1 arrested in polygamist raid

Texas authorities made one arrest yesterday during their search of a polygamist compound as the number of children taken into temporary custody swelled to 401.

So far, however, the massive raid has failed to locate the teenage girl who called last week to report an apparently illegal marriage, or the older man who was supposedly her husband.

Lisa Block, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Safety, said one person was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of interference with the duties of a public servant.

She did not release the name of the person detained, but said it was not Dale Barlow, the 50-year-old man listed in warrants in connection to the marriage of an underage girl.

The person arrested “wasn’t doing what [authorities] wanted them to do,” said Miss Block.

Child welfare and law-enforcement officials began wrapping up their dayslong search of the 1,700-acre compound known as Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas. The compound was founded by Warren Jeffs, the leader of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The raid, which authorities described yesterday as the largest child-welfare operation in Texas history, was prompted by a phone call last week from a 16-year-old girl who reported that she was married at 15 to an older man and had an 8-month-old baby.

The Texas Legislature raised the legal marriage age for a girl from 14 to 16 in 2005, a year after members of the polygamist sect began arriving in Eldorado from their longtime community on the Arizona-Utah border.

The group has been long suspected of marrying underage girls to older men. Those suspicions were confirmed in September when Jeffs was convicted in Utah of being an accomplice to rape after arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl.

In Arizona, Jeffs faces additional charges of sexual conduct with a minor and incest stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives.

Texas authorities have taken legal temporary custody of the 401 children from the compound since the raid began Thursday and said 133 women have joined the children at Fort Concho National Historic Landmark, which includes lodging.

The men at the compound are not permitted to leave, said Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for Texas Child Protective Services.

“In my opinion, this is the largest endeavor we’ve ever been involved with in the state of Texas,” said Miss Meisner.

Authorities are searching for places to house the hundreds of children while they await hearings on their status.

At the hearings, the state’s Child Protective Services must show that the children are at risk of abuse if they return to the compound.

Miss Meisner said a hearing on the children’s status has been set for April 17, and that each child will be assigned an attorney, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. About 200 social workers across the state are working on the case.

Asked whether the state would take the children from their parents, she told the Salt Lake Tribune, “It’s absolutely too soon to make that decision.”

Investigators are seeking Barlow, who was sentenced to jail last year after he pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor. He also was ordered to register as a sex offender for three years while on probation.

His probation officer told the Salt Lake Tribune that he now lives in Arizona.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.