Sect raid police find evidence of underage marriage
Police searching a 1,700-acre religious compound in Texas found a bed in a limestone temple thought to be used by male members to have sex with their underage wives.
The discovery was revealed as officers completed their week-long search of the grounds of the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The temple "contains an area where there is a bed where males over the age of 17 engage in sexual activity with female children under the age of 17," according to court papers.
Texas law prohibits polygamy and the marriage of girls under 16.
The search of the compound in Eldorado began last Thursday after a 16-year-old girl called a helpline to report her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her.
Since then, the state has taken legal custody of 416 children, who are being housed at two sites. Another 139 women voluntarily left the compound known as the YFZ Ranch and were being housed with the children.
Court documents said a number of teenage girls at the compound were pregnant, and all the children were removed on the grounds that they were in danger of "emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse".
Yesterday state officials said the women and children were in good overall health. Officials would not comment on pregnancies.
Authorities were trying to determine the identities and parentage of many of the children; some were unwilling or unable to provide the names of their biological parents, or identified multiple mothers.
During their search of the compound, agents found a bed in the temple with disturbed linens and what appeared to be a female hair, said a court affidavit.
The temple also contained multiple locked safes, vaults and desk drawers.
Officials are still not sure where the 16-year-old girl who made the initial call is, and she is not named among the children in initial custody petitions by the state.
An arrest warrant has been issued for the man alleged to have been the girl's husband, 50-year-old Dale Barlow. He is a registered sex offender who pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a child in Arizona last year.
Lawyers for the sect had wanted to cut off the wide-ranging search as it dragged on but agreed in court to the appointment of a special "master" who will vet what is expected to be hundreds of boxes of records, computers and even family Bibles for records that should not become evidence for legal or religious reasons.
Gerry Goldstein, a lawyer for the church, said the temple search was the equivalent of police invading the Vatican or other holy places.
The Texas investigation is the state's first of FLDS members, but prosecutors in Utah and Arizona have pursued several church members in recent years, including sect leader Warren Jeffs.
He is serving two consecutive sentences of five years to life for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old married to her cousin in Utah. Jeffs awaits trial on other charges in Arizona.
