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SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- A hearing on whether documents, family photos and other evidence seized at a polygamist group's West Texas ranch should be excluded from the trials of sect men accused of bigamy and underage marriages concluded Saturday, but no decision was made.
Texas District Judge Barbara Walther took a fourth day of testimony and argument in San Angelo on Saturday but gave attorneys on both sides time to submit closing arguments in writing. A decision on the defense attorneys' motion to suppress the evidence is likely weeks away.
Willie Jessop, a spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, said the men were pleased to have finally had the opportunity to present evidence about the fake domestic abuse calls and the mindset of law enforcement before the raid.
"We have wanted to have our day in court to show that the search warrants and the probable cause (evidence) was very misleading and deceitful," Jessop said.
Attorneys for 10 men accused of crimes including bigamy and sexual assault of a child have asked Walther to suppress the 928 boxes worth of evidence seized at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado because the initial search warrant was based on abuse calls that turned out to be fake.
The defense attorneys accuse Texas Ranger Brooks Long and Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran of doing very little to check out the veracity of the calls and ignoring information that might have suggested early on that the abused girl didn't exist.
The defendants say Long and Doran gathered up resources and told others that girls would likely be removed from the ranch, even before Walther signed the initial search warrant for a single 16-year-old girl, her baby and her allegedly abusive husband on April 3.
Long and Doran denied that in testimony on Friday, and Assistant Attorney General Eric Nichols said in court that law enforcement believed the calls were legitimate at the time of the raid.
A domestic abuse hot line received six phone calls last spring from someone claiming to be a 16-year-old mother and wife -- the fourth of 12 -- who was being beaten by her middle-aged husband. But later, it turned out that "Sarah Barlow," as the caller was identified, didn't exist.
The name of the alleged husband was offered by a domestic abuse hot line worker who did an Internet search for "Barlow" and found stories about a previous case involving a sect member in Arizona who was listed as a registered sex offender.
Shortly after the raid, the Texas Rangers named a 34-year-old Colorado Springs, Colo., woman as a "person of interest" in the hot line calls. The woman, Rozita Swinton, has a history of multiple personality disorder and faked reports of abuse to law enforcement.
Swinton faces a misdemeanor charge of making a false report in a separate incident in Colorado but has not been charged in Texas.
The criminal cases, though initially prompted by a child welfare investigation, are separate from the giant Child Protective Services case that put 439 children in foster care at one time.
Twelve sect members, including jailed leader Warren Jeffs, have been charged in Texas. The motion to suppress the evidence from the raid covers all but Jeffs, who awaits trial in Arizona as an accomplice to rape, and a sect member who only faces misdemeanor charges. In Texas, Jeffs has been charged with bigamy and sexual assault of a child.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
