Trial of Texas sect member set to begin

SAN ANGELO, TEX. -- The first jury trial in more than a decade in the sleepy West Texas town of Eldorado involves an alleged polygamist and an accusation of sexual assault of an underage bride, a far cry from the occasional drunken-driving cases that usually occupy the Schleicher County court system.

Attorneys on Monday will begin culling the largest jury pool ever called in Eldorado as they try to find 14 people in a county of 2,800 who can set aside what they have heard about a polygamist sect. Its alleged marriages involving underage girls triggered a police raid that swept more than 400 children into state custody last year.

Raymond Jessop, 38, will become the first man from the Yearning for Zion Ranch to go on trial here. He is charged with sexual assault of a child -- an underage girl he allegedly married first -- and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He is also charged with bigamy for allegedly marrying a second underage girl but will be tried on that charge separately.

In all, 12 men from the sect have been charged with crimes ranging from failure to report child abuse to bigamy and sexual assault at the ranch, where women and girls wear braids and pastel prairie dresses. The men have denied wrongdoing.

The cases began after a woman in Colorado allegedly called a Texas domestic abuse hot line in March 2008 and pretended to be a teenage girl with a much older husband who raped and beat her. State authorities swooped in, taking 439 children away from their sheltered lives and hundreds of boxes of documents and family photos to build their case.

Seating a 12-person jury and two alternates for Jessop's case may be difficult. Most residents of the tiny ranching community know one another, and national and international media coverage made the April 2008 raid impossible to ignore.

-- Associated Press