ELDORADO, Texas — Women and girls in prairie dresses entered a courthouse surrounded by dozens of law-enforcement officers in this tiny ranching hamlet Wednesday as a grand jury opened its investigation into a polygamist sect accused of forcing underage girls into marriage and motherhood.
The main square in Eldorado was cordoned off with yellow police tape. A sheriff’s department worker snapped photos of anyone who stood by or attempted to talk to sect members who arrived at the courthouse Wednesday and may be witnesses before the Schleicher County grand jury.
One witness subpoenaed to testify is a 16-year-old girl who denies state claims that she was married off at 15 and had a child soon after. She has asked for a new lawyer, claiming her court-appointed lawyer is lying about her.
Grand-jury proceedings are supposed to be secret, but news of the meeting and the girl’s subpoena have been disclosed in other court proceedings related to one of the largest custody cases in U.S. history. The girl is a daughter of Warren Jeffs, considered a prophet by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The girl and her mother said in a brief interview with The Associated Press that they were told law enforcement would be testifying in the morning. They came back in the afternoon for possible testimony.
“I don’t want to do it,” said the girl, shuffling her feet.
She said she doesn’t know what she’ll be asked. Her mother added, “We just kind of wonder what it’s all about.”
The girl’s attorney, Natalie Malonis, won an extension of a restraining order against FLDS elder Willie Jessop at a hearing Tuesday. Malonis claims Jessop is influencing the girl to be uncooperative, an accusation he denies.
It’s not clear what, or whether, criminal indictments of FLDS members may result, but prosecutions of sexual-abuse cases are difficult without the victims’ cooperation.
