Search warrants challenged

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/0,5143,705297703,00.html

A pair of search warrants served on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch should be tossed because they were based on lies to a judge, lawyers for 10 FLDS men facing criminal charges claim.

In a phone book-sized motion to suppress filed in an Eldorado, Texas, court and made public Wednesday, the attorneys launch a full-scale attack on two law enforcement search warrants executed during last year's raid on the Utah-based polygamous sect's sprawling Texas compound.

"In short, it is clear that the authorities used a hoax phone call as an excuse for staging a massively intrusive raid upon a disfavored religious group," wrote Gerald Goldstein, an attorney for YFZ Ranch leader Frederick Merril Jessop. "Under the guise of looking for a man they knew was not there and a child that did not exist, the Texas authorities conducted a general search to see what they could find."

What law enforcement and child welfare workers found on the ranch led to the removal of 439 children over allegations of child sex abuse and criminal indictments against a dozen FLDS men — including sect leader Warren Jeffs — connected to underage marriages.

The case fell apart and the children were ultimately returned, however, when a pair of Texas courts ruled the state acted improperly and the children were not at immediate risk of abuse.