Recovery

February 03, 2007

Warren Jeffs' Former Home May House 'Lost Boys'

CBS - KUTV
http://kutv.com/topstories/
local_story_032213807.html

Brian Mullahy

February 1, 2007

SALT LAKE CITY - The house used to be the home of a polygamist and as many as seven wives, and who knows how many kids. But now a big change is coming for the big house.

The families that used to live in the house abandoned the place, rather than pay taxes. And now it may turn into a great, big foster home. Just minutes away from the compound where embattled polygamist leader Warren Jeffs used to live is another huge home.

Bruce Wisan is court-appointed, and in control of the United Effort Plan Trust, which operates the home.

“It’s 19 bedrooms and 23 bathrooms. Five of the bathrooms have Jacuzzis. Three kitchens, one a commercial grade kitchen,” he said.

That home used to be run by none other than Warren Jeffs, a man who could kick people out of the polygamist sect, sever their family ties and assign their homes to somebody he deemed “more worthy.”

But now this big house may take some ousted teenage boys back.

Stefanie Colgrove and her husband want to turn this into a foster home for so-called “lost boys,” teens who were kicked out, or fled from Hildale-Colorado City.

“This is a way to help them understand that life isn’t out there to destroy them,” she said. “I am trying a family environment.”

Bruce Wisan wants the home to be used for good purposes.

“I’d rather that succeed... than to sell and get money for the trust," he said. "The trust does need money, but there are some things of greater value.”

Posted by Perry at 06:21 PM

January 10, 2007

Survivor of The Family cult spared conviction

By Angela O'Connor
July 5, 2005

Sarah Moore, the woman who broke away from The Family cult, became a doctor and then wrote herself dozens of prescriptions for pethidine, has escaped conviction and jail.

Magistrate Nunzio La Rosa imposed a community-based order of 250 hours unpaid work and a four-year good behaviour bond on Ms Moore, 35, who last week pleaded guilty to 160 charges relating to writing prescriptions for pethidine from November 2004 to April this year.

The bond conditions require her to continue a drug rehabilitation program, obey instructions from her psychiatrist and follow orders of the Victorian Doctors Health Program.

Mr La Rosa said the fact that there was no conviction meant Ms Moore would not have to appear before a medical board.

He said he had taken into account the deprived life Ms Moore had experienced growing up in the cult led by Anne Hamilton-Byrne.

He said Ms Moore claimed she sought relief with pethidine for pain caused by an incision in her abdomen made as part of an initiation into the cult.

He said after growing up in The Family, Ms Moore had bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. He said she was the only victim of her crimes and had taken near-lethal doses of pethidine.

He said it was regrettable that the conditions in which young children adopted by Mrs Hamilton-Byrne had grown up had been allowed for so long.

The court heard that Ms Moore had been brought up under the harsh discipline imposed by the cult leader who adopted 14 children, including Ms Moore, and brought them up to believe they were her own.

Ms Moore, who broke away from The Family about 17 years ago, wrote a book Unseen Unheard Unknown in which she described her life as violated by drugs, violence, sleep deprivation and emotional manipulation. No child abuse charges have been laid against Hamilton-Byrne. The cult's Eildon property was raided in 1987.

Outside court, Ms Moore said there had been a lack of community support for the other children of The Family, including the (children known as the) Hamilton-Byrnes. "Those children have incredible problems, including suicide and psychiatric illness and drug and alcohol problems," she said.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/survivor-of-the-family-cult-spared-conviction/2005/07/04/1120329384283.html

Posted by Julia at 05:33 PM

December 24, 2006

The so-called Lost Boy wants the FLDS leader to approve a reunion

By Brooke Adams

The Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_4891049

12/23/2006

SOUTH JORDAN - Johnny Jessop is still holding on to hope.
There are two days to go before Christmas, five until his 18th birthday. That is time enough for a change of heart. Time enough for a call from Elsie, his 62-year-old mother, whom he has not heard from in 18 months.
The one man he believes can make it happen: polygamous sect leader Warren S. Jeffs.
Johnny, a so-called Lost Boy ordered out of Hildale five years ago, has written Jeffs several letters pleading for help.
"I don't know what I did that was so bad as a 13-year-old to be forever cut off from my family," Johnny wrote in the first letter, sent a day after Thanksgiving. "I know that you alone have the ability to allow her to see me again. . . . All I want is to see her and be her son."
There has been no response from Jeffs, who is incarcerated at the Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane. He is to stand trial in April on charges of being an accomplice to rape for conducting a marriage despite protests from the 14-year-old bride.
Johnny's situation is not unlike that of the 80-plus teens, mostly boys, who gathered Friday night for a Christmas party sponsored by the Diversity Foundation. Most are cut off from parents and siblings in the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., home of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter DaySaints.
They were kicked out of or fled the community after engaging in bad behavior or deciding they wanted a different life; some activists allege the boys are driven off to reduce competition for wives.
They have "no safety net of a family who will always be there for you," said Shannon Price, the foundation's director. "In normal society, a parent is going to do what they can to help that child get through that rebellious stage.
"In this community, they kick them out and say, 'You can't come back.' They don't allow them visitation or communication at all with their natural parents."
Jeffs has even given that counsel from the pulpit. In a sermon delivered July 16, 2000, in Colorado City, Jeffs told the faithful that the "great challenge among this people is the apostates are our relatives.
"If a mother has apostate children, her emotions won't let her give them up and she invites them into the home, thus desecrating that dedicated home. We want to see them and socialize with them, and every time we do, we weaken our faith and our ability to stand with the prophet."
But Johnny hangs on to one unshakable belief.

Continue reading "The so-called Lost Boy wants the FLDS leader to approve a reunion"

Posted by Perry at 03:04 PM

December 14, 2006

What if you were abused? Getting yourself healthy is the first step

Patti Wenzel,
patti.wenzel@mx3.com

THE-BEE
http://www.phillipswi.com/bee/
index.php?sect_rank=1&story_id=206177

Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

It is not unusual to have questions, doubts and fears following the revelation of accusations of alleged abuse on the part of Fr. Terrence Fitzmaurice, the cleric who served Phillips Roman Catholic community from 1986-1999.

"It would be uncommon to not hear more accusations after something like this comes out," said Peter Isely, Midwest Regional Director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

Isely and SNAP's national director, David Clohessy, said the first thing someone who suspects clergy abuse should do is know they're no alone.

"They have to know they are not alone," Clohessy said. "And that something like this is never, ever their fault."

Clohessy said the next step is to find help from an independent therapist. Both men were adamant that a victim or someone with suspicions should never contact the church itself.

"The main reason abuse cases have been mishandled by the bishops is because they can," Clohessy said. "By reporting it to them, they have the opportunity to threaten and intimidate people, move abusive priests and destroy evidence."

Instead, victims should contact law enforcement or human services to report the incident, no matter how old the allegations might be.

"These people are the professionals. They know how to investigate these things. They know how to protect people," Clohessy said.

"Above all else, don't keep this type of violation of trust a secret," he continued. "Silence is deadly."

SNAP is an independent support group made up of victims, family members, therapists and clergy who support, comfort and advise others who have been abused by priests, nuns and other church workers.

Clohessy said many victims don't even realize that they have been abused, choosing instead to minimize the event.

"They minimize it by saying ‘he only touched me once,' or ‘it could have been worse,'" he said. "But then their troubles pile up and they start to take a close look at their lives. We're here to help them when they come to terms with it."

He added that the abuse in the Catholic Church occurred because of the nature of the organization.

"The crux of this problem is that the church is a monarchy with unchecked power and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Continue reading "What if you were abused? Getting yourself healthy is the first step"

Posted by Perry at 02:27 PM

November 08, 2006

Safety Net Committee for polygamy victims is far from secure

Nov. 8/06
The Spectrum, St. George, UT
http://www.thespectrum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061107/OPINION/61107006


By Vicky Prunty,executive director of Tapestry Against Polygamy, and John Llewellyn, advisor and author of Polygamy’s Rape of Rachael Strong.

Of the 500 victims the Safety Net Committee has allegedly helped — how many incidents of abuse constituted a crime? And if crimes were committed, how many perpetrators were prosecuted?

Of the 500 victims helped, how many women and children actually left the polygamist environment where they were abused? And how many victims that were helped returned to the abusive environment, either of their own volition (religious reasons) or because they had no other alternative?

Five hundred victims are a lot, which conveys a strong indication that there are serious problems within the polygamist subculture. The Safety Net statistics do not identify these problems or whether measures were taken to correct these problems. One can’t help wonder, is the program analogous to giving a battered wife medical attention, and then sending her back to her husband? Unless the circumstances resulting in abuse are corrected, the Safety Net program can expect a perpetual supply of victims, which means the necessity of yearly renewing the Safe Passage Grant. Perhaps, a plus for many Utah salaried service providers.
We believe the taxpayers who are footing the bill for the Safety Net Committee are entitled to know the nature of the abuse. With no arrests being made the abuse is probably categorized as “domestic violence,” which could involve several types of trauma — physical violence, neglect, non support, emotional and psychological coercion, (pernicious mind control) which are the common types of abuse endemic to the Mormon polygamist subculture (Not to mention child molestation.)

Mr. Shurtleff makes it clear that discussions pertaining to decriminalization are not permitted in the Safety Net meetings, which incidentally are copiously attended by practicing and pro- polygamy activists. But the last town meeting organized by Mr. Shurtleff was nothing more than a forum for decriminalization. If no effort is made to correct the causes of abuse it begs the question — is the Safety Net program inadvertently subsidizing the polygamist subculture?

Safety Net providers have been careful not to bring religion or polygamy into the equation for fear that it will discourage victims from coming forward. Nor do government service providers make leaving the polygamist subculture a condition before assistance is granted. This is all well and good. However, indifference to doctrine and teachings that are inseparable from the abuse — in other words, doctrine and teachings that are part and parcel of the alleged religious revelation commanding the practice of plural marriage — implies government recognition that Mormon plural marriage is a bona fide religious tenet protected under the First Amendment — which it is not.

A few politicians, prosecutors, journalists and scholars are quick to say, as in the case of Warren Jeffs, “This is not about religion or polygamy, but rather, it’s about crimes against children.” For those women and children who are authentic victims of Mormon polygamy and dare to speak out, the statement is ludicrous. When a religious belief or practice instigates, encourages, instructs or condones a crime how can it not be culpable. The State may not be able to prosecute the polygamy revelation, or the religion that is responsible for the revelation, but to infer there is no connection between the revelation, religion and the crime is misleading. If there were no revelation their would be no abuse. To say religion or polygamy had nothing to with Warren Jeff’s crimes is like saying religion had nothing to do with young Muslims driving airplanes into the Twin Towers on 9/11.

In conclusion, Mr. Shurtleff said that “Prosecutors have and will continue to prosecute crimes within these communities like anywhere else.” But what about Rachael Strong? If there was ever a victim of domestic violence who was willing to testify it was Rachael, who gave a sworn statement that she “submitted” under extreme duress. Mr. Shurleff interpreted that as “consent” and would not use the bigamy statute to put a sexual predator out of business because Rachael was age twenty. So when Mr. Shurtleff said, “prosecutors will continue to prosecute crimes within these communities,” was his tongue pressed against his cheek?

The Attorney General, and other prosecutors, have said they will only go after crimes against children. Does that mean if a sixty year-old father marries his twenty year-old daughter and sires several children, they won’t prosecute, and the polygamist father gets a free pass? Does that mean incest, which is a serious problem with some Mormon polygamists, will be treated like bigamy, only worth prosecuting if the victim is underage? Does that mean Attorney Mark Shurtleff’s solution to simply emancipate children, as in the case of the “cast away” boys, absolving polygamist families of all responsibility is a viable solution when any other citizen would be prosecuted for criminal neglect of a child?

Crimes are not being prosecuted in these communities like anywhere else. Polygamy is a felony. If there is any “bending the law, changing rules and altering the justice system” as Mr. Shurtleff puts it, it is because polygamists are given a free pass and the bigamy law is not being enforced, such as in the case of Rachael Strong.

To sum it all up, there will always be polygamy abuse until parents learn to love their children more than their prophet, and learn to love their children more than they fear their Mormon god. Prevention and prosecution could be channeled through Safe Passage funds and a safety net, yet the conflict of interest may be too much for the state of Utah and its Attorney General.

Posted by Perry at 02:26 PM

April 14, 2005

Psychological Therapy Can Help Maltreated Children

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Psychological counseling does seem to help heal the scars of child abuse and neglect, though the extent to which family therapy prevents future abuse is unclear, according to a research review.

Continue reading "Psychological Therapy Can Help Maltreated Children"

Posted by Julia at 04:23 PM