Anti-Polygamy Activist Flora Jessop Publishes Memoir on FLDS Church

Flora Jessop, an anti-polygamy activist who has been a lightning rod of controversy over the Fundamentalist LDS Church (FLDS), will publish her autobiography next year. Titled “Church of Lies: The True Story of Escaping Slavery and Polygamy, and Rescuing Women and Children from the Notorious Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints,” the book is scheduled to reach bookstores in February 2009. It is being published by Jossey-Bass, a division of Wiley Publishing.

Jessop told the Deseret News that the book explains her background and motives. “It’s a book about my life, about what I come from and why I do what I do,” she said. In the book’s preface, she says she was one of 28 children born to her father and his three wives. She says she began being sexually abused at age 8 and tried to run away throughout her teenage years. She left the church about 20 years ago and endured a rough life before becoming an advocate for abused children in polygamy.

Jessop now heads the Phoenix-based Child Protection Project, which has helped women and children seeking to leave the FLDS communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. She once said she would be willing to go to jail for harboring runaways if it meant protecting children from abuse. A frequent figure on cable television, she has been highly critical of the FLDS Church. She also targets government agencies, particularly child protective services, which she has accused of doing nothing about abuse within polygamy.

Publisher Paul Foster said in an e-mail that the company was proud to publish the book. “This brave and articulate lady not only escaped from the sexual abuse and slavery of Warren Jeffs’ Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, but she’s been the only woman to go back time after time in the dark of the night, at great personal risk, to rescue women and children from this dangerous and notorious sect,” he wrote.

Jessop’s former faith and members of her own family have accused her of repeatedly lying. Martha Barlow Jessop, Flora’s former guardian, wrote on the FLDS website truthwillprevail.org that “the stories she tells have no credence and are fabricated,” questioning many of her claims. “I forgive her, but her lies and deceit should not be allowed to continue on as fact,” she wrote. “Her experiences have nothing to do with our religion or way of life. Her story is not typical and should not be used as a template to judge others.” Competing accounts like these show why claims must be weighed carefully (Proverbs 18:17).

Jessop has not responded to the criticism directly. She has accused the group of attacking victims who speak out. “I want people to understand that we don’t do this because we hate them,” she said. “You don’t fight for somebody that you hate. We don’t fight the people. We fight the practice of abuse that’s inherent.”

Jessop has also been involved with the FLDS Church’s YFZ Ranch in Eldorado, Texas. In 2004, she exposed the property as an FLDS compound. Members of the sect had originally told Texas officials it was a “corporate hunting retreat.” Before and during the raid on the compound earlier this year, Jessop fielded phone calls from someone claiming to be a pregnant, abused girl who wanted to flee. Jessop cooperated with law enforcement, which declared Rozita Swinton, 33, a “person of interest” in the hoax call that prompted the raid.

Hundreds of children were taken from the YFZ Ranch and were ultimately returned to their parents after a pair of Texas court rulings. A grand jury in Eldorado has indicted six men, including FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, on abuse-related charges.

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