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Numerous Second Thoughts and Concerns About FLDS Raid Are Aired

By Howard Friedman

A number of questions are being raised in the wake of the massive raid of an FLDS ranch in Eldorado, Texas. (See prior posting.) Yesterday's New York Times said that the raid is complicating matters for law enforcement officials in Utah and Arizona who had begun to reach out to FLDS groups in their states and to win the confidence of girls who were taken as under-age wives. Now those groups are pulling back as they wait to see how things play out in Texas.

Meanwhile, Michael Piccarreta, one of the attorneys for former FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, suggeted that the call from a 16-year old that triggered the YFZ Ranch raid may not have been authentic. Fox News reports that Piccarreta sugested the call was a ruse because Child Protective Services in Arizona recently got a similar report about a teenager supposedly in Colorado City, Arizona, and were unable to locate her just as Texas authorities have not located their caller.

News Busters yesterday carries the transcript of an interview with George Washington Law School Prof. Jonathan Turley on ABC's Good Morning America in which Turley questions the constitutionality of banning polygamy that does not involve child abuse.

This week's Texas Lawyer points out the difficulties in obtaining enough attorneys to serve as guardians and attorneys ad litem for each of the children taken from YFZ Ranch. It also discusses at length the difficulties guardians will face in connection with children who say they want to return to the FLDS ranch. How to balance a child's wishes against a his or her best interests is the kind of difficult problem that requires experienced counsel. Also, so long as the children remain in custody in Sleicher County, the only court with jurisdiction over them is the district court in that county. It has only one judge. However other judges in Tom Green County have agreed to take over her other cases so she can handle the FLDS hearings.

Finally, in one of the stranger twists, McClatchy Newspapers report that large sums may have been going to FLDS or its former leader Warren Jeffs from a Las Vegas, Nevada company, NewEra Manufacturing. In recent years New Era has recieved over $1.2 million in federal government contracts, largely small-business no-bid "sole source" Defense Department contracts for aircraft wheel and brake components. It also received a $900,000 loan from the Small Business Administration in 2005. Separately, JNJ Engineering, a company owned by FLDS leaders, received $11.3 million in contracts from the Las Vegas Valley Water District. Almost all the workers for the projects came from Hildale and Colorado City, Ariz. where most of the FLDS's 10,000 members live.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on April 13, 2008 (boomark / email).