Despite flawed initial response, Family Law attorney Betsy Branch says criminal courts are proper venue for abuses uncovered at secretive West Texas compound

Texas child-abuse investigators were roundly criticized for the removal of hundreds of children from a West Texas polygamist sect last year. One of those early critics, Family Law attorney Betsy Branch of Dallas-based McCurley Orsinger McCurley Nelson & Downing, says that while the state's initial response went too far, the subsequent misdemeanor and felony charges are a proper outcome of the investigation. Testimony is now underway in the first criminal trial for Yearning For Zion sect member Raymond Jessop for the offense of sexual assault of a child. "The Supreme Court of Texas agreed that the state went too far with the wholesale removal of children from their parents at this compound," Branch says. "But at the same time, the action by Child Protective Services exposed evidence of very serious sexual offenses against some of the sect's teenage girls."

Authorities allege the girl, now 21, was married to Jessop at age 15 and gave birth at 16. Church records that defense attorneys are fighting to keep out of the trial indicate the girl had previously been married to Jessop's brother before being reassigned to Jessop, who authorities allege has nine wives, many of whom were underage when when they married. According to the Assoicated Press, forensic expert Amy Smuts testified Monday that the probability of Jessop being the father of the alleged victim's daughter was 99.999998 percent.

Jessop's trial is the first since Texas authorities raided the YFZ Ranch in April 2008, sweeping 439 children into foster case. The children have all been returned to parents or other relatives, but thousands of pages of documents and DNA tests taken in the raid have been used to build criminal cases against Jessop and 11 other sect men. The FLDS have historically been based around the Arizona-Utah line but purchased a ranch in Eldorado about six years ago, building numerous sprawling log homes and a towering limestone temple. The sect is a breakaway of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago and does not recognize the sect.