What is yfz ranch used for now?

The San Angelo Standard-Times reports members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints settled in a remote area near Eldorado and isolated themselves on their self-built compound, the Yearning for Zion Ranch.

But it wasn’t the way they moved in that grabbed people’s attention. It was how they left.

“We figured out pretty quick that something was going to happen when you got about 75 or 80 running around town,” said Michael Kent, manager of Kent’s Automotive shop in Eldorado.

After an anonymous tip alleging physical and sexual abuse of children prompted law enforcement to raid the ranch, a sudden rush of interest by news outlets put the small West Texas town — about 45 miles south of San Angelo with a population of roughly 1,700 people — in the national spotlight.

Authorities breached the ranch’s gates in April 2008. More than 400 children were taken from the ranch, resulting in the largest child custody case in U.S. history. They were later returned by order of appellate courts, including the Texas Supreme Court.

The 1993 standoff between the Branch Davidian Christian sect and the federal government in Waco, Texas, was at the front of people’s minds, said longtime resident J.D. Doyle. The 51-day Waco standoff ended with the compound being destroyed by fire, leaving nearly 80 people dead, including more than a dozen children. Eldorado residents feared someone from the YFZ Ranch — especially a child — could get hurt by the feds, either directly or indirectly, Doyle said.

Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran attributes the safe outcome of the raid to a working relationship and open lines of communication between authorities and leadership at the YFZ Ranch.

“I believe that’s what kept everything calm,” he said, theorizing FLDS members had a vested interest in communicating with them because of controversy surrounding their sect in Utah. “We had a large-scale raid with a lot of people with no incident, and that’s a big accomplishment in my opinion. Not just for us, but for law enforcement dealing with a large group in general.”

Like the call that initiated the raid, Doran said the sheriff’s office received a call by a former FLDS member — whom he described as a “polygamist activist” — who let them know about their new neighbors in 2004. An FLDS member had bought the land in 2003 and initially said it would be a hunting retreat.

The sheriff dug a little deeper to find out who they were, learning about their religion, visiting Utah law enforcement and talking with FLDS members in Utah.

Doran said authorities’ main interest sprang from an emergency management position. They wanted to know how many people lived on the property and what was being built to know if the county would be equipped to handle a three-story structure fire or respond properly in the aftermath of a tornado.

“Initially, we were always told there’s anywhere between 250 to 300 people” on the ranch, he said. “That’s the impression that we had. At the peak of 2008, I guess prior to the raid or about the time of the raid, there was probably pushing the number 700 out there.”

“Numbers that we never did fathom that was out there,” he continued.

Residents say it took a couple of months after the raid for things to settle down in their normally quiet town. But people from all over now knew about Eldorado.

“It’s always funny because I would call a place halfway across the United States for parts, and I’d tell them my shipping address and, ‘Oh, you’re from that little town Eldorado … with all the Mormons,‘” Kent said, furrowing his brow in displeasure. “It was like, could we be famous for a chili cook-off or something?”

Seclusion is not hard to find in West Texas. The region covers 39,731 square miles of diverse topography including dense scrublands and agricultural fields.

The YFZ Ranch is a 1,691-acre tract with space enough for a self-sustaining community and an orchard filled with trees of apples, peaches and pears.

Now all that remains is a towering white stone temple and numerous buildings, a majority that were used for housing.

The state of Texas seized the property in April 2013 after church leaders stuck by polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs’ “answer them nothing” order and did not contest the forfeiture filed by then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott in 2012.

Jeffs, who was known to visit the YFZ Ranch, is serving life plus 20 years in prison for raping two girls — one age 12, the other 15 — he had taken as polygamous brides. Jeffs must serve at least 45 years in prison before being eligible for release, at which time he will be 100 years old.

Abbott said the numerous cases of child sexual assault perpetrated on the ranch made the property “contraband,” and a default judgment of forfeiture was signed in January 2014 by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther in San Angelo.

Because the state is exempt from paying taxes on the property, Schleicher County has not collected tax money on the YFZ Ranch since its seizure.

“With the state taking it over, it really, really hurt,” Doyle said. “Hurt this whole community bad. The state’s taken it over … and they haven’t done a damn thing with it for the most part of it, except let it rot.”

An experienced pilot, Doyle said from the air he could see the poor shape of the existing buildings made mostly of wood. He has flown over the ranch numerous times — often for media outlets wanting aerial photos of the property.

“The county’s losing taxes, the city’s losing taxes, the school’s losing taxes and the state is just letting it rot,” he said. “Plus, we’re still stuck with it because the sheriff still has to guard it.”

Billy Collins, former superintendent of Schleicher County Independent School District, said at the time of the seizure, the district expected to lose 5 percent to 10 percent of its operating budget because of the state’s tax exemption.

The district was collecting about $400,000 annually in taxes from the property before it was seized, said current Superintendent Robert Gibson.

The Schleicher County Sheriff’s Office is tasked with upkeep of the property; the sheriff estimates it costs the county $10,000 a year. The cost would be higher if not for his volunteer work on the property, inmate labor used when available and help from city and county departments, he said.

“The State Attorney General’s Office reimburses the expense to the district attorney’s office for the utilities,” he said. “And the county is covering the expense for any maintenance that may occur out there like broken water lines, water well issues.”

He said the county will not be reimbursed until a sale is made.

Doran was appointed conservator of the property in 2014 by 51st Judicial District Attorney Allison Palmer, who he said has done an amazing job behind the scenes of overseeing the property.

Other than a major grass fire on the property about a year and a half ago, upkeep has been limited to repairing water lines, caring for the orchard and making sure the property remains viable for sale.

The property is valued at about $25 million — down from the roughly $33.3 million it was worth when seized in 2013, according to the county’s appraisal district.

It’s unknown what plans the state has for the property other than to sell it or whether any serious buyers are looking to sweep up the multimillion-dollar ranch.

Willie Jessop, former bodyguard and onetime staunch supporter of Jeffs, is in a dispute with the state of Texas. He claims he has a legal interest in the YFZ Ranch and should receive money from a sale.

Jessop is seeking to collect on two separate multimillion-dollar judgment liens — one for $24.45 million and another for $8.5 million — he won in a Utah court in 2012 against the FLDS church and several of its members. The lawsuit was not contested and rendered a default judgment.

A copy of Jessop’s Utah judgment was filed with the Texas courts July 17, 2012, through a legal tactic known as domesticating, which gives the Utah judgment the same effect as any other judgment in Texas. He did not, however, obtain a lien or any judgment against the YFZ Ranch or its owners before the state seized it in 2014, according to a 2015 article by The Eldorado Success.

The lawsuit against Texas was originally filed in July 2015 but was dismissed based on the state’s claim of sovereign immunity, which holds that a state cannot be sued without the state legislature’s consent.

Leveled against Palmer, in her official capacity as DA, and Kent Richardson, acting on behalf of the Attorney General of Texas, the lawsuit is being heard in the 13th Court of Appeals.

Palmer and Jessop’s San Angelo attorney Rae Leifeste could not be reached for comment.

While the property waits in limbo and debate continues over who should benefit from a potential sale, Judge Walther granted a request made in early March from the Texas Attorney General’s Office to remove several sets of human remains buried at the YFZ Ranch Cemetery, The Eldorado Success reports.

Among the buried is the body of Barbara Jeffs, one of Warren Jeffs’ wives, which will be relocated to an area around the Utah/Arizona border.

Seven bodies must be relocated, and relatives of the deceased were given two options — bodies could be moved to a place of their choosing or reburied in the local cemetery, Doran said.

They kept to themselves, but everyone in town knew who they were.

Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints settled in a remote area near Eldorado, Texas, and isolated themselves on their self-built compound, the Yearning for Zion Ranch.

But it wasn’t the way they moved in that grabbed people’s attention. It was how they left.

“We figured out pretty quick that something was going to happen when you got about 75 or 80 (law enforcement officers) running around town,” said Michael Kent, manager of Kent’s Automotive shop in Eldorado.

More:Lead attorney for children of YFZ Ranch recalls biggest child custody case in U.S. history

More:Seven documentaries and movies that tackled life in the FLDS church under Warren Jeffs

After an anonymous tip alleging physical and sexual abuse of children prompted law enforcement to raid the ranch, a sudden rush of interest by news outlets put the small West Texas town — about 45 miles south of San Angelo with a population of roughly 1,700 people — in the national spotlight.

Authorities breached the ranch’s gates in April 2008. More than 400 children were taken from the ranch, resulting in the largest child custody case in U.S. history. They were later returned by order of appellate courts, including the Texas Supreme Court.

The 1993 standoff between the Branch Davidian Christian sect and the federal government in Waco, Texas, was at the front of people’s minds, said longtime resident J.D. Doyle. The 51-day Waco standoff ended with the compound being destroyed by fire, leaving nearly 80 people dead including more than a dozen children. Eldorado residents feared someone from the YFZ Ranch — especially a child — could get hurt by the feds, either directly or indirectly, Doyle said.

Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran attributes the safe outcome of the raid to a working relationship and open lines of communication between authorities and leadership at the YFZ Ranch.

“I believe that’s what kept everything calm,” he said, theorizing FLDS members had a vested interest in communicating with them because of controversy surrounding their sect in Utah. “We had a large-scale raid with a lot of people with no incident, and that’s a big accomplishment in my opinion. Not just for us, but for law enforcement dealing with a large group in general.”

Like the call that initiated the raid, Doran said the sheriff’s office received a call by a former FLDS member — whom he described as a “polygamist activist” — who let them know about their new neighbors in 2004. An FLDS member had bought the land in 2003 and initially said it would be a hunting retreat.

The sheriff dug a little deeper to find out who they were, learning about their religion, visiting Utah law enforcement and talking with FLDS members in Utah.

Doran said authorities’ main interest sprang from an emergency management position. They wanted to know how many people lived on the property and what was being built to know if the county would be equipped to handle a three-story structure fire or respond properly in the aftermath of a tornado.

“Initially, we were always told there’s anywhere between 250 to 300 people” on the ranch," he said. “That’s the impression that we had. At the peak of 2008, I guess prior to the raid or about the time of the raid, there was probably pushing the number 700 out there.”

“Numbers that we never did fathom that was out there,” he continued.

Residents say it took a couple of months after the raid for things to settle down in their normally quiet town. But people from all over now knew about Eldorado.

“It’s always funny because I would call a place halfway across the United States for parts, and I’d tell them my shipping address and, ‘Oh, you’re from that little town Eldorado … with all the Mormons,’” Kent said, furrowing his brow in displeasure. “It was like, could we be famous for a chili cook-off or something?”

Seclusion is not hard to find in West Texas. The region covers 39,731 square miles of diverse topography including dense scrublands and agricultural fields.

The YFZ Ranch is a 1,691-acre tract with space enough for a self-sustaining community and an orchard filled with trees of apples, peaches and pears.

Now empty, all that remains is a towering white stone temple and numerous buildings, a majority that were used for housing.

The state of Texas seized the property in April 2013 after church leaders stuck by polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs’ "answer them nothing" order and did not contest the forfeiture filed by then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott in 2012.

Jeffs, who was known to visit the YFZ Ranch, is serving life plus 20 years in prison for raping two girls — one age 12, the other 15 — he had taken as polygamous brides. Jeffs must serve at least 45 years in prison before being eligible for release, at which time he will be 100 years old.

Abbott said the numerous cases of child sexual assault perpetrated on the ranch made the property “contraband,” and a default judgment of forfeiture was signed in January 2014 by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther in San Angelo.

More:San Angelo Ranger recognized by Canadian authorities for aid in FLDS cases

Because the state is exempt from paying taxes on the property, Schleicher County has not collected tax money on the YFZ Ranch since its seizure.

“With the state taking it over, it really, really hurt,” Doyle said. “Hurt this whole community bad. The state’s taken it over ... and they haven’t done a damn thing with it for the most part of it, except let it rot.”

An experienced pilot, Doyle said from the air he could see the poor shape of the existing buildings made mostly of wood. He has flown over the ranch numerous times — often for media outlets wanting aerial photos of the property.

“The county’s losing taxes, the city’s losing taxes, the school’s losing taxes and the state is just letting it rot,” he said. “Plus, we’re still stuck with it because the sheriff still has to guard it.”

Billy Collins, former superintendent of Schleicher County Independent School District, said at the time of the seizure, the district expected to lose 5 to 10 percent of its operating budget because of the state’s tax exemption.

The district was collecting about $400,000 annually in taxes from the property before it was seized, said current Superintendent Robert Gibson.

The Schleicher County Sheriff’s Office is tasked with upkeep of the property; the sheriff estimates it costs the county about $10,000 a year. The cost would be higher if not for his volunteer work on the property, inmate labor used when available and help from city and county departments, he said.

“The State Attorney General’s Office reimburses the expense to the district attorney’s office for the utilities,” he said. “And the county is covering the expense for any maintenance that may occur out there like broken water lines, water well issues.”

He said the county will not be reimbursed until a sale is made.

Doran was appointed conservator of the property in 2014 by 51st Judicial District Attorney Allison Palmer, who he said has done an amazing job behind the scenes of overseeing the property.

Other than a major grass fire on the property about a year and a half ago, upkeep has been limited to repairing water lines, caring for the orchard and making sure the property remains viable for sale.

The property is valued at about $25 million – down from the roughly $33.3 million it was worth when seized in 2013, according to the county’s appraisal district.

It's unknown what plans the state has for the property other than to sell it or whether any serious buyers are looking to sweep up the multimillion-dollar ranch.

Willie Jessop, former bodyguard and one-time staunch supporter of Jeffs, is in a dispute with the state of Texas. He claims he has a legal interest in the YFZ Ranch and should receive money from a sale.

Jessop is seeking to collect on two separate multimillion-dollar judgment liens — one for $24.45 million and another for $8.5 million — he won in a Utah court in 2012 against the FLDS church and several of its members. The lawsuit was not contested and rendered a default judgment.

A copy of Jessop’s Utah judgment was filed with the Texas courts July 17, 2012, through a legal tactic known as domesticating, which gives the Utah judgment the same effect as any other judgment in Texas. He did not, however, obtain a lien or any judgment against the YFZ Ranch or its owners before the state seized it in 2014, according to a 2015 article by The Eldorado Success.

More:FLDS leader Lyle Jeffs caught after year on lam

The lawsuit against Texas was originally filed in July 2015 but was dismissed based on the state’s claim of sovereign immunity, which holds that a state cannot be sued without the state legislature’s consent.

Leveled against Palmer, in her official capacity as DA, and Kent Richardson, acting on behalf of the Attorney General of Texas, the lawsuit is being heard in the 13th Court of Appeals.

Palmer and Jessop’s San Angelo attorney Rae Leifeste could not be reached for comment.

While the property waits in limbo and debate continues over who should benefit from a potential sale, Judge Walther granted a request made in early March from the Texas Attorney General’s Office to remove several sets of human remains buried at the YFZ Ranch Cemetery, The Eldorado Success reports.

Among the buried is the body of Barbara Jeffs, one of Warren Jeffs’ wives, which will be relocated to an area around the Utah/Arizona border.

Seven bodies must be relocated, and relatives of the deceased were given two options — bodies could be moved to a place of their choosing or reburied in the local cemetery, Doran said.

“Some of the family members wanted their loved ones to stay in the county because that’s where they passed,” he said. “So the county donated four cemetery plots and the state’s paying for the removal and transportation and I believe the permits. The county is paying for the reburial.”

The overall expense is $3,000 per person. The remaining three bodies will be relocated elsewhere at the family’s expense.

Unlike hundreds of their peers, the last remaining FLDS members on the YFZ Ranch will be removed from the property quietly and without public fanfare.

More:Children of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs speak of experiences 10 years after the YFZ Ranch raid

YFZ RANCH PROFILE

Here's a look at the buildings on the once self-sustaining 1,691-acre property that was home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints lead by Warren Jeffs.

More than 19 separate residences, including a home for Warren Jeffs

Temple

Temple annex

Amphitheatre

Medical facilities

Grocery store

Water Treatment Plant

School

Meetinghouse

Grain silo

BY THE NUMBERS

Estimated appraisal values of the YFZ Ranch

2011: $28,176,150

2012: $33,405,720

2013: $33,409,660

2014: $33,408,970

2015: $33,421,520

2016: $33,409,120

The YFZ Ranch is a 1,691-acre tract with space enough for a self-sustaining community and an orchard filled with trees of apples, peaches and pears. Now all that remains is a towering white stone temple and numerous buildings, a majority that were used for housing.

The Yearning for Zion Ranch, or the YFZ Ranch, was a 1,700-acre (690-hectare) Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) community of as many as 700 people, located near Eldorado in Schleicher County, Texas, United States. In April 2014, the State of Texas took physical and legal possession of the property.

The YFZ Ranch was situated 45 miles (72 kilometers) southwest of San Angelo and four miles (six kilometers) northeast of Eldorado. The Ranch was settled by members of the FLDS Church who left Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona under increasing scrutiny from the media, anti-polygamy activists and law enforcement officials.

Speaking in Sunday church services on August 10, 2003, Warren Jeffs declared that the blessings of the priesthood had been removed from the community of Short Creek (Colorado City and Hildale). Following the sermon, Jeffs suspended all further religious meetings but continued to allow his followers to pay their tithes and offerings to him. He then turned his focus to what he called "lands of refuge": secret communities that he had started to build up. Jeffs referred to Yearning for Zion Ranch, one of the lands of refuge, by the code name R17.

The YFZ Land LLC, through its president, David S. Allred, purchased the ranch in 2003 for $700,000 and quickly began development on the property. When he purchased the property, he declared that the buildings would be a corporate hunting retreat. Allred stuck with that story even after William Benjamin Johnson, a Hildale man, was alleged to be shooting all the white-tail deer on the ranch and, after an investigation, was fined for hunting without a license. Later, ranch officials disclosed that the hunting retreat description was inaccurate; the buildings were part of the FLDS Church's residential area.

The ranch was home to approximately 500 people who relocated from Arizona and Utah communities. It housed a temple, a waste treatment facility, a 29,000 sq ft (2,700 m2) house for FLDS Church president Warren Jeffs, a meeting house, and several large log and concrete homes. There were generators, gardens, a grain silo, and a large stone quarry that was cut for the temple. According to preliminary tax assessments, about $3 million worth of buildings had been built. The sect was fined over $34,000 for environmental violations in connection with buildings on the ranch, mainly due to its failure to obtain the required permits for its concrete-mixing operations.

The temple foundation was dedicated January 1, 2005, by Jeffs.

On March 29, 2008, a local domestic violence shelter hotline took a call from a female, identifying herself as "Sarah", and claiming to be a 16-year-old victim of physical and sexual abuse at the church's YFZ Ranch. Investigators eventually established by tracing the calls that they were placed by a much older woman, Rozita Swinton, who had been arrested for previous hoax calls posing as abused and victimized girls. The call triggered a large-scale operation at YFZ Ranch by Texas law enforcement and child welfare officials, beginning with cordoning off of the ranch on April 3. Law enforcement officers were armed with automatic weapons, SWAT teams with snipers, helicopters, and Midland County provided an M113 armored personnel carrier as backup, but they were met with no armed resistance. Authorities believed the children "had been abused or were at immediate risk of future abuse", a state spokesman said. Troopers and child welfare officials searched the ranch, including the temple's safes, vaults, locked desk drawers, and beds. They found evidence leading them to believe that the beds were "in a part of the temple where 'males over the age of 17 engage in sexual activity' with underage girls". A religious scholar later testified in court that he does not think sexual activity occurs in the temples of FLDS sects, and that temple service "lasts a couple of hours, so all the temples will have a place where someone can lie down". Child Protective Services (CPS) officials conceded that there was no evidence that the youngest children were abused (about 130 of the children were under 5), and evidence later presented in a custody hearing suggested that teenage boys were not physically or sexually abused.

CPS spokesman Darrell Azar stated, "There was a systematic process going on to groom these young girls to become brides", and that the children could not be protected from possible future abuse on the ranch. Interviews with the children "revealed that several underage girls were forced into 'spiritual marriage' with much older men as soon as they reached puberty and were then made pregnant". After Judge Barbara Walther of the 51st District Court issued an order authorizing officials to remove all children, including boys, 17 years old and under, from the ranch, eventually a total of 462 children went into the temporary custody of the State of Texas. The children were held by the Child Protective Services at Fort Concho and the Wells Fargo Pavilion in San Angelo. Over a hundred adult women chose to leave the ranch to accompany the children. Children under the age of four were allowed to stay with their mothers until DNA testing to identify family relations was finished; once DNA testing was completed, only children under 18 months were allowed to stay with their mothers indefinitely.

A former member of the FLDS Church, Carolyn Jessop, arrived on-site April 6 in hopes of reuniting two of her daughters with their half siblings. She stated that the actions in Texas were unlike the 1953 Short Creek raid in Arizona. Jessop had been in Texas the prior month at a speaking engagement, where she said, "n Eldorado, the crimes went to a whole new level. They thought they could get away with more" but "Texas is not going to be a state that's as tolerant of these crimes as Arizona and Utah have been." By April 8, authorities had removed as many as 533 women and children from the ranch. On April 10, law enforcement completed their search of the ranch, returning control of the property to the FLDS Church.

Represented by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, mothers of the removed children sought a writ of mandamus against Judge Walther for her rulings because parents in Texas cannot simply appeal an emergency removal. Mandamus is available only when it is abundantly clear a state official abused his or her power.

On May 22, 2008, an appeals court issued a writ of mandamus to Judge Walther and found that there was not nearly enough evidence at the original hearing that the children were in immediate danger to justify keeping them in state custody. The court added that Judge Walther had abused her discretion by keeping the children in state care. The court ruled, "The department did not present any evidence of danger to the physical health and safety of any male children or any female children who had not reached puberty." The children were to be returned to their families in 10 days. CPS announced they would seek to overturn the decision. On May 29, the Texas Supreme Court declined to issue a mandamus to the Appeals Court, with a result that CPS was required to return all of the children. The court stated, "On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted." The court also noted that although the children must be returned, "it need not do so without granting other appropriate relief to protect the children".

On May 12–15, 2009, a hearing was held in Tom Green County, Texas regarding the constitutionality and legality of search warrants executed in April 2008 on the YFZ Ranch in Schleicher County, Texas. On October 2, 2009, Judge Barbara Walther issued a ruling denying a defense motion to suppress the evidence seized from the YFZ Ranch, stating:

On November 10, 2009, Raymond Jessop was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $8,000 for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl on or about November 19, 2004. On December 18, 2009, Allan Keate was sentenced to 33 years in prison. He fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl.

On January 22, 2010, Michael George Emack pleaded no contest to sexual assault charges and was sentenced to seven years in prison. He married a 16-year-old girl at YFZ Ranch on August 5, 2004. She gave birth to a son less than a year later. On April 14, 2010, Emack also pleaded no contest on a bigamy charge and received a seven-year sentence that will run concurrently with the sentence he received for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl.

On February 5, 2010, Arizona Judge Steven F. Conn approved a stipulation from the previous day between Mohave County prosecutor Matt Smith and Warren Jeffs' defense attorney, Michael Piccarreta, that evidence seized from the YFZ Ranch in Texas would not be used in any manner in Warren Jeffs' two criminal trials in Arizona. Based on the agreement of the attorneys, Judge Conn issued an order adopting the stipulation. A Utah court found Jeffs guilty of two counts of rape as an accomplice in September 2007. He was sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years to life but while serving this sentence at the Utah State Prison, Jeffs' conviction was reversed by Utah's Supreme Court on July 27, 2010 because of a flaw in the jury instructions. Jeffs was extradited to Texas, to face trial on charges facing him there. The Texas jury found him guilty of sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault of children. He was sentenced to life in prison plus twenty years, to be served consecutively, and a $10,000 fine, for sexual assault of both 12 and 15-year-old girls.

On March 19, 2010, Merril Leroy Jessop was sentenced to 75 years in prison for one count of sexual assault of a child. Jessop was convicted of illegally marrying and then fathering a child with a 15-year-old female.

On April 15, 2010, Lehi Barlow Jeffs pleaded no contest to bigamy and sexual assault of a child, avoiding a trial that had been set for April 26. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.

On June 22, 2010, Abram Harker Jeffs was found guilty of sexual assault of a child.

On August 9, 2011, leader Warren Steed Jeffs was found guilty of one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of sexual assault of a child and sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years to be served consecutively.

Rozita Swinton of Colorado Springs had previously made calls pretending to be a young girl. She was under investigation for posing as the caller "Sarah" who complained of abuse, but she could not be found. FLDS women did not know of any such girl and assumed that it was a prank call. Sarah was considered a real person by CPS until May when her court case was dropped, effectively acknowledging that she does not actually exist. Swinton has previously been responsible for hoax calls to authorities in multiple jurisdictions, setting off large emergency responses that sometimes involved dozens of police officers. Flora Jessop recorded nearly 40 hours of Swinton's phone calls, both before and after the raid on the YFZ ranch. Swinton posed alternately as "Sarah Barlow" and her sister Laura. She claimed that her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her and that his other wives tried to poison her. Swinton herself was 33 at the time, unmarried, and childless.

The Associated Press reported that Texas Ranger Brooks Long called Colorado officials about two phone numbers, one of which "was possibly related to the reporting party for the YFZ Ranch incident". However, the CPS acted on additional evidence gathered while investigating this complaint, and Flora Jessop and some commentators have expressed gratitude to Swinton that her tip, even if false, allowed exposure of alleged child abuses.

CPS has acknowledged that some ranch residents who were removed because they appeared to be minors may be older than first assumed. On May 13, Louisa Bradshaw Jessop gave birth to a son. Louisa Jessop had been classified as 17 by CPS, although her husband had previously provided a birth certificate and driver's license to demonstrate that she was 22. A CPS lawyer explained, "We can't just look at people and say, 'You're of age, you can go.'" A spokesman for FLDS believed that CPS "just wanted to keep the mother in custody until they could get the baby". Jessop was one of 27 "disputed minors", or ranch residents about whom the CPS has inaccurate or conflicting information regarding age. Child Protective Services lawyers on May 13 told Judge Walther that Louisa and the mother of a boy born April 29 were no longer considered to be minors. On May 22, CPS declared half of the alleged teen mothers to be adults, some as old as 27. One who had been listed as an underage mother had never been pregnant.

Many FLDS members and supporters see the raid and the seizure of the children from their family as religious persecution and have likened it to a witch-hunt.

In May 2008, FLDS spokesperson Willie Jessop wrote a letter to President George W. Bush, asking him to intervene, and outlining the harsh conditions that Jessop believed that the children and mothers were subjected to. In the letter Jessop claimed that, contrary to statements from authorities that the children were being placed in a safe and secure environment, the mothers and children were actually crowded by the hundreds into Fort Concho, a military facility without adequate toilets, bathing facilities, or privacy.

Mental health workers who worked at the shelter testified similarly to state officials, also citing lack of privacy, only military cots for sleeping and poor-quality food, with no communications and threatened arrest if mothers waved to friends. "The CPS workers were openly rude to the mothers and children, yelled at them for trying to wave to friends ... threatened them with arrest if they did not stop waving" Workers took notes on everything the "guests" said. In many of the testimonies it was compared to a prison or concentration camp. Others testified the children were "amazingly clean, happy, healthy, energetic, well behaved and self-confident", while the mothers were "consistently calm, patient and loving with their children".

The Christian legal group Liberty Legal Institute believes the state of Texas should be required to prove that the children taken from the ranch were actually abused or were in imminent danger. Liberty Legal warned of possible damage to religious liberties and the rights of all Texas parents. Home-schooling families were also fearful that opponents could file similarly false complaints against families to force attendance in government-run schools.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff disagreed with the removal:

Texas requires public education for children not in private or home schooling. Although the children had not been schooled while in state custody, a Texas Education Agency spokesman has stated that "there's a point at which their educational input is secondary" to their emotional well-being. CPS anticipates that the children will continue their education on the campus of their foster placement. There were no plans for the children to attend classes on any public school campus.

The ACLU maintains that the raid was prompted by a single, unsubstantiated allegation of abuse, and they allege that all children at the ranch were believed at risk solely because of exposure to FLDS beliefs regarding underage marriage. But, the ACLU contends, "exposure to a religion's beliefs, however unorthodox, is not itself abuse and may not constitutionally be labeled abuse". The ACLU pointed out that parents were separated from their children without individual hearings and without particularized evidence of abuse, and that DNA testing was ordered without evidence that parentage was in dispute. Such actions, the ACLU asserts, "should not be indiscriminately targeted against a group as a whole – particularly when the group is perceived as being different or unusual".

At the beginning of May, National Review columnist John Derbyshire called the raid the "atrocity of the month", but said he had seen only one editorial critical of the removals. The Los Angeles Times editorially endorsed the appeals court decision, saying CPS "was overzealous in its efforts".

Several commentators compared the raid with the Short Creek raid of 1953, which was also a government raid on an FLDS community, and which led to a popular backlash against the raid.

On April 14, 2008, the women and children were moved out of Fort Concho to San Angelo Coliseum, where the CPS reported that the children were playing and smiling. Mothers had complained about the living conditions inside Fort Concho, sending a letter to the Texas Governor asking him to investigate the conditions. In the letter, obtained by the Associated Press, the mothers claim that their children became sick and required hospitalization. They wrote "Our innocent children are continually being questioned on things they know nothing about. The physical examinations were horrifying to the children. The exposure to these conditions is traumatizing." FLDS and mental health workers complained about subjecting children to interrogation sessions, invasive physical examinations, pregnancy tests and complete body X-rays. Women staying at Fort Concho shelter told the press that the temporary housing was "cramped, with cots, cribs, and playpens lined up side by side, and that the children were frightened".

The FLDS described the separation of mothers from their children as "inhumane". When the children under 5 realized their mothers would be taken away, the children started crying and screaming, requiring CPS workers to pry many from their mothers.

The children were placed in 16 group shelters and foster homes. Minors with children were sent to the Seton Home in San Antonio, older boys to Cal Farley's Boys Ranch in Amarillo. Some parents stated on the Today Show that they were unable to visit their boys due to a shortage of CPS staff. Newspapers released names of facilities caring for the FLDS children that have requested donations of specific items, help or cash.

On April 16, 2008, several of the mothers appeared on Larry King Live to ask for their children and tell their story from their own viewpoint. The program included a guided tour of the ranch by one of the mothers, showing where the children and families sleep and eat and stressing the loss felt with the children all now gone. The mothers declined to discuss the pending allegations of child abuse. On the 17th, a custody hearing began in the Tom Green County Courthouse to determine whether the children would remain in state custody. Judge Barbara Walther heard testimony from State officials, experts called in by the State and witnesses for ranch members over a period of 2 days while hundreds of lawyers representing the children looked on and offered objections. State officials alleged a pattern of abuse by adults, including marriages between young girls and older men, while ranch residents insisted that no abuse had taken place.

On April 18, 2008, after 21 hours of testimony, Judge Walther ordered that all 416 children seized be held in protective custody and that the DNA of the children and adults be tested to establish family relationships. Children younger than 4 were to be separated from their mothers over 18 after DNA samples were taken; older children had already been separated. Children were to be given individual hearings to determine whether they must be moved to permanent foster care or returned to their parents. DNA testing of children and adults began on the 21st.

On April 24, 2008, authorities stated that they believed 25 mothers from the YFZ Ranch were under 18. On the 28th, authorities announced that of the 53 girls aged 14–17, 31 have children or were pregnant.

After the women regained custody of the children, one half of the families left the Yearning for Zion ranch and moved to another FLDS location.

Carey Cockerell, representing Texas CPS investigators, said on April 30 that they have identified 41 children with past diagnoses of fractured bones. FLDS spokesman Rod Parker attributes the fractures to hereditary bone disease and believes that the fracture rate was low, considering the children's physically active lifestyle. Additionally, two children broke bones while they were removed from the ranch, and one girl broke a bone while in custody. CPS investigators also made new allegations of possible sexual abuse of boys, citing their diary notes.

On May 13, 2008, a San Antonio judge allowed a couple from the ranch to have daily visits with their children, and granted them a hearing in 10 days to decide their children's custody. Other challenges to the blanket order by Judge Walther were filed in courts in San Antonio, Austin, and San Angelo.

In November 2008, 12 FLDS men were charged with offenses related to underage marriages.

On December 22, 2008, The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services issued a 21-page final report on the raid entitled "El Dorado Investigation". The report found that "12 girls were 'spiritually' married at ages ranging from 12 to 15, and seven of these girls have had one or more children. The 12 confirmed victims of sexual abuse were among 43 girls removed from the ranch from the ages of 12 to 17, which means that more than one out of every four pubescent girls on the ranch was in an underage marriage."

A year after the raid, two thirds of the families were back at the ranch and sect leaders had promised to end underaged marriages. Twelve men, not all apparently from the ranch, had been indicted on a variety of sex charges, including assault and bigamy. One child, a 14-year-old girl who was married to jailed leader Warren Jeffs when she was 12, remained in foster care. The following summer, 2009, she was sent to live with a relative and ordered not to have contact with Jeffs.

In November 2012, the Texas Attorney General's Office began legal proceeding in an attempt to seize the ranch. In a 91-page affidavit filed with the 51st District Court of Texas, the Attorney General argues that Warren Jeffs authorized the purchase of the ranch property as "... a rural location where the systemic sexual assault of children would be tolerated without interference from law enforcement authorities", therefore, the property was contraband and subject to seizure. Under Texas law, property that was used to commit or facilitate certain criminal conduct can be seized by law enforcement authorities. In 2012 the property was appraised to have a value of $19.96 million, according to county tax rolls.

On January 6, 2014, Judge Walther ruled that the state could seize the property, and that they could "enter the property and take an inventory." The FLDS Church had 30 days to appeal. On February 6, 2014, at the close of the courthouse day, the opportunity to appeal the seizure expired; since no one had filed an appeal challenging the seizure by that time, the state of Texas became the legal owner of the YFZ Ranch. Officials did not release details about their future plans for the ranch at that time. On April 16, 2014, officials met with two representatives of the remaining eight adult residents and discussed arrangements for them to vacate the premises, and the following day (April 17) the State of Texas took physical possession of the property.

CPS websites

Court Documents