Polygamist kids reunited with family

SAN ANTONIO, May 24 (UPI) -- A dozen children taken in a raid at a Texas polygamist sect's compound were reuniting with their parents Saturday after a court ruled in the parents' favor.

But the same state judge also ruled that hundreds more children seized during last month's raid on the Yearning for Zion ranch near Eldorado, Texas, must remain in custody until the Texas Supreme Court has a chance to rule on the matter, the San Antonio Express-News reported Saturday.

The state Department of Family and Protective Services had appealed to Texas' highest civil court the lower court's finding that its mass seizure of 463 children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was illegal.

Authorities allege multiple incidents of sexual abuse and arranged marriages of young girls to older men occurred at the ranch.

The 12 children, all from one family, were reunited Friday after an intense courthouse scene in which lawyers quickly came and went from the judge's chambers, and Texas officials claimed at one point not to know the whereabouts of two of the children, the newspaper reported.