still has family members living on the ranch, said the ranch is effectively isolated from the world. "They used to have Internet for their businesses, but Lyle Jeffs stopped that," she said. "Not a soul on that ranch is aware of his admissions," Willie Jessop said. Even if the trial evidence had been available to the 500 or so people newly released census figures suggest live on the ranch, Willie Jessop believes it would have little impact. The sect is accustomed to the disapproval of the world outside its gates, and it has become inured to its leader being attacked by authorities. Jeffs escaped prosecution in Arizona and Utah before being convicted in Texas, and for his followers, Jessop said, it was all part of a never-ending persecution. "When the charges were dropped in Arizona, it just emboldened people to the idea that Warren was right and the government was wrong," Jessop said. "Utah convicts him, then overturns the conviction, and he's sent to Texas. That emboldened them that much more that at the end of the day Warren was an innocent man." And they still believe that, he said. "It's hard for you to understand that nothing has changed," he said. * * * The goal that came out of the April 3, 2008, raid of the YFZ Ranch was to rescue children who were deemed by authorities to be at risk of sexual abuse, and authorities removed 438 of them. Where are those children now? That's the question that comes to mind for many San Angeloans when they think of the all the court furor over Warren Jeffs and the other FLDS men. The images most closely associated with the sect are of children by the hundreds in the spring of 2008, playing on the grounds of San Angelo's Fort Concho National Historic Landmark, being moved around the state in buses, being questioned by child protection authorities, and, finally, disappearing from public view as the courts ordered them returned to their families. The concern for the children who are still on the YFZ Ranch 3½ years after the raid remains. The role of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services ended two years ago with an order from 51st District Court Judge Barbara Walther dismissing it as a party of interest in the final custody action of the legal battle over the children, the nation's largest child custody case. Since then, Child Protective Services agents have not set foot on the ranch. "No, we are not involved at all with any of the families," said Patrick Crimmins, media relations manager for the DFPS, in response to an emailed set of questions. "On July 23, 2009, Judge Walther approved the custody transfer of a girl (15 at the time) to a relative. She was the only remaining child in our custody who formerly lived at the YFZ Ranch." Crimmins defends the agency's initial actions and its follow-up work on the prodigious case. "Once the children were returned from foster care to their families in June 2008, CPS was ordered to continue its investigation into possible abuse/neglect of all of the children," he said. "We did so methodically, carefully, and always with the safety of each individual child in mind." Each family was required to sign a nine-page Family Service Plan with 22 tasks, including completion of Department of Family and Protective Services parent training programs, submitting to court-ordered psychological and psychiatric evaluations, participating in family counseling, verification of safe living arrangements for the children and, while the children were in state custody, supervised visits. The first of the Family Service Plans were signed in May 2008, about five weeks after the raid. "Girls from the ranch were educated about how to identify and report sexual abuse. We began a process of reuniting children with their families when we believed their safety could be reasonably assured, and when we knew we had given those families better tools to protect their children from future abuse or neglect," Crimmins said. The agency is hopeful, Crimmins said, that the yearlong program worked. "In 2011, we are confident that the FLDS community is very different from what we found in April 2008," he said. "We believe that we have made a distinct, and positive, difference in that community." San Angelo lawyers Carmen Dusek and Randol Stout coordinated the monumental task of getting legal representation for all the children taken from the ranch in April 2008. Hundreds of lawyers flocked to San Angelo. Dusek and Stout each took several of the cases themselves, but contact was lost when the children returned to their families. "I don't know that any of the lawyers really have much idea of how our clients are now," Dusek said. "That's a big unknown." Stout, a veteran lawyer and former judge, is blunt about CPS' lack of action. The Texas Family Law Code, he said, says the standard for visits to check on families is "sufficient evidence to satisfy a person of ordinary prudence and caution," a threshold he believes the situation at the ranch has met. "It's just offensive that we don't go out there," Stout fumed last week. "The CPS can go out there anytime they want; it's their duty to investigate. If they believe the conduct is there, they can go. How do we know if they don't look? "Why is the compound a no-fly zone?" Crimmins says the agency simply doesn't have the authority to go to the ranch again. "The FLDS residence is treated like any other household in the state," he said. "We can't go in without a report of abuse or neglect." That is exactly what triggered the April 2008 raid, except that the report was a hoax call traced to the cellphone of a woman in Colorado who had never been on the ranch. None of the eight cases of the FLDS men who have been prosecuted since then were based on the complaint of a victim, and no victims have been called to testify in any of them. The state has had to prove its cases through documentation and DNA evidence, not the testimony of victims. In the closed society of the FLDS, such cries for help are rare. "There are no complaining victims," Willie Jessop said. "The girls are trained to be so obedient, they're indoctrinated beyond anything I've seen before the YFZ. That programming is beyond anything I could understand." Behind it all lurks the shade of Jeffs. The priesthood records are filled with spur-of-the-moment marriages that came like visions to Jeffs. He ordered new marriages, destroyed existing marriages by reallocating wives from one husband to another, and chose his own mates, all in compliance with what he told his followers was divine will. The YFZ Ranch was Jeffs' vision of a place sequestered from the outside world where his absolute authority could have absolute play, and Jessop said being sent there was the ultimate reward, the signet of approval, for the prophet's faithful. Those chosen to go to the YFZ Ranch were "cherry picked to be his most devout followers," Jessop said. Then came the raid. Dusek said removal of the children three years ago was done out of the best intentions, protecting the welfare of the children. "It was a difficult situation, and I believe the state was trying to do what was right, and I believe Judge Walther was trying to do the best she could by getting the children out of a bad situation," she said. In the wake of the Jeffs trial, she said, "We now know how horrific it was." The event was a trauma for the children. "It's always difficult for children to be removed from a situation, even if it's a bad one," Dusek said. "I can't help but worry about the longer-term impact on the children, and I am also concerned about what has happened to them, how they are now." Stephen Kent, a University of Alberta sociology professor whose specialty is alternate religions and cults, argued in an affidavit to the British Columbia Supreme Court that child brides are a nearly inevitable outcome of the polygamist culture. Polygamy among offshoot Mormon sects is based on a revelation from God to Joseph Smith about the sanctity of the practice, spelled out in Doctrines and Covenants Section 132, he said last week. "It specifically mentions the value of virgins and indicates each man needs three wives to help him through the different layers of heaven," he said. "Of course, polygamous men often have many more than three wives — it's an internal indication of status within the groups and the rewards the prophet gives to loyal, devout men. Pressure exists to get women first in the context of other likely men also wanting or being worthy of receiving wives," he said. The competition creates great demand for young women. "As women reach their teens, they are always going to be targets for men looking for new wives," he said. "They are traded like chattel." Carolyn Jessop asserts that education is the key to releasing the sect from the infamous practices and influence of Jeffs. She believes the home-schooling practices of the group should be monitored more rigidly and a legal means created to put the children into public school, where their welfare can be independently watched. "There doesn't have to be a big prosecution and removal. It can be as simple as requiring home-schooled children to be up to snuff," she said. The FLDS education system, at YFZ and elsewhere, doubles as a hunting ground for men seeking wives, Kent said. "What's likely the case is that the internal school systems become vehicles for young women's recruitment. The polygamists run the schools. They know the ages of the girls under their care," he said. "It may not always be the case that the families are involved, but the schools are." Many of Jeffs' dozens of wives and many of those taken by his followers were students at the Alta Academy in Salt Lake City, Utah, an FLDS school where Jeffs was principal and teacher before he assumed the mantle of prophet in 2002. * * * When Jeffs was finally brought to justice, spectators in the Tom Green County Courthouse witnessed a stooped, shambling figure with a faint, hesitant voice whose carriage and speech seemed a vessel hardly capable of housing the authority to command 10,000 followers. Firing what Judge Walther speculated might have been one of the best defense teams ever assembled in Texas, Jeffs left observers incredulous with his increasingly erratic actions, florid and anachronistic outbursts when he chose to speak and his otherworldly comportment when he remained silent. In the end, convicted by the recorded sound of his own voice and those of his victims and accomplices, silence was his only refuge. By holding the courtroom in thrall for the entire 30-minute allotment of his defense summation by saying nothing other than "I am at peace," Jeffs perhaps exploited the last opportunity he would ever have to be in control of anything in his life. The final public image of the prophet is a mug shot from Huntsville state prison, his head shaven, a shapeless orange uniform hanging on his emaciated frame, his world reduced to a concrete cell and the company of other common criminals. Imprisoning Jeffs was the crowning achievement to date for the state in its actions against the sect, the biggest payoff yet yielded by the treasure trove of evidence taken from the ranch. The question remains whether the law, however many men it puts in jail, will be enough. By most accounts, much of what members of the FLDS do is driven by fear: Fear of losing salvation in the hereafter, fear of offending the prophet, fear of exile, of having family taken away, fear of being tainted by the outside world. Fear of the law, however, is not one of those driving forces. The men of the sect have been forced to choose between obedience to their beliefs and obedience to secular law, a choice that historically among religions at odds with the society in which they live has led to defiance of earthly authority. In trials of the men sent to prison, a common element is their demeanor on announcement of a conviction: acceptance, often with a barely discernible smile. Far from revealing despair or anguish at the prospect of spending years or decades divided from family, community and friends, they seem to embrace their punishment. With those convictions and that of Jeffs in particular, congratulatory messages poured into Texas from law enforcement and judicial authorities in Arizona, Utah and elsewhere. Brock Belnap has dealt with the Hildale, Utah, community of FLDS followers for years. The Washington County Attorney added his congratulations to the rest, saying the Texas prosecutions will "shine a disinfecting light on these practices. This will help the victims and hold the perpetrators accountable." But whether the prospect of jail for its priesthood — the men — will be enough to change the culture is far from certain, he said. "With this group of folks, it's hard to say whether the prosecution would have the deterrent effect a prosecution normally would," Belnap said. "They have a long history of disregarding the law — they view it almost as civil disobedience. History recounts episodes of previous leaders proudly going to prison and continuing their practices. "Still, I'm hopeful the prosecution and the penalty will have a deterrent effect. "I hope it has that effect."
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