Informant Alleges Sex With Underage Girls in FLDS Texas Temple

A confidential informant told authorities that adult men in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) were having sex with underage brides inside the limestone temple at the group’s Texas ranch, according to a request for a search warrant unsealed by a Texas judge. The filing said Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran had worked with the informant for several years and that the informant made the allegation to Doran on Saturday, while a sweeping raid was underway at the YFZ Ranch.

The affidavit was written by Texas Ranger Leslie Brooks Long, who said he was at the ranch and observed a bed inside the temple with disturbed linens and a long hair, apparently from a female. The document was filed in support of the state’s request for a second search warrant for the ranch, which is owned by the FLDS church. That warrant was signed Sunday. An earlier warrant had been signed Thursday, the day the raid began.

Tom Green County District Judge Barbara Walther unsealed the documents at a hearing on Wednesday. She also ruled that three members of the sect have the legal right to challenge the search. She said she would appoint a special master to review documents and computer hard drives seized from the ranch, and that the special master would determine what material is privileged and protected as strictly religious.

Gerald Goldstein, who represents sect members, estimated that hundreds of boxes of documents had been taken from the YFZ Ranch. “We ought to be able to cull out those that are sacred,” he told the judge. “If it relates to the children, they get it. If it doesn’t, they don’t.”

Allison Palmer, assistant district attorney for the 51st District, argued that sect members did not have legal standing to challenge the search, or should not be allowed to do so. She noted that no arrests had been made. The court also heard from Lyle Jeffs, who addressed the court on his own behalf and for the FLDS church. Jeffs is the bishop of the church’s Short Creek stake on the border of Utah and Arizona, and the father of two children who were taken from the ranch.

Goldstein said the men were no longer seeking to quash the two state search warrants used so far, conceding the point was moot because a federal search warrant had been issued (Proverbs 31:8-9).

Source: Read the original report