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	CPS Reports Mother Violated Court Restrictions By Paul A. Anthony San Angelo Standard-Times September 18, 2008 http://gosanangelo.com/news/2008/sep/18/breaking-news-cps-reports-mother-violated-court/ The polygamous-sect matriarch whose husband led the YFZ Ranch in Schleicher County has been uncooperative with child-welfare caseworkers and broken court-imposed communication restrictions between her and her 14-year-old daughter, according to a report filed last week in state district court in Tom Green County. Barbara Jessop, who the state alleges allowed her daughter to be married at age 12 to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' self-styled prophet Warren Jeffs, lost custody of the girl last month after pleading the Fifth Amendment more than 50 times during a hearing. The report is a routine progress check as the custody case against the family moves toward its scheduled Sept. 25 hearing. It alleges Jessop and the girl had 21 unsupervised telephone conversations in one week despite an order from 51st District Judge Barbara Walther restricting communication to weekly monitored phone calls and weekly one-on-one visits. "Both presented as though they had been adhering to the monitored phone contact only," CPS caseworker Catherine Irons wrote in the report. "Many of the phone calls occurred in the middle of the night, and some lasted in duration for longer than 30 minutes." Gonzalo Rios, the San Angelo attorney who represented Jessop at the hearing in which Walther granted the state custody of the girl, was out of town and could not be reached for comment Thursday. The report also details odd requests from Jessop that included offering to "trade" one of her other daughters for the girl in custody, so that the other girl would be placed in foster care instead. Likewise, Irons wrote, Jessop repeatedly requested to bring other children with her to visitations. After CPS approved visits by two children, according to the report, she arrived with three other children who had not been approved. The girl "appeared saddened, as she was now denied the opportunity to see persons her mother had brought," Irons wrote. "I believe this only adds to (the girl's) frustration around being in foster care and could have been avoided had Ms. Jessop complied with the original directive." CPS usually files a progress report leading up to a status hearing, said agency spokesman Patrick Crimmins, declining to comment on the specifics of the filing. "I'll certainly let the report speak for itself," Crimmins said. The girl first gained a measure of notoriety early in the now five-month-old FLDS child-custody case when pictures were released showing her in a deep kiss with the now 52-year-old sect leader soon after their alleged marriage. Sect documents describe a triple wedding ceremony in which the girl, daughter of ranch leader Merril Jessop, married Jeffs while Jeffs' 15-year-old daughter, also a prominent figure in the case, married one of Jessop's adult sons. That night - July 27, 2006 - has become the intense focus of the multiple investigations into the group, which is accused of fostering an atmosphere of underage marriage and sexual abuse at its Schleicher County compound. A Schleicher County grand jury has returned 10 indictments, ranging from bigamy to sexual assault of a child, against at least five members of the sect, one of the charges based on sect papers documenting the alleged ceremony. Meanwhile, the alleged marriage between the Jessop girl and Jeffs was a key reason why CPS sought to strip Barbara Jessop of custody. During the August hearing, CPS caseworkers and Court Appointed Special Advocates complained they had experienced problems trying to make visits to Barbara Jessop's home despite court orders requiring her to be available. The girl is one of six children now in state custody, but the only one who has been removed from her parents' care. According to the report, the girl is "doing well" in her foster home, and "has been able to cook and garden." Although the report states that a petition to terminate Jessop's parental rights has been filed, Crimmins said the report was mistaken, and that family reunification remains CPS' goal in the case.
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