SAN ANGELO, Texas — Authorities leveraged a fake abuse claim to justify a massive raid of a polygamist sect’s ranch when their true purpose was to persecute an unpopular religious group, attorneys for 10 indicted members of the sect said Wednesday.
"You were misled,” attorney Gerald Goldstein told District Judge Barbara Walther at a hearing on the defendants’ motion to suppress evidence seized in the April 2008 raid. Walther issued the search warrant allowing the raid.
Goldstein said an investigator failed to check the veracity of the domestic abuse hot line calls prompting the raid and failed to disclose previous false calls and other information that might have caused Walther to refuse to issue the warrant.
Prosecutors said law enforcement had probable cause to search the Yearning For Zion Ranch last year and that the evidence, including documents that list plural and underage marriages and pregnancies among sect girls, should not be suppressed.
The suppression motion covers all but jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs and a sect member who faces misdemeanor charges.
Any decision to suppress some of the evidence could hurt the state’s case because sect women and girls have been reluctant to testify, even in secret grand jury proceedings.
by the associated press
"You were misled,” attorney Gerald Goldstein told District Judge Barbara Walther at a hearing on the defendants’ motion to suppress evidence seized in the April 2008 raid. Walther issued the search warrant allowing the raid.
Goldstein said an investigator failed to check the veracity of the domestic abuse hot line calls prompting the raid and failed to disclose previous false calls and other information that might have caused Walther to refuse to issue the warrant.
Prosecutors said law enforcement had probable cause to search the Yearning For Zion Ranch last year and that the evidence, including documents that list plural and underage marriages and pregnancies among sect girls, should not be suppressed.
The suppression motion covers all but jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs and a sect member who faces misdemeanor charges.
Any decision to suppress some of the evidence could hurt the state’s case because sect women and girls have been reluctant to testify, even in secret grand jury proceedings.
by the associated press
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