"The Texas State Legislature's Human Services Committee will hear testimony on the state's response to allegations of abuse at the YFZ Ranch, setting the stage for a highly anticipated inquiry into how the custody case involving the Utah-based polygamous sect was handled.If I were the FLDS I'd take pictures of everyone there. One is bound to be a secret enemy. Find out who they are.
'We will be there,' FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop said of the hearing."
"More legislation related to the YFZ raid is expected to debut soon at the Texas State House. Rep. Harvey Hildebran, R-Kerrville, whose district includes Eldorado and the YFZ Ranch, is reportedly drafting a bill dealing with removing accused sexual perpetrators from a home and the length of time courts must hold child custody hearings."Harvey's last bit of genius turned millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars into kindling and now in these times of great bounty, what does Harvey propose? Let's do it again!
"We look forward to working with the committee to provide any information we can about the Eldorado case, and about our efforts on behalf of the children who were affected," Texas CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said in an e-mail (to the Deseret News).I'll bet. It was probably more fun to "provide services" to the FLDS. Ever the Liar. I know from personal experience you can't trust anything coming out of that pie hole. Oh, is my bias showing? (Hey Pat, I got your services for ya, RIGHT HERE....)
"At the start of a hearing of the Texas House Human Services Committee on Tuesday, Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, announced the formation of the subcommittee.My only hope is that the unavoidable truth that comes out of this will be the big bump in the budget rug no one wants to talk about. Perhaps it will be too big to avoid. With shrinking overall revenue and a growing eyesore of an expenditure lump no one wants to acknowledge, it will be increasingly hard not to talk about it.
'The situation in Eldorado over the interim presented real challenges for the department and real challenges for the state," Rose said. "A lot of us have been talking about those issues during the interim.'
Rose said the subcommittee will schedule hearings in the coming weeks and would present a final report to the legislative committee, but he did not say what its specific focus would be.
'Those of us who are on the committee … care deeply about what we can learn, what lessons learned from that experience are,' he said."
"FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop welcomed the news of the subcommittee.He may get his chance, but I wouldn't build my life around it or my hopes if I were him. However, this is like a game of Russian Roulette for the State of Texas. Every public statement, every hearing, every attempt at a whitewash runs the real chance of the truth getting out of control, and getting out.
'There is no downside for this to be thoroughly investigated,' he told the Deseret News on Tuesday. 'I know what we've spent. It's cost millions of millions of dollars and disrupted thousands of lives. I think we've been dying for our day in court and I'm hoping they'll invite participation from the FLDS.' "
"It is with great regret that I hereby tender my resignation as staff attorney for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, effective Nov. 1, 2008, or at whatever earlier date may be most convenient and least disruptive to the operations of the agency," Charles Childress wrote in a resignation letter obtained by the Deseret News.
"I anticipate that we will have resolved all but a handful of pending cases through cooperative agreements with the parents, resulting in dismissal of the department's suits by early November," he wrote.
This hints broadly at the subject matter of the dispute. The writing is on the wall to reduce the number of FLDS child custody cases to perhaps less than five. The language indicates that the cases are going to be plural in nature, but the number will be very small.
"The remaining cases may end up going to trial next year. Three cases involving children either placed back in foster care or returned to their parents under family service plans will be up for dismissal in February 2009."
This aludes to the number of cases. It seems it will be three.
"The dismissal date for all other cases is April 13, 2009, although there is an argument that could be made against applying this deadline," Childress wrote.
Someone advocated that the cases be continued. Judging from the speed of the dismissals and the revelation of the "handful" estimate by Mr. Childress, it would seem Mr. Childress is likely to have fallen on the side of just letting those cases go.
I am speculating here but it is sound speculation for someone as far on the outside as I am. If this is truly the case, I again repeat that Charles Childress may turn out to be, in the final analysis, a great hero for the FLDS, having stood up to Texas who seems intent on prosecuting a much larger number of cases.
You can imagine a meeting that goes like this:
"You're dismissing nearly ALL the cases Charles, WHAT'S UP?!?!"
"You have maybe three cases."
"That's unacceptable!"
"You have maybe three cases, this is what you hired me to do."
"You find MORE!"
"I can't."
(Phone Rings, Governor Perry is calling on his cell phone)
"Pack your kit and git Chuck."
All should pay attention to this politicized prosecution. It is the very essense of what persecution is all about. The FLDS have become a political football. The fortunes of Texas depend on finding more than just a couple of Child Abuse cases than in the end may cost more than $20,000,000.00 apiece. For this reason it no longer matters what is right or what is wrong to the elected officials like Governor Perry. They need a lot of cape mounts on their den wall to justify what was done. Sorry FLDS, nothing personal. It's just politics. I hope you understand. Take one for the team willya?
"The tiny county that has been the eye of the storm over the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch says it could go bankrupt if the state of Texas doesn't indemnify it against millions of dollars in bills.Schleicher County recently passed a resolution declaring that it has limited financial resources and its taxpayers are burdened beyond their means by the raid's extraordinary costs. The resolution says Texas Child Protective Services instituted 'a costly procedure without the knowledge of Schleicher County against residents,' and county officials have no way of controlling it.
'They're the ones that initiated the proceedings,' Schleicher County Judge Johnny Griffin told the Deseret News on Monday. 'There's costs sent to us that we didn't initiate and the county didn't authorize.'"
Aw, and they just put the hurtin' on the biggest taxpayer in the county, what a shame.
"The state has verbally agreed to pick up the tab, but Griffin said they would like to see it in writing. Nearby Kerr County passed a resolution last week supporting Schleicher County's request for indemnification."
And they never lie.
The Salt Lake Tribune - "One lawmaker on the Senate Finance Committee questioned whether the state could make the adults left behind on the ranch - valued at $20.5 million - foot the bill.
"I would encourage you to aggressively pursue any of those assets to fund this," said Republican Sen. Bob Deuell of Greenville."
The Austin American-Statesman - "With court costs expected to top $2.25 million — even before lawyer fees are included — legal proceedings from April's raid on a polygamist group's ranch near Eldorado promise to be a budget buster for rural Schleicher County."
We'll never know how much it costs to catch the guy (if they EVER catch him) that had sex 4 years ago with a 14 year old. Or maybe it's the guy that had sex one year ago with a 16 year old....if they exist at all. It's nice to keep a running tab on what we do know Texas is paying.
The Houston Chronicle - AUSTIN — "State lawmakers started adding up Tuesday the "extraordinary" costs related to the raid on a polygamist sect's ranch last month and began trying to figure out where to find the expected $30 million the case will eventually cost over the next year."
"Modern Pharisee points out that the age issue also reveals the CPS to have lied about what they observed during the kidnappings. He also notes that it has now cost Texas $10 million to fund the CPS crimes... no doubt that will increase significantly once the FLDS start suing the smack out of the state and its agents. Remember, there's no protection against liability when an agent of the state can be shown to have committed a crime."More →
It didn't even take a day for the cost to go up. In a story dated for Tomorrow (hehehehe, I am a prophet, it's one of the pleasures of being in Mountain time with papers writing in Central time);
The Houston Chronicle - AUSTIN — "Last month's raid of a West Texas polygamist sect's ranch and the removal of the more than 460 children living there has cost the state at least $10 million in sheltering and legal costs, according to estimates provided by state offices Friday.
Records released by Gov. Rick Perry's office show $7.5 million in estimated costs for April, including expenses related to the weeklong search of the Yearning for Zion Ranch, run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect.
The costs of sheltering the children and some of their mothers for three weeks in San Angelo city facilities added to the offices' estimate. The period covered ends April 23, after the state had won temporary custody of the children based on arguments that underage marriages at the ranch put all of them at risk of child abuse, and was moving them to foster facilities around the state.
Additionally, the state's Office of Court Administration estimated legal costs associated with the custody wrangling has been $2.3 million."
The story also appears in the San Antonio Express-News.
By the way, I think the FLDS "broke away" a long time ago. They've been a "breakaway" sect longer than the LDS had existed at the time the FLDS "broke away." When are they just the FLDS? I don't hear anyone referring to the "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" as being "breakaway."
The Austin American-Statesman - "The massive child welfare operation that began in early April with a state raid of a West Texas ranch owned by a polygamous sect cost nearly $7.5 million in the first 19 days, according to records from Gov. Rick Perry's office.And they've got NOTHING. No charges, no evidence, no warrants, no suspects. PULL THE PLUG NOW. Where are the "Fiscal Conservatives" on this issue? This has been going on for 43 days, not 19. Expect the costs to treble, quadruple. More.A spokeswoman for Perry cautioned that the numbers — obtained through the Texas Public Information Act — are preliminary and unaudited, and Perry's office has yet to release official costs."
