More on MHMR workers blasting CPS in FLDS case

An FLDS woman whose age is disputed by Texas officials gave birth in Austin around noon today to a son - and hours later her attorney won a ruling preventing authorities from moving her immediately to San Antonio.
Austin State District Judge Orlinda Naranjo granted a temporary restraining order to prevent the Texas Department of Family and Protective services from moving Louisa Jessop and her newborn to San Antonio this evening, according to Rod Parker, an FLDS spokesman and Salt Lake City attorney.
Louisa Bradshaw Jessop maintains she is 22, but the department has her classified as 17. She has two other children, ages 3 and 2, and is in state custody with them after an April 3 raid on her home, the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado. ...

On Monday, I brought up the fact that there hasn't been a ton of attention paid to the "lost boys" at the Eldorado compound. They are the ones who, for one reason or another, can get excommunicated, like even for talking to girls. What happens to them is not always clear, but the Diversity Foundation has made a cause out of trying to help them get back on their feet. Here's what the Utah-based group has to report:

Beginning in 2002 the FLDS church began exiling young men between the ages of 14 and 23 for infractions that were in violation of church tenets. These infractions could be talking to a girl, wearing a short sleeved t-shirt, listening to music or watching television. . Both men and women lack an education that is chronologically correct. While living in the FLDS community they might receive an education until the eighth grade at which time they begin to work for wages that are given as tithe to the FLDS church.

This Slate article about the lost boys reports that 400-1,400 males have been thrown out of the church over the last decade. Closer to home, the numbers in this Eldorado case look like about 35 boys have been lost. Here's how I reached that conclusion, which UT Law prof Jack Sampson pointed out to me today:

In the Eldorado case, there's almost a 1-1 boy/girl ratio for children under 13. The figures are something like 196 boys and 197 girls. But for kids 14-17, you have 53 girls and 17 boys. Now, maybe there was a fluke in birthrates for those 14-17 year olds. But that would require a precipitious, off-the-cliff dropoff. More likely, those boys got the boot because they were either not mustering up or they were seen as competitors for the older men....

Although Texas officials have taken some criticism for removing hundreds of children from a religious compound, the Baptist agency caring for them has earned praise from the most important people: the children themselves.

Baptist Child and Family Services, an agency affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, was charged with caring for hundreds of children removed from the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints compound near Eldorado, Texas, in April. They coordinated the children’s care in nearby San Angelo for three weeks, after which 75 moved to the BCFS Youth Ranch near Luling.

"You’re nice," a 6-year-old girl announced last week as Nanci Gibbons, the agency’s executive vice president, walked past her on the ranch play ground.

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"For the children to recognize that the folks in BCFS shirts are there to help and be nice is the best compliment we could get," BCFS chief executive Kevin Dinnin said. "Though there are significant differences, there is a common denominator between what we are doing with the FLDS children and what we did for Hurricane Katrina evacuees and victims of the Sri Lanka tsunami and what we're doing to help fight the international sex trafficking in Moldova -- we didn’t create the situation, but are working to meet the needs of those affected...

The former child bride whose testimony led to the conviction of Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs is telling her story in a new book.

Elissa Wall's much anticipated autobiography, "Stolen Innocence," hit bookstore shelves on Tuesday, at a time when interest in the FLDS is at a national high because of the raid in Texas. The book was published by William Morrow, a division of HarperCollins.

Wall devotes most of the 431-page book to her upbringing in the FLDS Church and her marriage that led to the criminal charges being filed against Jeffs, spending the last third devoted to the high-profile trial and her views of it from the witness stand.

It was Wall's testimony that led to Jeffs' conviction on charges of rape as an accomplice for performing the marriage between the then-14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin....

Texas child welfare officials conceded Tuesday that a newborn's mother, held in foster care as a minor after being removed from a polygamous sect's ranch, is an adult. A Child Protective Services attorney told state District Judge Barbara Walther that the mother of a boy born April 29 is not a minor, as CPS had claimed as justification for holding her.

The woman had been held along with more than 400 children taken last month from a west Texas ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. State officials say the children were endangered by underage and polygamous spiritual marriages.

"We were presented with credible evidence that this minor is, in fact, an adult," said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner. She declined to say what the evidence was or how old the woman is. According to FLDS records, the new mother, Pamela Jeffs, is 18.
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All the children are expected to get individual hearings starting May 19.