YFZ Ranch - Court Rulings

Court Rulings

On May 22, 2008 an appeals court ruled there was not 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 must 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:

The court finds that Defendants’ offer of proof of deliberate falsehoods contained within the probable cause affidavits to support the two warrants is unsupported by credible evidence.

On November 10, 2009, Raymond Jessop was sentenced to 10 years in prison & fined $8000 for sexually assaulting a 16 year old girl on or about Nov. 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 pled 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 pled 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.