State takes custody as polygamist sect mother gives birth

A mother taken from a polygamist sect in Texas and being held as a minor in state custody has given birth to a baby boy who was immediately taken into protective custody.

State officials acknowledged that the mother may be an adult and said they were trying to determine her true age.

Since state officials raided the sect’s West Texas ranch on April 3, child welfare officials have taken custody of all its children on the grounds that they were endangered by the sect’s under-age and polygamous spiritual marriages.

A state district judge issued an injunction yesterday preventing child welfare officials from moving the newborn and mother from Travis County until a hearing on Thursday, in which father Dan Jessop will request that his wife and three children be released from state custody.

Patricia Matassarin, Mr Jessop’s lawyer, said the mother is 22 and should not be in state care as a minor.

The boy is the second baby born in state custody since the raid.

Child Protective Services spokesman Patrick Crimmins acknowledged yesterday that the mother is among 27 girls whose ages are in dispute.

He said officials were reviewing documentation for those who claim they are of legal age, and will release them from state custody if they are adults.

Rod Parker, a lawyer and spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, accused state officials of deliberately holding a pregnant mother they to knew to be of legal age so they could take her baby into custody upon birth.

“They just wanted to keep the mother in custody until they could get the baby,” he said.

The newborn’s placement in state custody brought the total number of children taken from members of the renegade Mormon sect to 465.

He is likely to stay in state custody even if his mother is an adult. Like other mothers of children under a year old, she would be allowed to stay with him in a foster-care facility, Mr Crimmins said.

Child welfare officials and state troopers raided the church’s Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado after a domestic violence shelter received calls from someone claiming to be an abused 16-year-old girl. The girl has never been found and authorities are investigating whether the calls were a hoax.

Under Texas law, children under the age of 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult.

Church officials deny any children were abused and say the state’s actions are a form of religious persecution.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints broke away from the mainline Mormon church, which officially renounced polygamy more than a century ago.