Young teenage girls at a polygamist compound in west Texas were required to have sex in a soaring temple after they were married in sect-recognized unions, newly unsealed court documents showed.
The temple “contains an area where there is a bed where males over the age of 17 engage in sexual activity with female children under the age of 17,” an affidavit released on Wednesday said, quoting a confidential informant who left the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Agents found a bed in the temple with disturbed linens and what appeared to be a female hair, the affidavit signed by Texas Ranger Leslie Brooks Long said. The Rangers are the state’s investigative law enforcement arm.
The temple also contained multiple locked safes, vaults and desk drawers that authorities sought access to as they searched for records showing alleged marriages of underage girls as young as 12 or 13 to older men and births among the teens. The affidavit unsealed on Wednesday mentions a 16-year-old girl who has four children.
Texas law prohibits polygamy and the marriage of girls under 16.
Also on Wednesday, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers completed a weeklong search of the 700-hectare grounds, spokeswoman Tela Mange said.
Lawyers for the sect had wanted to cut off the wide-ranging search as it dragged on but agreed in court on Wednesday to the appointment of a special master who will vet what is expected to be hundreds of boxes of records, computers and even family Bibles for records that should not become evidence for legal or religious reasons.
Gerry Goldstein, a San Antonio lawyer flanked by nine other attorneys the church hired, said the search of the temple was analogous to a law enforcement search of the Vatican or other holy places.
The church lawyers described in documents three men being dragged from the temple as law enforcement officials sought entry for the search.
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