Deal to return children fails in polygamy case

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Negotiations for the state's release of more than 460 children who were removed from a polygamist sect in April broke down Friday in a scene of chaos in a courtroom in San Angelo.

Lawyers for the families said the judge overseeing the release lacked authority to impose restrictions on it, and the judge, in disagreement, closed the proceedings and walked out of the courtroom in the West Texas town.

Some of the lawyers vowed to bypass the judge, Barbara Walther of state District Court, and carry the new turn in the case to a state appeals court.

"This is crazy," said Gary Peak, a lawyer who represents two boys from the sect, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS).

Reuniting the children with their parents starting Monday had been expected after the Texas Supreme Court ruling Thursday that the state's seizure in April had been overly broad and was not supported by evidence of sexual abuse.

Friday's hearing before Walther, convened to arrange for the release, snagged over the ground rules. Among other things, Walther said the 38 mothers who filed the complaint that led the Texas Supreme Court to reject the state's seizure must personally sign an agreement their attorneys and state child-welfare officials proposed.

That could add days to the process, attorneys for the mothers said, because the women are scattered across the state to be close to their children in foster care.

The draft agreement released by Child Protective Services attorney Gary Banks earlier Friday said the parents could get their children back after showing identification and pledging to take parenting classes and remain in Texas.

The hearing was partly overshadowed, meanwhile, by a new development in the criminal investigation of the sect, which split from the Mormon church after the Mormons disavowed plural marriage.

Investigators said family marriage records seized in the April raid at the group's compound, the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, suggested the sect's leader, Warren Jeffs, had "spiritually" wed at least four underage girls, two 14 at the time, the other two 12.

Jeffs, 52, is serving 10 years to life as an accomplice to rape for forcing a 14-year-old girl in Utah to marry and have sex with an older man against her will.

Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the Texas Attorney General's Office, said a warrant to obtain DNA samples from Jeffs was signed Thursday by a judge in Arizona, where Jeffs is in jail awaiting trial on other charges related to underage marriage.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.