ELDORADO, Texas (AP) — The secluded Texas ranch where
followers of imprisoned polygamist Warren Jeffs lived in near isolation
was seized by state agents on Thursday, nearly six years after FBI
agents raided the property and removed hundreds of children amid child
sex abuse allegations.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said
its agents took possession of the Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado.
In a statement, DPS said only eight adults were still living on the
West Texas property and agreed to leave after meeting with agents. DPS
said authorities helped them vacate the ranch and take an inventory.
Jeffs
is serving life in prison after being convicted in 2011 of sexually
assaulting two girls he took as child brides. The ranch was owned by his
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a radical
offshoot of mainstream Mormonism whose roughly 10,000 followers believe
polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. They see Jeffs as God’s spokesman
on earth.
The state asked a judge to allow the forfeiture,
alleging that FLDS leaders financed a $1.1 million purchase of the land
in 2003 through money laundering. It also cited sexual assaults
committed on the property. Under Texas law, authorities can seize
property that was used to commit or facilitate certain criminal conduct.
A judge granted the state’s request in January.
The FBI and
police stormed the compound in April 2008, amid allegations that
underage girls were being forced into bigamist marriages. In addition to
temporarily taking the 439 children into protective custody,
authorities seized mountains of documents, including Jeffs’ personal
journals. Images of church women in prairie dress and men in largely
identical, long sleeve shirts flooded national TV airwaves.
All of
the children were eventually returned. But about a dozen men, including
Jeffs and other high-ranking FLDS lieutenants, were arrested on charges
of sexual assault or bigamy and later convicted.
During Jeffs’
trial, prosecutors used DNA evidence to show he fathered a child with a
15-year-old girl and played an audio recording of what they said was him
sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. They also played tapes in which
Jeffs was heard instructing young women on how to sexually please him
and, thus, please God.
Jeffs also once faced criminal charges in
Arizona and was convicted of accessory to rape in Utah in 2007. The
church’s traditional headquarters is along the Utah-Arizona border, but
it established the Texas compound in 2004.
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