Quote from AAAintheBeltway:
Do you deny that innocent poeple have been sent to prison on bogus child molestation charges? Janet Reno made her reputation in Florida by sending some poor innocent guy to prison on made up charges. There were scores of cases in a small town in Washington state. There were the infamous daycare center cases, where children came up with fantastic stories that clearly could not have happened but people were sent to prison anyway. I am as concerned as anyone else about protecting children, but to suggest that there have not been horrible excesses is to deny reality.
As for this case, all I am saying is I haven't seen any real evidence. I have heard a lot of breathless speculation about old men and young girls, but I haven't heard one of the women complain and I haven't seen one piece of evidence that anyone was coerced, etc. That's not to say that such evidence doesn't exist, bSkip navigat
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Woman describes ÂeescapeÂf from polygamy
She left the same sect that 534 women, children were freed from in Texas
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Over 500 taken from Texas compound
April 8: Authorities remove more than 500 women and children from the Texas compound of a polygamist sect. NBC's Don Teague reports.
Today show
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 11:25 a.m. ET, Tues., April. 8, 2008
A polygamous community in Texas that follows the teaching of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints practices pedophilia, torture and child abuse under the guise of a religion, according to a woman who escaped the sect with her eight children five years ago.
ÂgI think itÂfs a form of pedophilia hiding behind a religion as a protection,Âh Carolyn Jessop told TODAYÂfs Matt Lauer from Salt Lake City on Tuesday. ÂgThereÂfs just a desire to control and manipulate and torture people, and religion is just used as the cover.Âh
The sect Jessop escaped is the same one in Eldorado, Texas, that was raided on Monday by state police after a 16-year-old girl called authorities to report that she was being abused. The girl reported that other girls as young as 14 were being forced into plural marriages with much older men.
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Police removed 401 children and 133 women from the compound on warrants issued by a judge, who deemed them to be under imminent danger of physical abuse.
Jessop said it took enormous courage for the girl to call police, who still arenÂft sure if she is among those removed from the compound.
ÂgIt would take courage thatÂfs even beyond what I could comprehend,Âh she told Lauer. ÂgShe could not run the risk of being caught. She would have just to have gotten to the point where she would rather be dead than to continue living the way she was living. It would have had to have been that extreme for her, because those are literally some of the risks she was taking.Âh
When Jessop was a member of the sect, it was centered in Colorado City, Ariz., on the Utah border. The 1,700-acre Texas compound was built after she left. The sectÂfs leader, Warren Jeffs, was sentenced to 10 years in prison last September after being found guilty of two counts of first-degree accomplice rape for sanctioning the forced marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin.
The 40-year-old Jessop was 18 when she was forced to marry Merril Jessop, who is said to have taken over leadership of the sect when Jeffs went to prison. Merril Jessop was 50 at the time of the marriage and had three other wives. She said from what she has heard and read, the sect has become even more restrictive since moving to Texas.
She has written a book about her experience entitled ÂgEscape,Âh and in it, she talks about being totally cut off from the world and not being allowed to watch television or read newspapers or magazines.
ÂgEverything you did was monitored and controlled and everybody reported on everyone else,Âh she said. ÂgIt was a police state. You were not allowed to make decisions in your life. I had no power over my life or the lives of my children. It was a terrible way to live.Âh
The alleged control began in infancy.
ÂgThe method he would use with infants was a form of water torture,Âh Jessop said of her former husband. ÂgHe would spank the baby until it was screaming out of control, and then he would hold the baby faceup under a tap of running water so it couldnÂft breathe. He would do this repeatedly. Sometimes, it would go on for an hour, until the baby was so exhausted it couldnÂft cry anymore. This method he called Âebreaking them.ÂfÂh
To a child, the abuse becomes normal, she said, and resistance becomes unthinkable to most. ÂgWith this level of mind control, itÂfs something youÂfre born into and itÂfs generational. The babies born into this, they donÂft stand a chance from the beginning,Âh she said.
What prompted her to leave was what she saw as a threat to her daughter.
ÂgIt was getting worse every year,Âh she said of the level of control and abuse. ÂgThatÂfs one of the things for me where I felt so urgent to get out was that my daughter was turning 14, and Warren was resetting the marrying age at that point to 14. This was in 2003.Âh
She said her husband controlled his wives through their children. ÂgThe way he controlled me was by being violent to my children,Âh she told Lauer. ÂgIf I did something that he didnÂft like, my children paid, and they paid a big price. He would hurt them. If he would have been hurting me, I probably would not have conformed. But when you go after a womanÂfs child, thatÂfs one thing that will put a woman on her knees quickly.Âh
The fundamentalist group claims to hold to the original teachings of Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon religion in rural upstate New York in 1830. It is not recognized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which renounced plural marriage in 1904 under pressure from the federal government.
There are a number of fundamentalist branches with compounds in Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Mexico and Texas, according to Jon KrakauerÂfs book, ÂgUnder the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith.Âh
Rulon Jeffs founded the sect that Jessop belonged to and built his original compound in Colorado City, Ariz., on the Utah border. On his death, his son, Warren Jeffs, assumed primacy, along with the title of ÂgPresident and Prophet and RevelatorÂh and the absolute authority that came with the position.
Jeffs was on the FBIÂfs 10 Most Wanted list when he was captured in August 2006 while driving through Nevada in a Cadillac Escalade. With him were one of his wives and his brother. Police said Jeffs had four computers, 16 cell phones, various disguises and $55,000 in cash.
