Defense Files Challenge to Raid on Polygamist Sect Compound
Posted on Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 10:08:34 AM EST
Tags: Polygamist Raid (all tags)
Criminal defense attorney Gerry Goldstein, lead counsel for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, has wasted no time in filing a blistering attack on the raid on the polygmanist sect's Texas compound:
At the crux of the 39-page motion Goldstein filed Thursday in the Texas 51st Judicial District Court on behalf of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a revelation that the man authorities were looking for, Dale Evans Barlow, was in Arizona at the time of the April 3 raid. Texas Rangers searched the polygamist sect’s Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado, Texas, for a week after receiving reports from a woman claiming to be a 16-year-old named Sarah Jessop, who alleged that Barlow was sexually abusing her. However, police now suspect the reports were a prank engineered by a woman in Colorado Springs with a history of false reporting.
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“Those officers could have and should have exercised greater diligence in verifying and determining the true whereabouts of a known convicted felon serving a probated sentence in another state. At the very least, alleging that Dale Barlow was located on the YFZ Ranch — without checking with the Arizona Probation Office these officers knew to be supervising him — constituted a reckless disregard for either standard law enforcement protocol or common sense,” reads Goldstein’s request for a hearing to investigate the issuance of the search-and-arrest warrants.
“Moreover, prior to executing the initial warrant, (Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran) was advised that Dale Barlow was in Arizona and not on the premises sought to be searched. In fact, prior to entering the premises Sheriff Doran actually spoke to Dale Barlow in Arizona by cell phone, confirming his driver license number and the fact that he was in Arizona.”
And about that cell phone call from a woman in Colorado Springs:
“The veracity of the factual underpinnings for any probable cause in support of (one of the search warrants) is further undermined by the revelation that the telephones utilized by the alleged sexually abused, pregnant, 16-year-old mother claiming to be Sarah Jessop to contact the New Bridge Family Shelter ‘Crisis Hotline’ in San Angelo, Texas, have been traced back to a 33-year-old, childless African American woman in Colorado Springs, Colorado,” Goldstein states.
Gerry is also challenging the way the DNA was taken:
His filing goes on to accuse authorities of withholding salient facts from the court, and searching and seizing property at the ranch in an “unreasonable” and “expansive” way that infringed on the polygamists’ constitutional rights. Of particular concern is the seizing of blood, pubic hairs and other DNA from members of the polygamist sect, it said.
“Officers took action beyond the scope that these warrants authorized,” Goldstein claims.
By the way, the woman in Colorado Springs, Rozita Swinton, is a pledged local delegate for Barack Obama. I doubt that when the state convention meets on May 17th to choose the delegates to the national convention in Denver, she will be selected as one of them.
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