A Texas raid on a polygamous sect's ranch last year has apparently spurred a federal grand jury investigation of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, according to information in a new court filing.
The filing, made in the Arizona case of FLDS leader Warren S. Jeffs, includes a partial transcript of interviews with Texas law officers, who refused to answer questions about calls that triggered the raid and state informants because of the grand jury proceedings.
Defense attorneys Michael Piccarreta and Richard Wright, of Las Vegas, interviewed Texas Ranger Brooks Long and Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran in December about events that led to the April raid on the sect's Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas.
But Long told Piccarreta he could not answer certain questions related to the April raid because he is on a federal grand jury witness list.
Eric Nichols, prosecutor for the Texas Attorney General's Office, advised both men to not answer certain questions because of the ongoing federal and state investigations.
Long did acknowledge that authorities never located the girl named in two search warrants used to enter the ranch and the sect's temple. They also never located anyone who claimed to have made the calls, Long said.
"I don't think that you're gonna have somebody stand up and say, 'I made the call,'" Long told the defense attorneys.
Jeffs' attorneys argue that the Arizona case against their client, based on underage marriages, has been tainted because state investigators reviewed information seized during the "unlawful" search at the ranch.
They want a Mohave County Superior Court judge to suppress use of that information or order the Texas law officers to answer questions about the "falsity of the search warrants" and failure to investigate the calls, now believed to have been a hoax staged by Rozita Swinton, of Colorado.
Texas officials have "prohibited all inquiry into the circumstances behind the hoax phone call that led to the raid," their motion says, or "any questions showing that the Texas law enforcement authorities now know that their search warrant affidavits were full of lies.
"It is as if the Texas authorities believe that the Rozita Swinton problem would simply go away if ignored," the motion says.
Long said during his interview he is unaware of any investigation into Swinton. The ranger said that authorities from Texas, other states and the federal government met in 2004 to discuss the FLDS and that he visited the ranch at least four times prior to the raid.
