Carolyn Jessop is a former FLDS Member and Co-Author of Escape.

Carolyn Jessop
Author of ESCAPE, and former FLDS member

Relief. Justice. Accountability. Those three words best express my reaction to the news that my ex-husband, Merril Jessop, one of the most powerful men in the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), has been indicted.

Merril, 72, is charged with conducting the marriage of an underage girl—his own daughter—to the FLDS “prophet” Warren Jeffs. I know her; she was 12 years old when she was forced to marry. Merril posted $30,000 in bail yesterday and is free. But he’s been charged with a felony and will stand trial.

Merril is in charge of the compound in Texas that’s home to hundreds of FLDS members and that was raided last April on accusations of marriages of underage girls. In fact, Merril has headed the sect since 2006, when Jeffs was put on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, fled the compound, and was later convicted on a charge related to the marriage of a girl to an older man.

I long ago worked through the anger I felt toward Merril, whom I was forced to marry at 18. I was his fourth wife and we had 8 children in 15 years. Five years ago I fled with all of my children in the middle of the night. The book I wrote about my life, ESCAPE, became a bestseller.

I knew I couldn’t stay silent when crimes were being perpetrated against so many women and children still trapped in the FLDS. I wrote ESCAPE to bring attention to the rampant degradation, humiliation and exploitation that was routinely done by the FLDS in the name of “God.”

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Chuck Johnston
CNN National Desk

The patriarch of the world’s biggest polygamist sect’s compound in Eldorado, Texas turned himself in after being indicted on felony charges. Fredrick Merril Jessop, 72, of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), is charged with one count of conducting an unlawful marriage ceremony involving a minor, which is a third-degree felony.

Jessop has been running the compound, called the Yearning for Zion Ranch, home to hundreds of church members. He was husband of Carolyn Jessop, who wrote in her best-selling book, “Escape” about their marriage and life in the FLDS, and her frightening escape from Merril Jessop and the compound with her children.

Carolyn Jessop and others have said girls as young 11 have been forced into polygamists marriages with older men, boys have been ejected from the sect on trumped up infractions, and children have been beaten.

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David Mattingly | Bio
AC360° Contributor

Three more members of a polygamous sect led by Warren Jeffs are now facing sexual assault charges associated with the “marriage” of teenage girls to adult men.

That brings the total number of FLDS men indicted by the Texas grand jury to 9. Does that sound like a lot to anyone?

It’s been eight months since Texas authorities raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch–taking 400+ children into custody. It’s been four months since the courts ordered the state to send them all home.
We don’t know the names of the three new defendants. The other six, including Warren Jeffs haven’t gone to trial yet..

Texas authorities say the investigation is on-going. I hope we will learn soon where this investigation is actually going and when they plan to get there.

Warren Jeffs

Gary Tuchman
AC360° Correspondent

Warren Jeff’s fundamentalist polygamist sect has never been so vulnerable.

A grand jury in Texas has indicted three FLDS members on charges related to accusations of sexual abuse of children through marriage of underage girls to older men.

This follows the indictment of five others last month, including Warren Jeffs himself on new charges, Jeffs is already in prison after being convicted as an accomplice to rape for arranging an underage marriage.

There is no reason to doubt that more members of this church are being investigated.

One might think all this is giving some  members second thoughts. But in this church, where the hierarchy is as rigid and strict as old Stalinist regimes, no member in good standing would ever tell an outsider that.

On the contrary, one member I called tells me this “strengthens his faith.” It’s an attack against their religion, he says.

Justice may be getting served. But it’s also increasing a martyr complex among members of this church. And you have to wonder what effect that might have on the men, women and children of this church.

FLDS women at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, reacting to the removal of more than 400 children in April.

Chuck Johnston
CNN National Desk

Two weekends ago, I saw the pictorial in the Sunday New York Times Magazine on the FLDS families living in San Antonio that were profiled, and thought to myself, what comes next in the investigation stemming from the April raid on the polygamy ranch in Eldorado?

And today we learned that the Texas Department of Child Protective Services is seeking foster care for eight children who returned to living with their families on the ranch back in June.

CPS is asking a judge to put the children into foster care because they say “their mothers have refused to limit the children’s contact with men involved in underage marriages.”

CPS is asking the mothers of all girls aged 10-17 to sign safety plans to protect their children from sexual abuse.

Mothers of the eight children who CPS is seeking foster care for have refused to sign the safety plan.

According to CPS, among other things, the safety plan requires that mothers keep children away from a man who “married underage girls or agreed to an arranged marriage on an underage daughter.”

CPS is asking hearings to be set for removal of the eight children.

No word yet on whether the court will grant the hearings.

Fundamentalist LDS Church spokesman Willie Jessop talks with reporters on Capitol Hill, today, following the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing: Crimes Associated with Polygamy.

David Mattingly
AC360° Correspondent

When Senator Harry Reid of Nevada accuses polygamists of forming “a sophisticated, wealthy and vast criminal organization” and calls polygamous communities “a form of organized crime,” he speaks from experience that goes beyond his role as Senate Majority Leader.

Years ago, Reid was the head of the Nevada Gaming Commission and worked to root out organized crime from Las Vegas casinos. He says polygamous communities in the U.S. are not the same as the old Vegas mobs but he says they continue to engage in crimes too serious to ignore. Keep reading

Jailed polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was taken to a hospital in Las Vegas on Tuesday, but police would not say why.

Las Vegas police Officer Jose Montoya said Jeffs was taken from an Arizona jail to the Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

“I can’t tell you why he was brought here or what his condition is,” he said.

He referred questions to the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona. A call to the sheriff’s spokeswoman was not immediately returned.

The jail, in Kingman, Arizona, is about 100 miles from the medical center.

Jeffs, 52, is the leader of the estimated 10,000-member Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He is awaiting trial on 10 felony charges — five counts of sexual conduct with a minor, four counts of incest and one count of conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor…

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Warren Jeffs, FLDS leader whose daughtar has accused an FLDS spokesman of harassment.

Terri Langford
The Houston Chronicle

A lawyer for the 16-year-old daughter of polygamist group leader Warren Jeffs is requesting a restraining order to prevent a spokesman for the group from intimidating and harassing the girl.

The request for a restraining order against Willie Jessop was filed in San Angelo today by Natalie Malonis.

The teenager was one of the hundreds of children taken from the Yearning For Zion Ranch by Texas Child Protective Services in April because investigators believed they were exposed to abuse by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Her name is not being disclosed because Malonis has said that she is a victim of sexual abuse.

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Chuck Johnston
Assignment Editor, CNN National Desk

The gates outside the Yearning For Zion ranch in Eldorado, Texas, are usually locked. But they were open late Tuesday, as families returned to the sprawling ranch with children being returned from foster homes around the state.

“We just traveled day and night. Texas is a beautiful state, I had no idea I would see that much of it,” Zavenda Young said, holding her youngest daughter while her husband Edson Jessop embraced their sons.

“We are sure grateful to be home,” she added. “We’ve traveled 11,000 miles covering visits to the children, visits with attorneys, and all.”

Young told reporters the family had been temporarily living in the Houston area as they shuttled in between their four children and their caseworkers.

“The people that have been taking care of the children were doing such a wonderful job. They literally cried when we took them away,” Young said of the foster parents who cared for the children after they were removed from the ranch by state officials in April, citing evidence of underage marriages and statutory rape.

Young said the children had been hit hard by the removal to foster homes around the state. “They are dazed,” she said. “They are not the same. We hope they pull out of it.”

Some reporters asked returning children how it felt to be back with their parents on the ranch. Clearly still shaken by the experience, children clung to their parents and shied away from the cameras.

Jessop said the raid had created misconceptions of the FLDS members of the polygamist ranch:

“We feel that everybody has been fed a whole bunch of garbage about us. I think when most people come to know us they come to learn that we are different than they suppose, but it’s really hard to change the spots on a leopard-we are what we are. I am the same kind of man that my father and grandfather was. I don’t know why the world wants to change me.”

Steven Hassan
Cult expert
Author and mental health counselor

On the face of it, the Texas Supreme Court’s 6-3 vote to support the Appellate Court reversal of Judge Walther’s decision—to remove the children from the FLDS compound in Eldorado—might look like a blow, but I don’t see it that way.

The fact is, the overall situation is vastly improved for the children and other members of the group and there is great hope.

•First of all, I predict there will not be any more so-called “spiritual” marriages involving underage children.

•Second, the investigation into the facts of child sexual abuse—of girls as well as boys—has begun and is set to continue.

•Third, despite the upset brought about by the dramatic intervention by Texas Child Protective Services, the children and other members of the FLDS group have no doubt had many, many positive experiences with people in the real world, as evidenced by the tearful goodbyes when they had to go back.

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