Texas officials say some boys in sect may have been abused

AUSTIN, Texas - Texas officials told legislators yesterday that they are investigating the possible sexual abuse of some young boys taken from a polygamist sect's ranch, as well as broken bones among other children.

The disclosures are the first suggestions that anyone other than teenage girls may have been sexually or physically abused at the ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a renegade Mormon sect.

In written and oral testimony provided to lawmakers yesterday, officials with the state Department of Family and Protective Services said interviews and journal entries suggested that boys may have been sexually abused.

Earlier, the department's commissioner, Carey Cockerell, told lawmakers that at least 41 children, some of them "very young," have evidence of broken bones.

The state has custody of 464 children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in the west Texas prairie town of Eldorado, including a baby born to a teen mother Tuesday.

Although Cockerell didn't elaborate on the broken bones, a report by his department's Child Protective Services division said medical exams and interviews indicated "that at least 41 children have had broken bones in the past."

"We do not have X-rays or complete medical information on many children, so it is too early to draw any conclusions based on this information, but it is cause for concern and something we'll continue to examine," the Child Protective Services report said.

The state Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing on Texas's foster care system had been planned for yesterday even before the April 3 raid on the ranch. But for the morning part of the hearing, the polygamous sect took center stage.

The state has been criticized for taking all the children from the ranch, including infants and boys, even though officials suspected it was only teenage girls who were being abused.

State authorities raided the ranch in search of evidence of underage girls being forced into polygamous marriages. Since then, the state won temporary custody of the children, now scattered around the state in group foster care facilities.

Rod Parker, a spokesman for the sect, called Cockerell's testimony "a deliberate effort to mislead the public."

Although the ranch has a small medical facility, Parker said that any broken bones would have been treated away from the ranch and that doctors are required to report suspected abuse.

Parker said state officials were "trying to politically inoculate themselves from the consequences of this horrible tragedy."

Cockerell told a legislative committee that the investigation has been difficult because members of the church are not cooperating.

He said mothers who stayed with their children for two weeks after the raid launched a coordinated effort to stymie investigators, coaching their children not to answer questions.

On Monday, state officials announced that almost 60 percent of the underage girls living on the Eldorado ranch are pregnant or already have children.