Prophet's Prey

by Sam Brower

  The difference between the aggressive law enforcement officials and the bureaucrats handling the civil side of the matter was startling. The Texas Department of Public Safety and Attorney General Abbot wanted to put criminals in prison for crimes against children. In contrast, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and the CPS flipflopped and seemed just to want to rid themselves of the untidy mess.

  The DNA testing ordered by the judge was a prime example. It was logical to positively identify the parents before handing a kid back. There was no other reliable way to establish family relationships within the insular cult. Both mother and father would have to furnish a DNA sample and prove parentage before being allowed custody. A mobile lab was set up to collect the samples free of charge. Beyond the DNA match, a positive form of identification would be required before a child went back under parental custody.

  In retrospect, it is difficult to determine who disliked the idea more, the FLDS church or the state’s unenthusiastic Family Services Department and the new CPS team. All of them basically ignored or went around the order.

  The church found a loophole. Only a handful of men showed up at the mobile lab to try to reclaim their children, and most of them were among those who had been kicked out of the religion but had remained loyal. Church leaders persuaded some of them that this was an opportunity to prove that they were, perhaps, worthy of being reinstated; just convince the authorities that they were the real fathers with ironclad DNA matches. They would promise the state that they would henceforth provide a good home for the very children they had been ordered to abandon earlier at the command of the prophet. Once given custody, the fathers could simply return their children to the abusers. Nothing would change.

  Beyond that, the state agency with the responsibility for protecting children was practically releasing them into the wild. Instead of waiting for the DNA tests, the CPS began handing the children over to almost anyone who showed up with an ID and signed for them—mother, father, brother, neighbor, total stranger, or group of strangers.

  The CPS’s own release manifest would reveal that nearly twenty percent of the children taken in the rescue attempt were released to people other than their parents. More than a dozen names were in a column entitled “Not Listed,” which meant the agency did not know to whom the children had been given.

  At least two children were released to Seth Jeffs, the prophet’s trusted brother, a courier who trafficked young brides for the prophet and who had also been arrested for soliciting prostitution with another man while on a road trip to deliver money to Warren. Seth Jeffs tried a tactic commonly used by FLDS members to confuse gentiles by giving his middle name, Steed, in place of his true surname of Jeffs, but he was caught in the act. He was a convicted felon on federal probation and had lied to the CPS about his real name, and he got the kids anyway. It was incomprehensible.

  The real reason behind the bizarre CPS actions appears to have been costs. The investigation alone had cost thirteen million dollars, and estimates for integrating all of the children into mainstream society had ballooned to somewhere around a billion dollars. Attorneys, expert witnesses, foster-care homes, additional CPS workers, and other required support services would be very expensive and seemed to have no top end.

  Texas governor Rick Perry was in France on a week-long European economic junket when word came of the Texas Supreme Court’s decision to reverse the Walther ruling. Perry responded with a strong endorsement of the sweep of the YFZ Ranch. “I am substantially less interested in these fine legal lines that we’re discussing than I am about these children’s welfare.” That was great to hear. “I still think that the State of Texas has an obligation to young women who are forced into marriage and underage sex—to protect them. That’s my bottom line,” the governor stated. He warned the FLDS that he would not tolerate the sexual abuse of children in his state. “If you are going to conduct yourself that way, we are going to prosecute you. If you don’t want to be prosecuted for those activities, then maybe Texas is not the place you need to consider calling home.”

  Governor Perry issued that statement on June 6, after which he flew from France to Sweden. Willie Jessop called the governor’s remarks “shocking and outrageous” and added, “Mr. Perry ought to get his facts straight.”

  Little more was heard from the governor concerning the FLDS.

  The Department of Family and Protective Services decided to bring aboard its own version of a special prosecutor and on July 21 hired Charles Childress, whose reputation in Texas as a leading family-law expert was beyond reproach. As a professor and consultant, Charlie had been instrumental in writing many child-protection and family laws. If he could straighten things out, then perhaps the TDFPS and its overwhelmed CPS division could ride his coattails back to respectability.

  Charlie was semiretired and lived in Austin, meaning he would have to commute to San Angelo, and he did not really want the job. But old friends pressured him, and Charlie took the assignment because he thought he could do some good. What he found boggled the veteran attorney’s conscience. He later summed it up for journalist Katy Vine of Texas Monthly magazine, “Going up to the governor, none of them had any idea what was going on. They had no clue.”

  In contrast, the attorney general’s office knew exactly where it was going, and after sifting through the mountains of materials seized at the ranch, a grand jury was empaneled in Schleicher County in July to hear the findings. For the first time, regular Texans—the citizens of the county and the neighbors of the FLDS—were given the opportunity to see behind the false fronts of piety and godliness. After deputy attorneys general Nichols and Goodwin presented abundant proof of abuse, the grand jury dropped a heavy hammer.

  Warren Jeffs and four other FLDS men were indicted with first-degree felony counts for sexual assault of a child. Raymond Merril Jessop (age thirty-six), his brother Merril Leroy Jessop (age thirty-three), Michael George Emack (age fifty-seven), and Allen Eugene Keate (age fifty-six), all surrendered and were jailed. Jeffs remained locked up in Arizona. It was a clear message that the Texans were not being taken in by the expensive FLDS lawyers or the public-relations spin doctors.

  Within two months, the grand jury handed down indictments on another three FLDS men on similar charges: Abram Harker Jeffs (age thirty-seven); Lehi Barlow Jeffs, also known as Lehi Barlow Allred (age twenty-nine); and Keith William Dutson (age twenty-three). That brought the total to eight men indicted on criminal charges so far, based in part upon evidence gathered at the YFZ compound. Ironically, it was the identical number that Arizona grand jurors had handed down in separate cases earlier.

  No matter the success of law enforcement in going after the perpetrators of abuse, Texas CPS and its parent agency still wanted out. By the middle of August, they were dumping cases posthaste. In agency terminology, it was called “non-suiting,” which was doublespeak for no further investigation required. According to a department official, the non-suits “could be because the children are in a protected environment or are over eighteen. It could be that we found no abuse or neglect.”

  The standard could not have been set much lower. A parent or guardian and the child had to take a brief parenting and victim awareness course, and then sign a paper promising to keep the children safe. That was it. CPS still had not even determined the true parents through the DNA tests. It was like rescuing a kid from the home of heroin addicts who have been selling their child for sex, then having Mom and Dad attend a seminar and promise not to do it again before sending the boy or girl right back into the dope and sex mill.

  The drama of a teenager named Teresa Steed illustrated how out-of-whack the process had become. At fourteen, Teresa had been assigned as an underage plural “wife” to Nathan Carter Jessop, yet another son of the influential Bishop Merril Jessop. She became pregnant at fifteen and was about seven months along when she was taken into protective custody during the YFZ rescue attempt. During that time she had turned sixteen. She gave birth wi
thin days of leaving state custody. When CPS started sending children back to their abusers without regard to the potential consequences, Teresa Steed became a stumbling block.

  To the Texas Rangers, her situation was an out-and-out criminal act that could not be ignored, swept under the table, or “non-suited.” The rangers wanted to interview the girl and obtain the baby’s DNA to establish paternity. CPS would not cooperate and refused to reveal Teresa’s location. Nathan Jessop, the suspected father, was nowhere to be found.

  A summons was issued for Teresa and the baby to appear before Judge Walther. Teresa showed up but did not bring the child, and when Walther asked where the infant was, the girl replied, “I’m not telling you.” Walther sternly warned her lawyers to resolve the problem and meet the court’s requirements. A peculiar sweetheart deal was brokered between CPS and Willie Jessop, who was not a relative, lawyer, social worker, or officer of the court—and whose involvement was irresponsible at best—in which the baby would be presented at a special private meeting with CPS workers. The Texas Rangers were not invited and were not even permitted to know where the meeting would take place.

  The rangers found the secret meeting place anyway and served a warrant to take a DNA sample from the baby that Teresa had brought to the rendezvous. The tests proved conclusively that the infant was not hers. The FLDS had played the inept CPS by swapping babies so as not to implicate the father. The obstinate Teresa Steed, who took part in the charade, then also vanished; as of this writing, a warrant for her arrest is still in force. To the best of my knowledge the perpetrator of the crime, Nathan Carter Jessop, has not been taken to task, due to lack of evidence.

  In October, I had begun a three-day drive home from Texas when I received a call from Charlie Childress, who by then was in the thick of the fight. As he went through Warren Jeffs’s descriptions and church records, he had been completely undone by the extent of the abuse as a systemic problem.

  My name had come up for Childress as he reached out for people who could help bring him up to speed on the complicated FLDS lifestyle. He wanted my views on a proposed budget, and the names of experts he could bring in as cultural translators. Childress believed the only hope for the FLDS children was to take a hard line, just as the lawmen were doing by going after the perpetrators. But his higher-ups wanted an impossible guarantee of victory if any trials were held in years to come. As any good attorney would do, Charlie refused to make such an impossible promise.

  I spoke to him again later that night about witness availability and organizing the needed budget, and I headed out again the next morning for Utah, somewhat upbeat that perhaps the game was not over after all. Childress had the sound of a man who wanted to take it all the way. By the time I turned into my driveway the following day, I received another call. Charlie Childress had submitted his plan to the bosses, handed them the budget, outlined his plan, and had been rebuffed. They had pulled the rug out from under him. Within a week, he submitted his resignation, retired again, and was gone. We never spoke again.

  Childress was replaced by his deputy, Jeff Schmidt, another excellent attorney, who replowed the same barren fields that Charlie had just tilled, and with the same result. I talked with Jeff frequently and gave him the same information; he talked to the same victims and witnesses, read the same reports and records, and came to the same conclusions. CPS again applied pressure. Schmidt also refused to budge.

  “Sam, when I took the job I made a commitment to the CPS mission to protect children from abuse, neglect, and exploitation,” he told me. “I just can’t do what they are now asking me to do. I just can’t do it.”

  The Texas bureaucracy, not just the FLDS, had now become a foe, and there was only so much that any of us could do. Schmidt continued to disagree with his supervisors. He said a disk containing vital evidence came up missing from his desk. Schmidt also said a formal complaint to his superiors about his treatment was dismissed as quickly as it was filed. He was left with two stark options: do as he was told, or get out. He transferred to the section dealing with elder affairs.

  Apparently, the people in charge of CPS had lost focus on the stated purpose of their agency: to protect children. Instead, it seemed that they were trying to save their own reputations and careers, and a lot of money. Some Texas legislators were now openly complaining that the price was too high.

  A final line of defense was the Court Appointed Special Advocates, known as CASAs, trained volunteers who are assigned to work with attorneys and protect any child caught up in the system. CASAs act as third-party advocates to monitor a situation until the children are completely safe. They don’t care about politics or the media; they protect their charges fiercely, and heaven help anyone who gets in their way.

  Debra Brown, the executive director of the Tom Green County Child Advocacy Center, wrote a carefully crafted letter of concern to Governor Perry on October 23, 2008, to put everyone on notice that the ship was sinking. She gave me a copy.

  Dear Governor Perry:

  CASA or Court Appointed Special Advocates, whose mission is to speak for the best interests of children, has staff and volunteers that have been involved with the FLDS situation in Eldorado since the attempted rescue of the children in April 2008. We have met the families, worked with the children in care as well as in their homes and are appalled at the extent of the abuse to these children emotionally as well as sexually.

  It is far more widespread than we could have ever imagined, yet Child Protective Services seems determined to sweep this case under the rug and call it quits. CPS recently nonsuited most of the families and now has only ten cases involving thirty-seven children remaining. The original case total was 468 children.

  Please intercede on behalf of the children and help Child Protective Services validate their mission of protecting children.

  I visited the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado last Thursday and was amazed to see three new large buildings under construction. This indicates to me that the sect is staying at the ranch and must feel that it is safe to carry on business as usual.

  There are literally dozens of young men from Utah and Arizona called the “Lost Boys” that have been forced to leave their homes within the FLDS community and turned out into the streets with no money, little education and no knowledge of the real world simply for watching a movie or asking the wrong questions.

  We have many teenage girls aged twelve to sixteen that are married or “sealed” to older men. Many of these girls have babies.

  We have met and visited with several men that were forced from the community for questioning the Prophet. For this action their wives and children have been reassigned to other men like property.

  Children have told us that they were taken from their mothers, given new mothers and have not been allowed to see their biological mothers at all.

  The FLDS has claimed to have a wonderful home school program, but many of the children are testing below grade level by several years.

  We have a goldmine of information corroborating abuse of children and need to act upon it now, as we will never have this opportunity again. This situation is only going to get worse. By refusing to pursue these cases, Child Protective Services gives the impression to the public that no crimes or violations were discovered. This is absolutely incorrect. If we abandon these children, because of fear of lawsuits or costs to our state, we are no better than the men who systematically sexually assault the young girls in the name of religion …

  This behavior has been unfettered in Utah because fifty years ago the state abdicated their authority and has been fearful ever since of taking on the FLDS. As Texans, we have historically supported the right cause no matter the pain or consequences. I think we can do no less in this cause for these children.

  Time is of the essence. Please do what is in the best interest of these children and intervene on their behalf. Don’t let this problem become insurmountable on your watch as the leader of this great State.

  Instead o
f receiving help, Brown and her CASA volunteers were criticized by CPS officials. Brown later bitterly told reporter Paul Anthony of the San Angelo Standard-Times, “What the media says and what the public thinks is a zero in the equation. It should be what is in the best interests of the child. Who cares what Willie [Jessop] says? Who cares what Nancy Grace says? Who cares what anyone says?”

  The CPS spin was that their actual goal had been accomplished because the FLDS had learned the hard way that, by darn, you don’t mess with Texas. From now on, those people at the ranch knew the state would be watching, and Willie Jessop had promised that the FLDS would stop underage marriages. It was a naïve and self-serving position. The FLDS had not changed, and had no intention of doing so. All that CPS had accomplished was to teach the FLDS how to fine-tune their crimes in order to better escape detection in the future.

  CHAPTER 38

  Stalker

  As dispirited as I was over the inability of the Texas DFPS to protect the children from future abuse within the FLDS, I was heartened by the justice being meted out to some of the perpetrators. The grand jury was changing the complexion of the overall case.

  I was particularly pleased when November brought four more indictments, this time including two of the biggest names in the breakaway religious cult: sixty-eight-year-old Wendell Loy Nielsen, the first counselor of the prophet, and Frederick Merril Jessop, seventy-two, the second counselor and the bishop at the YFZ Ranch. With Warren Jeffs already in jail, that meant that the entire ruling First Presidency was now under indictment, thus emasculating the FLDS leadership. Their trials are pending.