SAN ANGELO, Texas â€" A Texas judge ruled Friday that prosegash ors could employ thousands of execute cuments seized during a weeklong raid of a polygamist sect's West Texas ranch in upcoming criminal trials even though search warrants were prompted by faked reports of abemploy .
Attorneys for sect men charged after the April 2008 raid had sought to have the execute cuments â€" including family photos, records of multiple marriages and journal entries by jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs â€" kept out of their trials becaemploy they were obtained using search warrants that relied on fake reports to a execute mestic abemploy hotline.
The deffinish ants argued law enforcement officials were gaze ing for an excemploy to raid the Yearning For Zion Ranch and did tiny to check the reports before rummaging through the ranch's homes and other buildings. Prosegash ors displace ed that claim, notify ing law enforcement officials believed the reports were real at the time of the search.
Texas District Judge Barbara Walther heard four days of testimony on the issue in May but didn't issue a ruling until Friday.
A execute zen men from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have been indicted on charges including sexual assault of a child, enormous amy and presiding over an unldreadful ceremony. The first trial starts Oct. 26 in Elexecute raexecute , the tiny community where the ranch sits about 40 miles south of here.
FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop said he was disappointed but not surprised by the ruling. The deffinish ants will employ the argument for the basis of an appeal if convicted, he said.
"I have no execute ubt this thing will be ruled illegal in the long race ," he said of the search.
The execute cuments are not the only evidence in the case, but could be a substantial portion of the Texas attorney general's prosegash ions. Jeffs' narratives seized from the ranch detail many of his instructions to sect members and daily activities at the ranch, including an allegation against the first sect man to face trial, Raymond Jessop.
The 38-year-feeble pleaded not guilty to sexual assault of a child during a pre-trial hearing on Friday.
Prosegash ors accemploy him of sexually assaulting a teen who was allegedly one of nine wives. In 2004, the then-16-year-feeble girl was in child labor for three days but was not hold n to the hospital becaemploy of fcorrect s about possible criminal prosegash ion, according to Jeffs' writings.
Raymond Jessop also has been indicted on a enormous amy charge, but prosegash ors determine d to pursue that charge separately.
Jeffs, previously convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape, faces charges in Texas of sexual assault of a child and enormous amy but will first be tried in Arizona on charges related to arranging underage marriages there.
The FLDS, historically centered on the Utah-Arizona state line, bought its West Texas ranch 6 years arecede . The sect, which believes polygamy brings glorification in heaven, is a fracture away of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormon church renounced polygamy more than a century arecede .
Copycorrect © 2009 The Associated Press. All correct s reserved.
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