Rozita Swinton, a Colorado Springs woman suspected of making fake phone calls that sparked the 2008 child-protection raid against a polygamist sect in Texas, pleaded guilty in an unrelated false-reporting case on Wednesday.
Swinton, 35, received a deferred jail sentence and if she does not violate any laws over the next two years, her case will be dismissed, said her attorney, David Foley.
The misdemeanor case Swinton pleaded guilty to Wednesday involved a phone call she made to Colorado Springs police in February 2008, pretending to be an abused child being held in a basement.
The case took nearly two years to resolve because Swinton had medical issues to be addressed, Foley said.
As part of her sentence, Swinton must continue her medical treatment. Her doctor will provide quarterly statements to the court about her progress.
Restrictions were also placed on the types of phones Swinton can possess, and she must give her phone numbers to police and the district attorney’s office in Colorado Springs, senior deputy district attorney Frederick Stein said.
In 2007, Swinton was convicted of making a false report in Douglas County that she was the teen mother of a newborn and told an adoption agency and police that she was considering suicide and leaving the baby at a fire station.
In April 2008, authorities raided a ranch in Eldorado, Texas, after they received calls alleging child abuse by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Some of the phone calls to the abuse hotline in Texas came from a Colorado Springs cellphone previously used by Swinton, according to court documents.
But Foley said Swinton is not “criminally involved” in those phone calls.
However, Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the Texas attorney general, said an inquiry into Swinton and the calls leading up to the raid at the Yearning for Zion ranch is ongoing.
Swinton’s position is that she did not make the calls reporting abuse at the ranch run by the FLDS Church.
But even if she did make the calls, Foley said, the raids have resulted in sexual-abuse prosecutions, meaning the calls should not be considered a false report.
More than 400 children were removed from the ranch following phone calls that were made to authorities alleging abuse.
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
