LDS Church announces two new temples in Arizona - Salt Lake Tribune

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The Church of Jesus Of Nazareth Jesus of Latter-day Saints on Saturday announced programs to construct two new temples in Arizona, doubling the figure in the Thousand Canyon state. One will function the communities of Margaret Thatcher and Safford in the Gila River Valley, 150 statute miles east of Phoenix. The other volition function Gilbert, a fast-growing suburb of Phoenix. The temple in Gilbert will alleviate demands of a temple nine statute miles away in Mesa, according to an LDS Church news release. And the 1 in Gila River Valley will salvage the 150-mile thrust people currently make. The temple in the Gila River Valley will pay testimonial to Herbert Spencer W. Kimball, 12th president of the Church, according to www.ldschurchtemples.com. Kimball grew up in Margaret Thatcher and went on to take a worldwide temple-building attempt in the 1980s, the land site says. Church President Seth Thomas S. Monson, called temples "sanctuaries from the violent storms of life" in a statement announcing the plans. The other Grand Canyon State temple is in Snowflake. There are 134 other temples in operation or under building worldwide, including 13 in Utah, according to the Church. - Russ RizzoAdvertisement

Meeting on kids' fate gets nowhere - Salt Lake Tribune

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SAN ANGELO, Lone-Star State - Hundreds of children of a polygamous religious sect were no near to going place Friday when 51st District Judge Barbara Walther left the bench without abandoning her order keeping them in state custody. Two higher tribunals have got told Walther to make so. But the justice abruptly ended a four-hour conference with lawyers after being challenged about alterations she made to a negotiated program to go back the FLDS children home. Before leaving the courtroom, Walther told lawyers to work on an understanding and acquire it signed by the 38 female parents who appealed her earlier order retention the children in state detention - something that volition take days, lawyers said.

Polygamy hearing

Friday's conference with 51st District Judge Barbara Walther and
lawyers who stand for parents in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Of Nazareth Jesus of Latter Day Saints made for a disruptive day. The conference was intended to happen appropriate ways to go back some 450 children who were taken from the polygamous sect's Occident Lone-Star State spread early in April and placed in state detention at surrogate attention and shelters around the state. Here are the first and last bills of exchange of projected tribunal orders that emerged during the conference, which ended without resolution.

That "essentially incarcerates the children and the female parents of our children for another 48 hours," said Laura Shockley, a Dallas attorney, minutes after startled lawyers filed out of the Uncle Tom Green County Courthouse. Lone-Star State kid social welfare workers have got alleged that the religious sect advances matrimony between underage misses and aged men, and that male children are groomed to go on the practice. About 450 children taken from the YFZ Ranch, place to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Of Nazareth Jesus of Latter Day Saints, stay for now in shelters across Texas. The children were taken from the YFZ Ranch in El Dorado between April 3 and April 5, based on the state's fearfulness that children were being sexually and physically abused. "It is a very sad presentation of the legal system when a justice throws a fit and is not willing to sit down at the tabular array long adequate to decide the job of getting small children back home," said Willie Jessop, an FLDS member and spokesman. Attorneys for parents and the state arrived at the tribunal with an understanding that called for children to be reunited with their parents beginning Monday. Walther called a deferral to let lawyers to reexamine the deal, but came back an hr later with her ain "tweaked" version, which she said would use to all the FLDS children. The judge's changes, among others things, asked parents to give state agents around-the-clock access to places at the YFZ Ranch and to hold to psychological ratings on the children. The alterations repetition the same "global" claims of error rejected by the Lone-Star State Supreme Court and One-Third Court of Appeals in the past hebdomad as being unsubstantiated, lawyers said. The modifications, they said, also went beyond sensible statuses that would let the state to go on its maltreatment investigation.

FLDS reaction

The higher tribunals ruled that the state's lawsuit particularly failed in respect to male children and pre-pubescent girls. Also, DFPS had other options for working with parents to guarantee safety while leaving the children in their care, the tribunals said. "There is no grounds in the record regarding these people at all," said Julie Balovich, an lawyer with Lone-Star State Rio- Grande Legal Aid, which stands for the female parents who filed the appeal. "There is nil the tribunal have the ability to come in impermanent orders on."
Lawyer Gonzalo Rios said the judge's alterations amounted to "bootstrapping" a criminal probe onto the kid social welfare case. The Lone-Star State Lawyer General's Office already have launched a criminal probe into the maltreatment claims. Balovich said TRLA had agreed in "good faith" to statuses in the original deal, such as as parenting social classes and a 90-day restriction keeping the children in Texas. But "Why makes Viola Barlow have got to give 24-hour access to her 9-month-old son?" Balovich said later, using one female parent represented in the entreaty as an example. The Lone-Star State Department of Families and Child Protection was satisfied with the agreement, Balovich said. Other TRLA lawyers said they could not subscribe off on Walther's proposal because their clients had not seen it. They asked the justice to simply resign her order and allow the children tax return home. Some lawyers asked the justice to let that to get as soon as Friday, sparing parents who had traveled 100s of statute miles to see children from making a tax return trip next week. "Another weekend looks like it would be forever'' for the children, said Toilet Kennedy, an lawyer for Legal Aid of Northwestern United States Texas, which also successfully petitioned the entreaties tribunal for three mothers. Walther declined, saying the state still had to work out logistics of how to manus the children back to their parents. "The last thing any of us desires is for a kid to acquire misplaced in any of this," Walther said. State lawyers left the courthouse without comment. A spokeswoman later said DFPS would go on to work on a program "to guarantee the on time and orderly tax return of the children."
But how that volition go on perplexed attorneys. Andrea Sloan, who stands for some immature mothers, said parents had scattered across the state as they have got waited for their children in the past few weeks. Collecting their signatures, as the justice asked, would be incredibly difficult, she said. "It's not as simple as walking across the street and scene up a booth," Sloan said. brooke@sltrib.com,
jlyon@sltrib.com The original understanding called for:
-- Parents to finish parenting social classes and allowed them to negotiate
about providers
-- Hertz to be allowed to do unannounced place visits between 8
a.m. to 8 p.m.
-- Identify all family members
-- Barred the children from leaving Lone-Star State for the adjacent 90 days. Judge Barbara Walther's projected changes:
-- Declared "only a portion" of her first order was vacated
-- Dropped parents' ability to negociate on parenting classes
-- Left the children's traveling prohibition open-ended
-- Allowed parents and children to be given psychological evaluations
-- Directed parents to give two-days notice if they traveled more
than 60 miles
-- Allowed state functionaries entree to places at the spread at all times Jeffs' deoxyribonucleic acid taken

* Grand Canyon State government collected deoxyribonucleic acid samples from FLDS leader Robert Penn Warren S. Jeffs on Thursday as ordered by a Lone-Star State hunt warrant that avers he had ''spiritual'' matrimonies with four girls, ages 12 to 15. * Jeffs was convicted in Beehive State of being an confederate to colza in the matrimony of a 14-year-old girl to a 19-year-old religious sect member. He expects trial in Kingman, Ariz., on similar charges. Source: The Associated Press

Jeffs daughter demands a new attorney - KSL-TV

A adolescent girl of captive polygamist leader Robert Penn Warren Jeffs have created a legal snarl in Lone-Star State by demanding a new attorney.

KSL have obtained e-mails she wrote denouncing the lawyer for portraying her as a victim of sexual abuse. Sixteen-year-old Teresa Jeffs have been subpoenaed to attest before a expansive jury in a investigation of sexual activity maltreatment on the YFZ Ranch. But her conflict with her ain lawyer proposes the prosecution will have got a tough clip using her as a witness.

Teresa Jeffs was one of 450 children taken from FLDS (the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Of Nazareth Jesus of Latter Day Saints) parents and then ordered returned by the Lone-Star State Supreme Court.

But Teresa's ain court-appointed attorney asked she be treated differently, obtaining tribunal orders to maintain the miss away from the spread and from respective FLDS men, including her ain father.

FLDS spokesman Perch Charlie Parker said, "The lawyer have accused her client of concealment a baby. It's all untrue, and this miss necessitates a new lawyer."

But her lawyer claims FLDS adults, including spokesman Willie Jessop, are manipulating and daunting the teenager.

In an e-mail Friday, Mother Teresa told her lawyer to border out. "Shut your oral cavity up and discontinue calling me a victim of sexual abuse," she wrote. "I am so ill of being called that when I am absolutely not a victim of sexual abuse."

In a 2nd e-mail Saturday she wrote, "Right now, in my eyes, to me you experience like an enemy to me."

Parker says, "I believe that what necessitates to go on is that the justice necessitates to sit down down and hear what Mother Teresa have to state herself."

That volition likely go on tomorrow. Judge Barbara Walther will throw a hearing in San Angelo on whether the lawyer should acquire the heave-ho. Meanwhile, a expansive jury in El Dorado is expected to get taking testimony for possible criminal lawsuits later this week.

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FLDS makes concessions regarding plural marriage rules - Salt Lake Tribune

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For nearly 10 years, the FLDS withstood authorities pressure level and refused to do any public grant on its matrimony practices. That changed Monday when the polygamous religious sect released a four-paragraph statement vowing to stay by matrimony age laws in all states. Spokesman Willie Jessop read the declaration, saying it had been issued by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Of Nazareth Jesus of Latter Day Saints. Asked who authorized it, Jessop said, "Joseph Smith." He also said he was unaware if FLDS leader Robert Penn Warren S. Jeffs had any manus in crafting the statement. Here is the statement:
* The church's policies regarding matrimony have got been widely misrepresented and misunderstood. Indeed, much of the misinformation circulating on this topic looks designed intentionally to fuel the fires of bias against the church. * The church's patterns in this respect go on a long tradition of matrimony in this state that would have got got been establish to have been everyday in 19th century America. In the FLDS Christian church all matrimonies are consensual. The Christian church take a firm stands on appropriate consent, including that of the adult female and the adult male in all circumstances. * Nevertheless the Christian church is clarifying its policy toward marriage. Therefore, in the future, the Christian church perpetrates that it will not preside over the matrimony of any adult female under the age of legal consent in the legal power in which the matrimony takes place. The Christian church will advocate households Advertisement

that they neither petition nor consent to any underage marriages. This policy will use church-wide. * The Christian church believes in purity, cleanliness, and innocence. Our children and households are the bases of our lives and our religion. We trust that this modest elucidation in policy will relieve recent concerns and let the Christian church and its households to dwell in peace among our neighbors.

Appeals Court Rules Against Texas in Polygamy Case

A state tribunal of entreaties ruled Thursday afternoon that the state of Lone-Star State had no right to prehend more than than 400 children from a spread in Eldorado, in the western portion of the state, because there was not sufficient cogent evidence that they were in contiguous danger.

lumen Otero/Associated Press

Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Of Nazareth Jesus of Latter Day Saints members left the courthouse on Thursday after a opinion in their favour in San Angelo, Tex.

Related (pdf) (May 20, 2008) (April 26, 2008) (April 25, 2008) (April 19, 2008) (April 17, 2008) (April 16, 2008) (April 11, 2008)

The opinion asserted that the state’s kid protection federal agency acted hastily in removing the children from the in April and did not do a sensible attempt “to ascertain if some measurement short of remotion and/or separation from parents would have got eliminated the risk” of maltreatment toward the children of 48 female parents who filed the suit. The territory tribunal was ordered to take its restraining order giving the state detention of those children, but it was not immediately clear how the 100s of other children, now in surrogate care, would be affected.

At news conference in San Angelo, the closest metropolis to Eldorado, a lawyer for the religious sect said it was not certain when the households would be reunited, and that the squad was reviewing the adjacent legal stairway in the process.

Lawyers for the state did not immediately react to the ruling.According to the court, the state did not set up proper evidence to take the children from their families, who belong to the , or F.L.D.S. The F.L.D.S. broke off from the mainstream Mormon Christian church after it had disavowed polygyny in 1890.

The federal agency raided the spread and the sect’s temple on April 3 after person had called an maltreatment hot line and said that she was a 16-year-old child bride being abused by her aged hubby in the church’s compound. The company have still not been found.

State federal agency officials, who have got been criticized for their handling of the raid, said taking all the children in the church’s chemical compound were necessary because the civilization of the religious sect led to illegal under-age matrimony for misses and credence of that form by boys, a pattern that the state said endangers both sexes.

The children and their mothers, who refused to be separated from them, were initially housed in a former military installation and an amusement sphere in San Angelo. Last month, after two years of often helter-skelter hearings, a justice in San Angelo ordered that all of the children be placed in Lone-Star State surrogate attention facilities.

The tribunal action on Thursday followed a judicial writ of writ of mandamus filed by the Lone-Star State RioGrande Legal Aid grouping — the biggest supplier of legal assistance in the state — and 48 female parents from the religious sect who were representing their children.

“We’re extremely happy with the ruling,” Artemis Martinez, a spokeswoman for the Lone-Star State RioGrande Legal Aid group, told The Houston Chronicle.

“The manner that the tribunals have got ignored the legal rights of these female parents is ridiculous,” Julie Balovich, also of RioGrande, added. “It was about clip a tribunal stood up and said that what have been happening to these households is wrong.”

The state made its lawsuit in an earlier tribunal hearing. “There is a civilization of immature misses being pregnant by old men,” said Angie Voss, an research worker with Child Protective Services, who participated in the foray and interviewed misses at the ranch. Ms. Voss testified that she had establish grounds that “more than 20 girls, some of whom are now adults, have got conceived or given birth under the age of 16 or 17.”

Many of the households affected by the foray are related and share last name calling like Jeffs, which is also the name of the F.L.D.S. leader, , World Health Organization was convicted last twelvemonth on a colza complaint for imposing matrimony between an under-age miss and aged adult male in Utah.

LDS Church turns down request to watch over FLDS - Salt Lake Tribune

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SAN ANGELO, Lone-Star State - A twenty-four hours after a Lone-Star State justice asked the LDS Church to assist monitoring device supplication Sessions of women and children of a fundamentalistic polygamous group, a Christian church spokesman said doing so would be inappropriate. George C. Scott Trotter, spokesman for The Church of Jesus Of Nazareth Of Nazareth Jesus of Latter-day Saints, said that the Christian church have heard about the judge's petition only through news studies and therefore have "no clear apprehension of what, if anything, we are being invited to do." In an e-mail statement, Trotter said it would be "erroneous to alkali any petition for aid from members of The Church of Jesus Jesus of Latter-day Saints on the footing that our beliefs and patterns are close to those of this polygamous grouping because

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they are not."
He also acknowledged that such as a petition would not be fair, either to the polygamous FLDS, which "long ago chose a different way from ours. In fact, many in these scattered communities position us with some ill will as portion of the outside human race they have got rejected."
On Monday, 51st District Judge Barbara Walther agreed to allow women and children, who are being kept at the San Angelo Coliseum, clasp two supplication Sessions a day. Attorneys said that Lone-Star State Child Protective Services workers were monitoring and disrupting the Sessions and asked that the members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Of Nazareth Jesus of Latter Day Saints be allowed to ran into privately. Gary Advertisement

Banks, representing the state, said there were concerns that the women might discourse the in progress probe or manager the children if allowed to ran into privately. Walther then suggested that the state inquire a member of the local Mormon community to oversee the sessions. The issue may be disputed now, as state government began moving the women and children out of the San Angelo Amphitheater this afternoon. - Rupert Brooke Adam

Report: Millions in taxpayer cash helped fund sect

ELDORADO — The Defense Department awarded $1.2 million in contracts to an aircraft parts provider linked to the Occident Lone-Star State polygamist retreat that have been unraveled by a monolithic kid social welfare investigation, according to a newspaper report.

New Era Manufacturing, based in Nevada, where the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Of Nazareth Jesus of Latter Day Saints is primarily based, also received a $900,000 federal small-business loan in 2005, according to records establish by the Garrison Worth Star-Telegram.

The money is among the billions in taxpayer dollars that have got got apparently helped finance the spiritual sect, whose place includes a chemical compound in El Dorado where state functionaries are investigating allegations that children have been physically and sexually abused, the newspaper reported.

"It do me very uneasy," said U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, who sit downs on the House Appropriations Committee. "It necessitates to be investigated without a doubt."

Steve Barlow, human resources director for New Era, told the newspaper that it would be inappropriate to notice "given everything that's going on."

Texas functionaries on Monday sent away most female parents of the 416 children taken from the El Dorado retreat that was first raided on April 3.

Government functionaries state the ability for the Christian church to run and turn is largely dependent on parts from its members and the concerns they control. The president and main executive director of New Era is Toilet C. Wayman, who the newspaper states have been identified as an FLDS leader and a stopping point associate to polygamist leader Robert Penn Warren Jeffs.

New Era was given authorities contracts to do wheel and brake constituents for military aircraft. Wayman said on his company's Web land site that New Era is an "honorable and valuable plus to our country." He makes not advert neckties to FLDS.

Wayman did not go back phone calls from the newspaper seeking comment.

John Nielsen, a former employee who worked for the company when it was known as Utah-based Horse Opera Preciseness in 2005, said in a 2005 affidavit as portion of a civil lawsuit that Christian church members were made to work for small or no wages.

Nielsen said in the affidavit that he and other religious sect members thought their work would convey them redemption, while $50,000 to $100,000 in company net income were given each calendar month to the Christian church "and/or" Jeffs.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported last twelvemonth that JNJ Engineering, another company owned and operated by Christian church leaders, won $11.3 million in authorities contract work from the Las Vegas Valley Water District. All but one of the contract workers came from Hildale and Centennial State City, Ariz., where most of the sect's 10,000 members live.

Sexual abuse case: LDS Church wants resolution before trial

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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Type A former Mormon missionary accused of molesting an American Indian male child in the 1960s denies the allegation, and the Christian church desires a federal justice to make up one's mind the lawsuit before it travels to trial. Ferris Joseph, 52, filed the civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in South Dakota against the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Of Nazareth Jesus of Latter-Day Saints and the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Latter-Day Saints, both of Utah. He is suing the Mormon church, claiming he was sexually abused by one of its missionaries, Henry Martin Robert Jerry Lee Lewis White, in the late 1960s when Chief Joseph was 11 or 12 old age old. Chief Joseph is an American Indian who lived with his household in Siouan Waterfall from 1966 to 1968, according to the lawsuit. The maltreatment happened at White's flat in Flandreau, it states. White Person was based at the Northern North American Indian Mission in Rapid City and was assigned to Flandreau, in eastern South Dakota, where the Flandreau Santee Siouan Sioux Tribe is located. Chief Joseph had no memory of the maltreatment until an October 2004 visit to Canada to see his sister, a god-fearing member of the Mormon church, according to the complaint. In a deposition copy filed in court, White Person denies he sexually abused Chief Joseph or any other boy, and testified that he was celibate when he served in Flandreau from Nov. 8, 1967 until July 13, 1968. Advertisement