Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, speaks as Ruby Jessop, rear centre, her six children and sister Flora Jessop listen. Source: AP
AUTHORITIES in the US are investigating whether police in a town dominated by one of the nation's largest polygamous sects prevent women from leaving the church run by imprisoned leader Warren Jeffs.
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said the probe involves the town of Colorado City, the home base of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The criminal investigation mirrors the one that landed Jeffs in prison in one of the largest custody cases in US history.
Jeffs, who is said to still rule the sect, is imprisoned for life in Texas after convictions on child sex and bigamy charges.
Mr Horne declined to provide details of the criminal investigation of the FLDS and the Marshal's Office, which serves as a small police force in the twin polygamous towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City.
Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, who is said to still control his followers from prison, has been jailed for life in Texas on child sex and bigamy charges.
Attorneys for the Marshal's Office adamantly denied the charges, calling Mr Horne's words "inflammatory.''
"I can't speak for the FLDS, but the bottom line is the Marshal's Office absolutely does not hold people against their will,'' said lawyer Blake Hamilton.
"The Arizona attorney general, as the highest-ranking law enforcement official in Arizona, ought not be making those statements unless he has evidence of it.''
The church does not have a spokesman to speak on its behalf.
In the earlier case in Texas, authorities there received a complaint of child abuse and in 2008 raided the FLDS' Yearning for Zion Ranch.
The move led to a chaotic roundup of 400 children living at the secretive rural location.
All of the children were eventually returned. But 11 men, including Jeffs and other high-ranking FLDS lieutenants, were arrested on charges of sexual assault or bigamy and later convicted.
Mr Horne fought last year for a bill in the Arizona Legislature aimed at abolishing the Marshal's Office in Colorado City and replacing law enforcement there with deputies from the Mohave County Sheriff's Office.
It failed to pass, so he allocated funds to provide for limited patrols by deputies. He said that money will soon run out, and he is again asking the Legislature to take up the bill.
Mr Horne was joined at a news conference by Flora Jessop, a vocal critic of the FLDS who fled the church in 1986. She was flanked by her sister, Ruby Jessop, and Ruby's six young children.
Flora Jessop said her sister, who did not speak at the news conference, had been held captive by the FLDS for years, undergoing sexual and mental abuse at the hands of her husband while not being allowed to leave with her kids.
Ruby Jessop finally fled last year and recently won temporary custody of her children who were being held "hostage'' by the sect, Flora Jessop said.
"It's a good day for freedom,'' she said of the investigation.
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