FLDS update: Under guard, sect teenager giving birth in Texas .....An FLDS female whose age is in dispute was in labor in a San Marcos hospital Tuesday, accompanied by Texas Rangers and CPS workers, an attorney said. Attorney Rod Parker, an FLDS spokesman, said Pamela Jeffs is 18 - the same age shown for her on a court document prepared by Texas Child Protective Services. Jeffs is one of 26 females CPS has now classified as minors, an assessment that the FLDS said Monday was erroneous. "Her husband is 22 and they are a monogamous couple," Parker said. He said Jeffs' husband is not at the hospital with her.......... http://www.sltrib.com/ci_9095983 ________________________________________________ i guess they eyeballed her.
There is a group of people who get things done. Then there is a group of people who talk about how things are done, the way they are done, the way they should be done, but do nothing.
I have a question. How do you take a mans wife and children from him and "reassign" them to another man? Who gives someone the power to trample on another persons libertys that way? The only evidence the (prophet) had against the man who lost his wife and children is that he was "wanting" whatever that is suppose to mean. (Maybe "wanting" to be paid for a honest days work?) Doesn't this prove that children are in danger becasue of the decisions of their parents to obey the prophet of their communtiy? To live in that community you must obey the commands of the prophet. And it is proven that the commands of the prophet DO trample on the libertys of the people living in the community...a mans wife and choldren were taken from him. Think of how distraught those children and their mother were to be taken from thier father and husband. And read the article below to hear the man say how heartbroken he was. Now you tell me why no one is standing up for the (libertys) of the people inside this community. FLDS polygamists got millions in no-bid military contracts by McClatchy wire Thursday Apr 17th, 2008 9:09 AM American taxpayers have unwittingly helped finance a polygamist sect that is now the focus of a massive child abuse investigation in West Texas, with a business tied to the group receiving a nearly $1 million loan from the federal government and $1.2 million in military contracts. The ability of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, to operate and grow is largely dependent on huge contributions from its members and revenue from the businesses they control, according to a former accountant for the church, and government officials in Utah and Arizona, where the sect is primarily based. One of those businesses, NewEra Manufacturing in Las Vegas, has been awarded more than $1.2 million in federal government contracts, with most of the money coming in recent years from the Defense Department for wheel and brake components for military aircraft. A large portion of the awards were preferential no-bid or "sole source" contracts because of the company's classification as a small business, according to online databases that track federal government appropriations. NewEra, previously known as Western Precision Inc. and located in Hildale, Utah, also received a $900,000 loan in 2005 from the federal Small Business Administration, the data show. The president and chief executive of the company is John. C. Wayman, identified as an FLDS leader and a close associate to Warren Jeffs, the sect's "prophet," who was convicted last year as an accomplice to rape for arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin. When Jeffs, who was one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the summer of 2006, he was driving Wayman's late-model red Cadillac Escalade, government officials say. Wayman did not return phone calls seeking comment. On NewEra's Web site Wayman says the company is "an honorable and valuable asset to our country" in helping build military and commercial airplanes that carry people throughout the world. He does not mention its ties to the FLDS. Steve Barlow, human resources manager for NewEra, said last week that it would be inappropriate to comment, "Given everything that's going on. I could only give you the company motto: 'Good parts on time.'. " U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, the Fort Worth Republican who sits on the House Appropriations Committee that deals with issues of defense, military and homeland security, said she is surprised that the federal government is doing business with a group accused of mistreating women and children. "It makes me very uneasy," Granger said. "It needs to be investigated without a doubt." To begin with, she added, federal authorities should look into NewEra's financial records. John Nielsen, who worked for the company when it was Western Precision in Hildale, said in a 2005 affidavit that he and other FLDS members were made to work for little or no wages, even as the company was bringing in lucrative government contracts and other work. At the same time, $50,000 to $100,000 in company profits were going each month to FLDS "and/or" Jeffs, Nielsen said in the affidavit, filed as part of a civil lawsuit. He said he and other sect members thought their working for free or for extremely low wages would bring them redemption. Instead, Nielsen said in the affidavit, he was found to be "wanting" by the sect's leadership, ordered off the property and separated from his five young children and his wife. She was "reassigned" to another man, becoming the fourth of his six wives. "It broke my heart," Nielsen said in the affidavit. He declined to comment when reached by phone Friday. In Texas, authorities raided the FLDS' sprawling YFZ Ranch near Eldorado on April 3, beginning an exhaustive search of its 1,691 acres. Authorities were acting on a tip from a 16-year-old girl inside the compound who said she had been beaten and raped by a 50-year-old man whom she was forced to marry. Since then, a state district court judge has ordered the removal of 416 children, many of them young girls who have children or are pregnant after forced encounters with their "spiritual" husbands in the sect's towering white limestone temple, officials say. "There's a lot of bad shit in there," said a high-ranking official with the federal Justice Department who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the case. On Tuesday, the Justice Department executed a sealed FBI search warrant at the ranch. While the men of the sect have held close rein on their "plural wives" and children, seldom allowing them to associate with the outside world, the male leaders have fanned out into successful public business ventures. They work as government defense contractors, dairy farmers, engineers, construction contractors, log-cabin homebuilders and suppliers of lanyards, the cords used on eyeglasses or nametags. In addition, JNJ Engineering, a company owned and operated by FLDS leaders, has made millions of dollars in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in September. The company won $11.3 million in contract work from the Las Vegas Valley Water District; all but one of the project workers came from the twin towns of Hildale and Colorado City, Ariz., where most of the sect's 10,000 members live. Jethro Barlow, a former accountant for the FLDS whom Warren Jeffs excommunicated in 2003, said Jeffs ordered sect members, their families and the companies they operated to "give till it hurts.... "And people did." Jeffs was able to rally church members to tithe heavily, even if it hurt them financially, because he had convinced them that they had to prepare for the end of the world, Barlow said. The fever-pitched preparation continued, even after several apocalyptic deadlines had passed. It motivated the rapid construction of the temple at the YFZ Ranch and the erection there of manufactured cabin-like homes made by sect members in Canada, he said. Barlow, who remains in Hildale, said he believes he and his family were kicked out of the FLDS because they were not among the favored ones in Jeffs' flock. Although Jeffs is now behind bars, sect members still consider him their leader and prophet, said Bruce Wisan, a nonmember appointed by the state of Utah to replace Jeffs as manager of a the FLDS' trust. Established in 1942 to "preserve and advance the religious doctrines" of the church, it is now estimated to be worth between $100 million and $150 million. Under Jeffs' direction, Wisan said, sect households are required to tithe at least 10 percent of their gross income to the church, plus an extra $1,000 a month. Tim Bodily, an assistant attorney over the tax division of the Utah attorney general's office, said Wisan has received little cooperation from those within the sect, which has traditionally shown distrust for outsiders. "He's been provided no records at all, and no one inside the organization has provided any inside knowledge. ... It's a very difficult thing to do," Bodily said. "Progress moves slow when dealing with these people. Texas has its hands full." Douglas is a staff writer with the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/... Add Your Comments
What are you trying to say TL? Volunteer work for a religious organization is evil? Charitable giving to a religious organization is evil? SBA loans to a person of faith is evil? No bid contracts to a small business is evil? Why do you want to put a whole nation in handcuffs, and destroy the lives of 400 or so children just to punish a small handful of zealots? Do you hate mankind so much?
Why do you ask if I hate mankind in post above, then in another post you accuse me of being jeolous of the men of the yfz ranch? Why didn't you just answer my question about how does a man have his wife and children taken from him for the crime of "wanting". And isn't that a crime of the constitution related to search and seizure? What was the probable cause to seize that mans wife and children and "reassign" them to another man? Now I will answer your questions above. No, I do not think volunteer work for a religious organization is evil. No, I do not think charitable giving to a religious organization is evil. No I do not think sba loans to a person of faith is evil On the issue of no bid contracts I am not knowledgeable about those. Being a believer in capitalism, I question the right to competotion, but I don't know enough about it to have an opinion. And why do you take what I am saying and twist it to mean I want to put a whole nation in handcuffs and destroy the lives of children? What you are doing here is painting me as an evil person. If I could be the one to make the decisions on what to do about this community I would let all of the women and children return to the ranch under some conditions. 1. All of the women and chiildren (children old enough to understand) be taught their constitutional rights of the country they live in. Tell the women that no one has the right to order them to dispose of their son for any reason. And tell them that no one has the right to tell them when their daughter should marry, and to whom. And most of all tell them that although they have been taught that these rules are gods rules, that they are not gods rules because a kind and caring god would not ask a parent to dispose of the child they love, or force a child they love to be with a man she may not want to be with. Also before the women and children go back, the men at the ranch should also be told of their constituitional rights.
So, you're saying that women are stupid and intellectually inferior to men? Or is it perhaps, that these women are inferior to you? Maybe you believe these women to be savages? Secondly, Obviously, your âGodâ is the only true God, which gives you the authority to dismiss, ridicule, and defame other peoples God(s). Thirdly, Thats just rich. Look in the mirror.
I believe the women and men have a right to know their constitutional rights. How does that imply I think they are inferior, or savages? I don't know each and every one of the people of the ranch to have any opinion about intelligence or temperment of the many people there. I understand your god question to me. I see your point that if the women and men were told that the god they believe in who sometimes asks that they dispose of their son, or force their daughter to marry a man she does not want to, is not being kind and caring , that I am actually telling them their god is wrong to ask those things of them. And in doing that I am imposing my point of view that if there was a god, than that god wouldn't be so cruel. That is a good point chuck ells.
I would really like your opinion about the question of how does a man have his wife and children reassigned to another man for the crime of wanting. What was the probable cause to remove the mans wife and children from his home?
You would first have to tell me what "wanting" means, and give me the context in which the word was used, from the original source of the user. Not some journalistic hacks opinion of what the word meant to him or her.