FLDS 911 call linked to 33yr-old Colorado Woman

[tromano]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...042303551.html

"SAN ANGELO, Tex., April 23 -- The phone calls that triggered a massive raid on a polygamist compound in west Texas -- in which a quavering girl's voice described being forcibly married at 15 -- have been linked to a Colorado woman with a history of making false claims of sexual abuse, according to an affidavit filed in Colorado Springs.

The affidavit says calls that allegedly came from "Sarah Barlow" -- a teenage girl at the Yearning for Zion Ranch outside Eldorado, Tex. -- actually came from numbers connected to Rozita Swinton, 33, of Colorado Springs. The affidavit also notes Swinton's possible involvement in a series of separate but similar reports in which the young caller described being abused by a pastor, an uncle or her father."

[Bart T]

texas amazes me. i can't figure how they could have probable cause that each and every kid in that sect was being abused. or at risk of abuse. anyway, it's just crazy that the government can seize 473 kids based on one phone call.

[moose pit]

texas amazes me. i can't figure how they could have probable cause that each and every kid in that sect was being abused. or at risk of abuse. anyway, it's just crazy that the government can seize 473 kids based on one phone call.

If you can not figure out how polygamy (illegal in the US), statutory rape, rape, physical abuse and mental abuse (also illegal in the US) is not probable (certain in the case of every young girl there) then you need to give your head a shake.
The phone call was a convenient excuse to do some thing that should have been done years earlier. The only down side may be if the defense challenges the validity of evidence collected *if* at the time of the warrant being served the authorities knew the phone call was false.

I'm not a lawyer, or even a 'merican , so I could be wrong about the legalities of 50 year old men fucking 14-17 year old girls. But I'm pretty sure it ain't allowed in Texas.

[Nathan Explosion]

17 is legal in Texas.

I do not wish to elaborate.

[tromano]

The whole FLDS lifestyle seems to be totally against the law, and morally repugnant. On the bright side, I find the circular firing squad and mutually assured destructions tactics the Texas authorities are using down in going after this group to make entertaining news stories.