Texas Polygamist Sect Member Guilty of Sex Assault
Texas jury convicts 38-year-old polygamist sect member of sexual assault of a child
The first polygamist sect member to face criminal trial following last year's raid at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in West Texas was convicted Thursday of sexually assaulting an underage girl with whom he had a so-called "spiritual marriage."
Raymond Jessop, 38, didn't visibly react when the verdict was read after just more than two hours of jury deliberations. Free on bond during trial, he was immediately handcuffed and led to jail. Jurors were expected to return to court Monday to begin deciding his sentence on the child sexual assault conviction. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
Lawyers in the case declined to comment on the verdict Thursday.
Jessop allegedly has nine wives. He also faces a bigamy charge, but that case is to be tried later. The girl in the assault case, now 21, was previously in a spiritual marriage with Jessop's brother before being "reassigned" to Jessop when she was 15, according to documents seized at the ranch. She became pregnant at age 16.
During closing arguments, Assistant Attorney General Eric Nichols stood before photos of the young mother and toddler in prairie dresses.
"There is a sound foundation based not just in documents — based in DNA evidence for which the documents serve as corroboration ... that Raymond Merril Jessop behind those gates, behind that guard house, behind those walls, sexually assaulted" the then-teen, he said.
Forensic experts who testified during the trial, which began with the largest jury pool in the small county's history on Oct. 26, said there was a nearly 100 percent probability Jessop was the father of the woman's daughter, who is now 4.
Jessop's attorneys had argued that no witness placed Jessop in Schleicher County at the time of the alleged assault in November 2004. They said prosecutors instead relied on only small snippets of documents to place Jessop and the teen at the ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at the time. Many of the documents were seized from enormous cement vaults inside the temple and temple annex at the ranch.
Do you have more information about this topic? If so, please click here to contact the editors of ABC News.
