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No Comments [ Add Comment ]First trial in polygamist case set for October
By The Associated PressELDORADO, Texas -- The first criminal trial resulting from the raid on a polygamist group's West Texas ranch has been set for Oct. 26.
State District Judge Barbara Walther on Monday set the trial date for Raymond Merrill Jessop, who has been indicted on one count of sexual assault of a child and one count of bigamy. The bigamy charge stems from the 37-year-old's alleged marriage to a daughter of the sect's jailed leader Warren Jeffs. Church records indicate the girl was 15 at the time of the marriage.
Jessop and Jeffs are among 12 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints indicted in Texas after authorities raided the sect's Yearning For Zion Ranch in April.
Defense attorneys have challenged the validity of the raid and the documents seized in the case. A hearing on a motion to suppress those documents is scheduled for May.
The FLDS practices polygamy in arranged marriages that have sometimes involved underage girls. The sect ties its religious roots to the early teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which renounced polygamy in 1890.
Jeffs, revered by FLDS members as a prophet, is serving a prison term after being convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape. He faces other charges in Arizona and Texas related to the alleged underage marriages of sect girls.
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