Acting on the report of accusation of sexual abuse of a 16-year-old girl, the Texas enforcement officers and child welfare investigators forayed into the West Texas Ranch founded by the convicted polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs and took 52 children under custody on Friday.

Darrell Azar, communications manager for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services reported that the children, who were believed to have been abused or at risk of abuse, included 18 girls aged between 6 months to 17 years. 18 girl children were placed in foster care by Child Protective Services, and the rest thirty-four were taken to a nearby civic center for questioning.
Texas Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said, “A total of 52 girls, ages 6 months to 17 years, were bused away on Friday to be interviewed, but only 18 were immediately taken into state custody.”

Mr. Azar said, “The raid, which began late Thursday, stemmed from a complaint to child and family services on Monday that a 16-year-old girl at the ranch had been sexually and physically abused. Child welfare investigators workers “legally removed” 18 girls and transported 34 for questioning to the civic center on Friday.”

”The girls were removed “because we had reason to believe they had been abused or were at immediate risk of future abuse,” said Mr. Azar. He said religion and lifestyle played no part in the action. “Our only interest,” he said, “is in protecting children from abuse and neglect.”

According to reports, there were no immediate arrests and no resistance, but state troopers, Texas Rangers and other investigators with search and arrest warrants late Friday were still inside the 1,700-acre compound, the Yearning for Zion Ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect. The compound is in Eldorado, roughly 160 miles northwest of San Antonio.

The ranch was built in 2003 by followers of Warren Jeffs, who gained international notoriety in May 2006 when he was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution on Utah state charges related to his alleged arrangement of extralegal "marriages" between his adult male followers and underage girls.

Jeffs was sentenced last November in Utah to 10 years to life in prison for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her 19-year-old cousin and to submit to sexual relations against her will. He is presently in jail in Arizona awaiting trial on separate rape charges involving the arranged marriages of two teenage girls to older relatives.