Judge drops case of FLDS leader's daughter
 
By Paul A. Anthony
San Angelo Standard-Times
Deseret News
 
SAN ANGELO, Texas — Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs' daughter is done. So is Natalie Malonis.

Texas Judge Barbara Walther dismissed all petitions and attorneys involved with the case of the now-17-year-old girl alleged to have been married to a 34-year-old man just after her 15th birthday — closing for good one of the highest profile and most contentious aspects of the long-running litigation surrounding the FLDS Church.

"I just couldn't believe what she was saying," said Teresa Jeffs' beaming mother, Annette Jeffs, after the hearing. "It's too good to be true."

Walther rejected Teresa Jeffs' court-appointed attorney Natalie Malonis' contention that she should remain on the case to ensure Annette Jeffs was given full custody of the girl, instead citing a decision by the state's Child Protective Services agency last week to dismiss the teen from the case as the overriding factor in whether any further proceedings should take place.

"Being perfectly frank and perfectly honest, it was the correct ruling," Malonis told the Deseret News afterward. "As soon as the department nonsuited, I thought my authority was in question."

Malonis had argued that a series of prospective witness statements from CPS in December stating that the girl had been in a "harmful, abusive environment" should be considered before Walther dismissed the case.

"The court can take notice of many things," Walther replied, "but the court must follow the law. The court cannot make the law. ... This is an unusual case, but I don't see any authority for you to continue."

With that, Walther dismissed a raft of motions filed in the moments leading up to the hearing — including a motion filed by the San Angelo Standard-Times to quash a subpoena filed against one of its reporters, as well as an ongoing fight over whether to seal the deposition transcript from YFZ Ranch leader Frederick Merril Jessop.

"I was prepared to continue doing what I thought I needed to do," Malonis said, "but I'm relieved to have relief."

Walther also accepted the withdrawal of Carmen Symes Dusek as the attorney for a 14-year-old girl alleged to have been married to Warren Jeffs, the sect's leader, and signed an agreed order to seal a guardian's report filed in the case. She later appointed San Angelo attorney Leslie Crane to represent her, court clerks said. Crane declined to comment on the case when contacted by the Deseret News on Friday.

The quick resolution — Walther left the bench about 30 minutes after taking it — was a surprise to many in the courtroom, which housed 15 attorneys and another dozen or so potential witnesses and onlookers at the hearing's start.

"We didn't expect that to happen today," said Mindy Montford, Annette Jeffs' attorney. "This case has been dismissed. (The girl) is free to go about her life."

Malonis is still seeking attorney's fees for her time as Jeffs' court-appointed attorney and filed a letter with the judge Friday afternoon seeking to renew her motion to compel deposition testimony from Frederick Merril Jessop and FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop.

The child custody case has withered to just three children still under court oversight. In April 2008, 439 children were taken into state custody when authorities went to the YFZ Ranch to investigate a report of an abused teen. Courts ordered the children to be returned two months later.

Contributing: Ben Winslow
 
DeseretNews.com
Originally published Friday, Feb. 6, 2009
 
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