ElDorado, USA - Texas child welfare officials say they have ended their investigation into a polygamous sect after months of interviews and sifting documents identified 12 girls were "spiritually" married between the ages of 12 and 15.
What that means for a parallel criminal investigation, which has led to indictments of 12 men so far, is unclear.
The 21-page report prepared for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and released Tuesday provides new details about the investigation at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado. The ranch is home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which has historic roots in Utah, Arizona and Canada.
Texas authorities raided the ranch April 3, launching the largest child welfare action in U.S. history. To date, the state has spent nearly $12.5 million on the effort.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services defended its action, saying the case was about "sexual abuse of girls and children who were taught that underage marriages are a way of life. It is about parents who condoned illegal underage marriages and adults who failed to protect young girls -- it has never been about religion."
Willie Jessop, a spokesman for the sect, said the report was an attempt by Texas CPS to "save face" for its "barbaric action."
"A court of law has shown that Texas CPS failed to prove their allegations against the FLDS," Jessop said. "They acted on bad intelligence and they are trying to justify what they did."
Triggered by a call now believed to be a hoax, investigators removed 439 children from the ranch during the first week of April. They were placed in foster care in May by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther, who was later ordered to return them to their parents by two higher state courts.
The families were reunited in June. At that time, Jessop issued a statement from the FLDS church saying it would not sanction or participate in any future marriages involving girls who had not reached the legal age of consent.
But at the time of the raid, investigators said they found a "pervasive pattern" of abuse involving young girls being married to older men and boys being groomed as perpetrators.
The report says Child Protective Services encountered a "pattern of organized deception" that included refusal to answer questions about ages or family relationships and attempts to hide children that made its investigation difficult.
But between April and August, using interviews with parents and children and documents seized from the ranch, investigators determined 12 girls were between the ages of 12 and 15 when they were spiritually married. The report says two were 12 when they married; three were 13; two were 14 and five were 15.
Those girls are now ages 14 to 18; seven have one or more children. The report says the marriages took place between 2004 and July 2006.
"The 12 confirmed victims of sexual abuse were among 43 girls removed from the ranch from the ages of 12 to 17, which means that more than one out of every four pubescent girls on the ranch was in an underage marriage," the report states.
It was this information that led CPS to require parents of girls ages 10 to 17 to sign safety plans aimed at protecting their children from sexual abuse. The plans placed limits on who could visit their homes and barred contact with men -- including the girls' fathers -- who participated in or sanctioned underage marriage.
A Schleicher County grand jury has indicted 12 men so far on charges including sexual assault of a child, aggravated sexual assault, tampering with evidence, bigamy, conducting an illegal marriage and failure to report abuse.
While 96 percent of the child welfare cases have been dismissed, five mothers and their 15 children still have pending lawsuits, including a 14-year-old girl who was returned to state custody in August.
The girl was allegedly married to FLDS prophet Warren S. Jeffs in July 2006, when she was 12, though a sect spokesman has said the marriage was not consummated.
One child welfare critic who followed the YFZ Ranch case on Tuesday called the report "self-justifying claptrap."
"The report says that 12 children were abused by FLDS. In contrast, more than 400 children were abused by Texas CPS," said Richard Wexler, executive director of the Virginia-based National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. "The act of tearing these children from everyone they know and love was abusive in itself."
The report contradicts the state's claim during court proceedings in May that 31 of 53 girls ages 14 to 17 were pregnant or mothers -- a group later found to include 26 women who were adults.
The department also alleged some children experienced physical abuse or neglect. It later said X-rays showed 41 children had previously had broken bones. But the final report says there is no evidence of physical abuse in 388 cases; it was unable to complete or make a determination in another 11 cases.
The final report also says that DNA test results confirmed mother-child relationships with the exception of "several children who were believed to be the children of a deceased mother."