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Aug 15, 2008 4:06 pm US/Central
Texas Ends Cases Involving Polygamist Sect Kids
SAN ANTONIO (AP) ―
Custody cases involving 34 children taken from a polygamist sect's West Texas ranch have been dropped because child welfare authorities no longer believe court oversight is needed, an agency spokeswoman said Friday.
Child Protective Services filed paperwork in San Angelo on Thursday asking that the cases involving 10 families be dropped, and Texas District Judge Barbara Walther agreed, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.
The action does not necessarily end the agency's involvement with the families but means officials believe the children can be kept safe without court intervention, she said.
While the reasons vary, child welfare cases are typically dropped when investigators decide there is no abuse, or if there is, that parents or another relative can ensure a child's safety, Meisner said.
In June, Texas authorities were forced by the state Supreme Court to return roughly 440 children swept into foster care from the Yearning For Zion Ranch. The court said the action was overly broad, given the relatively limited evidence of abuse the agency presented in the chaotic April court hearing that covered all the children.
The agency has continued to investigate since the return of the children and asked parents to limit the children's contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages.
At least four mothers have allegedly refused, and CPS has asked that those eight children be placed back in foster care. Hearings on those children are scheduled to begin in San Angelo on Monday.
Cases involving the remaining children remain under review, Meisner said.
The custody cases are separate from the criminal investigation into allegations that men from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which runs the YFZ Ranch, were marrying and having sex with underage girls.
Five men, including the sect's jailed leader Warren Jeffs, have been indicted on sexual abuse of a child. A sixth, the sect's doctor, was indicted for failing to report child abuse. One of the men indicted for abuse faces an additional charge of bigamy.
Jeffs was convicted in Utah last year as an accomplice to rape and awaits trial in Arizona on charges of being an accomplice to sexual contact with a minor -- all stemming from alleged underage marriages within the sect.
The FLDS, which believes polygamy brings glory in heaven, is a breakaway sect of the mainstream Mormon church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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