A call from a 16-year old girl, claiming sexual abuse at the Texas Polygamist Compound may have been a prank call from a African American Colorado woman.
The F.B.I. began tracing calls from a person named "Sarah" to a Teenage Rescue Mission for girls trying to escape the sect. "Sarah" is the same person who made the call which lead to the raid. Authorities now believe Rozita Swinton, 33, was behind those fake calls.
Swinton was arrested Wednesday Night by Colorado Springs Police. Texas Rangers were in town Wednesday night to interview Swinton, but they have not filed any charges. Court Affidavits have been sealed in her recent arrest, but news sources have learned that it relates to a false call back in February from a girl named "Jennifer" claiming she was being held hostage in a basement. This case is getting more and more bizarre.
Meanwhile, a child welfare worker said some women at the sect's ranch may have had children when they were minors, some as young as 13.
The testimony came late Thursday, the first day of a court hearing to determine whether the 416 children, swept up in a raid on the ranch two weeks ago, will remain in state custody. Child welfare officials claim the children were abused or in imminent danger of abuse because the sect encourages girls younger than 18 to marry and have children.
Child welfare investigator Angie Voss testified that at least five girls who are younger than 18 are pregnant or have children. Voss said some of the women identified as adults with children may be juveniles, or may have had children when they were younger than 18.
Identifying children and parents has been difficult because members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have given different names and ages at various times, Voss said. The state has asked that DNA be taken from all of the children and their alleged parents to help determine biological connections. The judge has not ruled on that request.
The court hearing, which continues Friday morning, disintegrated Thursday as hundreds of lawyers who descended on San Angelo for the proceedings shouted objections or queued up to cross-examine witnesses.
The case — one of the biggest, most convoluted child-custody hearings in U.S. history — presented an extraordinary spectacle: big-city lawyers in suits and mothers in 19th-century, pioneer-style dresses, all packed into a historic courtroom and an auditorium two blocks away that was patched into the proceedings by a grainy video feed.
The state wants to keep the children in its custody, and likely move them to foster homes while officials continue investigating abuse allegations. The state must provide evidence the children were physically or sexually abused, or are in imminent danger of abuse.
The children, most of whom are being kept in a domed coliseum in San Angelo, range in age from 6 months to 17 years. About 130 are under 4 years old, Voss said. She said she was concerned about how the children and women followed the orders of the church's prophet, identified as jailed leader Warren Jeffs.
Girls As Young As 16 & 17 Pregnant By Elders
"The children reported that if the prophet heard from the Heavenly Father that they were to marry at any age, they were to do that. If the prophet said they were to lie, they were to do that," Voss said.
Jeffs is currently awaiting trial in a Kingman, Ariz., jail on charges related to the promotion of underage marriages. He previously was convicted of being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old wed to her cousin in a Utah case.
The sect came to West Texas in 2003, relocating some members from the church's traditional home along the Utah-Arizona state line. Voss said the ranch was considered a special place, the sect's Zion.
Authorities raided the 1,700-acre ranch south of here in Eldorado on April 3 and began removing children while seeking evidence of underage girls being married to adults. Walther signed an emergency order giving the state custody of the children taken from the ranch. [CNN]