Polygamy cult leader goes on trial in Texas

Times:

A polygamist whose nine wives allegedly include three daughters and two sisters of the self-styled prophet of a Mormon sect became the first person to go on trial yesterday after a controversial raid on the group’s Texas compound.

Raymond Jessop, 38, appeared in court in the small town of Eldorado 18 months after police raided the Yearning for Zion ranch and removed 439 children in the largest child custody case in US history. Mr Jessop is one of a dozen men in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) who face charges of child abuse, sexual assault and bigamy.

...

According to documents seized at the ranch, he refused to take his under-age wife to hospital when she went into labour in August 2005 because he feared officials would discover her age and turn him in. The age of consent in Texas is 17.

A journal written by Warren Jeffs, the sect leader whom members revere as a prophet, said: “I knew that the girl being 16 years old, if she went to the hospital, they could put Raymond Jessop in jeopardy of prosecution as the Government is looking for any reason to come against us there.” Mr Jessop faces a separate trial on bigamy charges for allegedly marrying Jeffs’s daughter the day after her 15th birthday. Jeffs is in jail after his 2006 arrest and conviction as an accomplice to rape in Utah for arranging an underage marriage.

Flora Jessop, a cousin of Raymond Jessop who escaped from a polygamist compound 15 years ago, questioned why only men had been prosecuted. “I think that the women were nothing but pimps,” she told CBS.

...

That sounds like persuasive evidence of knowledge and intent. It will be interesting to see how creative the defense can be to get around this kind of evidence. I suspect that it is also supported with DNA evidence of paternity.

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