Bountiful issue potentially one of child abuse, not just polygamy: watchdog

B.C. authorities must get more aggressive in tackling allegations of abuse in the polygamist community of Bountiful, B.C. — or risk letting Canada become a haven for religious groups that exploit young people, the province’s official child-welfare watchdog said Friday.

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond urged authorities to stop looking at the Bountiful issue merely as a question of multiple wives and view it instead as one of potential child mistreatment.

Evidence unearthed in the recent prosecution of Warren Jeffs, leader of a Texas branch of the same Mormon breakaway sect that operates in Bountiful, should be enough to kick-start more assertive inquiries in Canada, she said.

Jeffs, sentenced to life in prison for sexual assault, documented the movement of girls as young as 12 from B.C. to Texas to be married to middle-aged men at his Yearning for Zion ranch.

“We need to get wise to this issue. One of the reasons is that Canada may be seen as a good place to locate [for religious sects that abuse children],” said Ms. Turpel-Lafond, B.C.’s Representative for Children and Youth. “You have to take a fair amount of leadership to say this might not be about freedom of religion … It’s not permitted in Canada that you proffer your child into a marriage that involves a sexual relationship. It’s anathema to criminal law”

Other revelations from a constitutional court case on polygamy are also fodder for investigation, including testimony that Bountiful parents slap babies and dunk them in water as part of unusual obedience training, said Ms. Turpel-Lafond.

“I’m extremely uncomfortable with this,” said the former judge. “I think it’s abusive. I think we definitely need to investigate.”

Her comments came as the RCMP in B.C. revealed that they are, in fact, investigating allegations that children were taken to the States to be forced into marriage. The force plans to meet with the Texas Rangers, who headed the Jeffs case, though have yet to do so.

Cpl. Dan Moskaluk, an RCMP spokesman, noted in an interview that the Mounties have looked into similar allegations involving Bountiful before, only to hit obstacles in trying to build a case.

“Witnesses and victims have been reluctant to provide evidence,” he said.

The completion of the Jeffs trial, however, has created a “different environment” that the police hope will lead to more co-operation, said the officer. During the so-called reference case in Vancouver earlier this year – held to determine if the criminal ban on polygamy is constitutional – Crown lawyers tabled a list of 31 underage brides allegedly transported between B.C. and the States, including five whom Jeffs himself had married.

Police hope to go through that list and interview each young woman, said Cpl. Moskaluk.

Ms. Turpel-Lafond, whose arm’s-length agency reports to the B.C. legislature, said she has been heartened lately by the approach of Barry Penner. The province’s attorney general indicated in February that he was disturbed and offended by the new evidence from Texas and urged authorities to investigate.

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(Source: National Post
tblackwell@nationalpost.com)

Ripe TV - Pauly Shore's America - Polygamy Report

From Funny or Die- Just for Fun! Getting in fights with press, a great view of the compound.

Ripe TV - Pauly Shore's America - Polygamy Report #4 - watch more funny videos

Warren Jeffs sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison as picture emerges of 50 brides, bred to worship the polygamous 'prophet'

Standing neatly side by side, 50 young girls pose as if for a school yearbook, their smiles every bit as uniform as their pastel outfits and tightly quaffed hairdos.  Their innocent enthusiasm is focused on one goal alone - worshiping the man framed behind them, who has cruelly bred them for manipulation.  As a Texas jury sentenced Jeffs to life plus 20 years in prison for his crimes as their church leader, extraordinary pictures have emerged of the wives of the notorious polygamist, offering insight into the twisted world of subjugation with which he surrounded himself. 

Jeffs, the 55-year-old self-proclaimed prophet and leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was last week convicted of two counts of sexually assaulting a child - one 12 and one 14-year-old.
Today, after brief deliberations, the jury at court in Texas sentenced him to the maximum possible time behind bars for his crimes.
Jeffs's wives were both the victims of his abuse and the accomplices, subjected to a cruel world of worship and sexual abuse, while also proving their worth to their leader by holding down their peers while they were assaulted.

Manipulated: This girl was 15 when she had a baby with warren Jeffs

He was on the FBI's Most Wanted list but had evaded arrest for years before his capture in 2006, surrounding himself with doting believers and underage wives who he bred to service his sexual desires.  
Of his 78 wives, 29 are said to have been former stepmothers - having previously serviced Rulon Jeffs, Warren Jeffs's father and predecessor as the church's ecclesiastical leader.
56 of the girls were each others sisters and 24 were under the age of 17.
Over the course of the trial, the jury in Texas has heard a series of depraved insights into the world of the dictatorial leader of a polygamist sect, which has more than 10,000 members worldwide.
One of Jeffs's nephews testified that he was raped by the supposed prophet when he was just five-years-old. He said Jeffs instructed him to keep the assault secret because it is 'between you, me and god'.
A niece also testified about an incident which occurred when she was aged seven and other witnesses spoke out, revealing a world of manipulation and control, where Jeffs banned followers from 'parades, dances, music, and even the color red'.
Perhaps most shocking of all has been the revelation that some of the young wives assisted the pedophile with his sexual assaults.
In a confused world where they were brainwashed to service the demands of their leader, however abusive, three of Jeffs’s wives were said in court to have held down the 12-year-old victim while Jeffs raped her.
One of the girls bound the child's arms and legs to stop her moving, tapes seized from the compound where they lived in Eldorado, Texas, revealed.
It is unclear whether the women will be prosecuted for their roles in the abuse. Many argue their submission was borne out of a deeply engrained fear of Jeffs, who took over the community in 1998 from his father, who had raised him to believe the women were rightfully his to abuse as a birthright. 
As sect leader, Jeffs 'documented everything he did, keeping track of every marriage he performed, every young woman he wed, even recording his intimate moments.'
During a 2008 raid, these recordings, which helped secure his conviction, were seized by authorities. The explicit tapes, when played in court, caused shocked jurors to break down in tears.
One was 'a 20 minute audiotape that began and ended with a man saying a prayer' before sexually assaulting the 12-year-old in front of three other of his wives, according to prosecutors.
The audiotape from 2004 was played in court  before another, made within hours of the first, in which prosecutors say Jeffs can be heard having sex with all the girls at the same time.
In one tape, he is heard telling the girls they 'need to be excited'. Jurors also heard him tell the girls that if they refused to please him in what he dubbed the 'heavenly sessions', they would be 'rejected by God'.
In a cruel irony, the girls were encouraged by Jeffs by being told their compliance would help atone for the sins of their community.
Other shocking photographs have also emerged, including ones showing Jeffs holding and passionately kissing an underage female church member and one revealing a bed where ritual sex sessions were carried out in front of a church audience.
State witness Rebecca Musser - a former FLDS member who was married as a young girl to Jeffs' father - told the court she had received training about how beds in the temple were to be used in sexual rituals before it was built.
Miss Musser said beds inside the temple were arranged so that witnesses could see the abuse and that a special seat was placed for someone to record the sexual acts. 
Jurors weep as court hears twisted tape of sexual instructions Warren Jeffs gave child brides threatening that God would 'reject them' before having sex by baptism pool

• Court hears he was involved in 550 bigamous marriages including 67 that involved under-age girls
• Horrific tape of Jeffs instructing child brides how to please him sexually played
• Tells them God will reject them if they refuse to have sex with them
• Comes after Jeffs' nephew told jurors he was abused by his uncle aged five
• Shocking pictures also showed Jeffs kissing two child brides
• Jeffs walked out of court in protest demanding to be set free after sentencing
• Psychologist tells court cult leader groomed children like a 'pedophile'

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and one of the rooms inside the main temple, which contained a bed

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(Source:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024150/Warren-Jeffs-trial-50-brides-bred-worship-paedophile-prophet.html#ixzz1UYL9KDNJ)

Warren Jeffs gets life in prison for sex with underage girls .

San Angelo, Texas • A jury on Tuesday sentenced polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs to life in prison for having sex with underage girls.

Jurors deliberated for 40 minutes before ordering Jeffs to serve life in prison on one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child and 20 years in prison on one count of sexual assault of a child. They also determined Jeffs must pay a $10,000 fine.

In a closing statement given Tuesday morning, prosecutor Eric Nichols told the jury the 55-year-old Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints leader was a man who "perverted a religion to his own ends" and treated women and children not as human beings but as "property for sexual gratification and child bearing."

"Evidence is this case shows this is not the prosecution of a people, this is a prosecution to protect a people," Nichols said.

Prosecutors rested their case against Jeffs in the sentencing phase of his trial on Monday. Jurors last week convicted Jeffs in connection with two plural marriages to girls ages 12 and 15.

During the sentencing phase, prosecutors presented evidence of other so-called bad acts committed by Jeffs. Jurors were told Jeffs took a total of 78 plural wives, including 12 girls he wed at age 16 and another 12 he married at age 15 or younger, according to evidence and testimony presented in court Monday.

Jurors heard several audio recordings of what prosecutors said was Jeffs giving sexual instruction to underage wives and even having intercourse in a baptismal font inside a temple at the sect’s Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado.

Jeffs represented himself during the guilt or innocence phase of his trial and chose not to attend his sentencing hearings. After prosecutors rested their sentencing case against Jeffs on Monday, new Jeffs defense lawyer, Jed Silverman, of Houston, declined to call any witnesses.

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