Polygamist sects likened to organized crime rings (by Harry Reid)

[babylonsister]

Polygamist sects likened to organized crime rings

Erich Schlegel / Dallas Morning News / MCT

Female members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints wait their turn to testify in the grand jury proceedings in Eldorado, Texas, on Tuesday.

By Dave Montgomery | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — A Senate committee on Thursday heard appeals for the creation of a federal task force to combat polygamist sects that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid described as sophisticated organized crime rings.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, whose office has received nationwide attention for its investigation of a sect in Texas, was among those backing legislation sponsored by Reid, D-Nev. The bill would establish a task force in the U.S. Department of Justice and assist victims of polygamist groups.

The hearing, which included testimony from two former sect members, spotlighted the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Saints (FLDS) led by Warren Jeffs, who was once on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. Jeffs and four of his followers were indicted Tuesday by a grand jury in Texas for felony assault of a child.

Abbott told reporters after the hearing that further action is likely as investigators sift through "boxes and boxes" of documents and examine other evidence. "I would say we're in the early stages of our investigation," Abbott said.

Reid, who once took on mob bosses when he sought to clean up Las Vegas casinos as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that polygamist sects are a "form of organized crime" that have spread into numerous states, as well as Canada and Mexico.

"I am not saying that they are the same thing as the crime syndicates that used to run Las Vegas," Reid said. "But they engage in an ongoing pattern of serious crimes that we ignore at our peril."

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/45475.html

[uppityperson]

1. a bit more...(cue the 3 or 4 who will now have to "prove" that is wrong.)

Carolyn Jessop of West Jordan, Utah, who escaped an FLDS community in Arizona in 2003, said that Jeffs exerted a "tyrannical hold" on sect members and performed secret marriages between underage girls and older men. Boys and girls as young as 12 were forced out of public schools to work for FLDS construction companies and other businesses, in shifts that lasted from 6 a.m. until after dark, she said.

Children were also "indoctrinated" with taped teachings from Jeffs. One message, she said, was that "if a man is instructed by the (FLDS) prophet to take the life of another human being, he should do so in humility."

Another FLDS practice was known as "bleeding the beast," she said. The beast was the U.S. government, and FLDS members were instructed to avoid paying taxes and to apply for every "possible type of government assistance," said Jessop.

[musette_sf]

2. k&r

read the testimonies of Carolyn Jessop and Dan Fischer.

http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=3489

[Bobbieo]

3. In Az, each spiritual wife and kids are treated as a single welfare parent with children.

Maybe Goddard has already changed that, but I doubt it.