Three polygamist sect members indicted

ELDORADO, Texas, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- A Texas grand jury indicted three more people belonging to a polygamist sect's ranch that authorities raided in April, sheriff's deputies said.

The indictments were handed down Thursday after the panel sitting in Eldorado, Texas, heard testimony from several female members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, The Deseret Morning News of Salt Lake City reported Friday.

"There's three different indictments, three different names," Schleicher County court clerk Peggy Williams told the Salt Lake City newspaper. FLDS also has compounds in Utah and Arizona.

"This has been a very painful process for the people," FLDS member and spokesman Willie Jessop told the Morning News.

Sect leader Warren Jeffs and five Texas members were indicted in July on child sex abuse charges. Jeffs also is awaiting trial in Arizona on sexual misconduct charges. He was convicted in Utah and sentenced to two five-years-to-life prison terms for rape as an accomplice for officiating at a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.

The criminal probe into the FLDS Church stems from the April raid on the group's Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado, Texas. Child welfare authorities placed 440 children in state protective custody during their investigation. A court later ruled the state operated improperly and ordered the return of the children to their parents.