By Terri Langford and Lisa Sandberg
Houston Chronicle
June 20, 2008
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5848504.html
AUSTIN — The 16-year-old daughter of polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs obtained a temporary restraining order Friday to keep a spokesman for the group from intimidating and harassing her.
The order directs the girl's mother to prohibit Willie Jessop, Jeffs' former bodyguard, from having any contact with the girl. The girl, meanwhile, whom state prosecutors want to summon before a grand jury next week, wants her court-appointed lawyer, Natalie Malonis, fired.
The order, signed by state District Judge Barbara Walthers in San Angelo, comes just days before a Schleicher County grand jury is to hear evidence of arranged marriages between minor girls and older men in the state's criminal investigation of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
 |
| Willie Jessop, right, a leader in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, leaves the courthouse in San Angelo last month with Rod Parker, an FLDS spokesman. Photo by Tony Gutierrez |
In her request for the order, Malonis said prosecutors, seeking to have her client appear before the grand jury, attempted to serve the girl with a subpoena at her home in San Antonio on Thursday but couldn't find her.
Malonis said she later learned that the girl, who she believes was forced into a spiritual marriage at age 15, had traveled to San Angelo that day to ask the judge to replace her with another attorney.
The girl, who accused her attorney in court papers of threatening her and not representing her interests, was unsuccessful. Neither the girl nor her mother could be reached for comment.
A court-appointed attorney, Malonis wrote that there was another reason authorities couldn't locate her client: "I believe that (the girl) was avoiding service because of coercion and improper influence from Willie Jessop," whom she accused of intimidating herself and her client.
Jessop called Malonis' accusations against him "outrageous" and insisted he never intimidated anyone. "She's trying to blame me for her client not liking her," Jessop said.
The teen was one of hundreds of children taken from the Yearning For Zion ranch by Texas Child Protective Services in April and placed in state custody after investigators argued that FLDS practices exposed them to sexual and physical abuse at the compound.
Malonis' petition accuses the mother, a wife of the sect's imprisoned prophet, of condoning Jessop's alleged interference.
The Texas Attorney General's Office and local prosecutors are expected to begin laying out a criminal case against some FLDS members Monday.
Sources say at least 10 subpoenas seeking witness testimony have been drawn up.
Malonis said she last saw the girl in a meeting arranged at the ranch on June 10. Although Jessop is not related to the girl, Malonis was told she could meet her client only if he was present at the meeting.
For three hours, the girl, accompanied by her mother, sat silently as Jessop heatedly told Malonis that if she did not agree that the FLDS had done nothing wrong, then she was against the sect and he would get another lawyer for her, according to Malonis' petition.
After that, Malonis said, the girl refused to answer her questions.
Contact: terri.langford@chron.com, lsandberg@express-news.net.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.