Texas Rangers knowingly used sketchy information to secure the search warrant used to enter a polygamous sect's ranch last spring, new court documents state.

A motion filed Wednesday on behalf of 10 men facing criminal charges related to last year's investigation at the Yearning For Zion Ranch says that in a Texas Ranger's affidavit seeking the search warrant, he omitted the fact that the name of the man being sought was provided by a worker at a domestic violence shelter who had found the man's name through an Internet search.

It also says officers knew Dale Evans Barlow, the man named as a suspect, was not at the ranch before the raid began on April 3, 2008, and had been told there was no "Sarah Barlow" who met their description there.

The men, indicted by a grand jury on charges related to underage marriages, are asking 51st District Judge Barbara Walther to bar use of evidence seized during the investigation in their upcoming criminal trials. Walther has set a hearing on the motion for May 13.

Texas officials removed 439 children from the ranch, home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. With just one child still in custody, the state is turning to the criminal phase of its investigation.

The Texas Attorney General's Office, which is handling the prosecutions, issued a statement Wednesday that called the FLDS motion "baseless and without merit."

"The state of Texas will vigorously oppose these attempts to exclude evidence about the multiple defendants who have been indicted for sexually abusing children, among other offenses," the statement said.

The abuse reports were made by a caller who contacted the New Bridge Family Shelter in San Angelo last March and claimed to be a pregnant 16-year-old living at the ranch.

The caller is now believed to have been Rozita Swinton of Colorado Springs, Colo.

The motion says the caller refused to disclose a last name, address or location in Eldorado or a telephone number, and her cell phone number was blocked. She also refused to give her alleged husband's first name.

The shelter worker searched the Web for the words "Barlow" and "FLDS" and found a story about his conviction in Arizona on charges related to an underage marriage. She then asked the caller if that was her husband and the caller said yes, adding he had gone "away for a while" but was "expected back."

However, in a sworn affidavit used for the first search warrant, Texas Ranger Brooks Long said Barlow was at the ranch, the motion says. Brooks also did not disclose he had been told by an Arizona deputy sheriff that Barlow, who was on probation, needed permission to leave Arizona, according to the motion.

And Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran spoke to Barlow by telephone and confirmed he was in Arizona.

"Like the clock that strikes thirteen, this fact alone should have called everything they had heard before into question," the motion states. It contends Long did not "make a single telephone call to corroborate or verify this caller's information" and, despite checking, was unable to verify the caller's claim of recent treatment at the Schleicher County Medical Center.

After being told no "Sarah Barlow" existed, officers asked to interview all females between the ages of 7 and 17 and were granted access to the ranch. That showed their intent not to "seek evidence of a special crime" but to "check evidence of any crime against the children present," the motion states.

After three days of searching, there was still no sign of "Sarah Barlow," the motion states.

"It is clear that the authorities used a hoax phone call as an excuse for staging a massively intrusive raid upon a disfavored religious group," it says.

The sect's motion also contends the search violated the charged men's constitutional rights, the Texas' Religious Freedom Act and the Federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.