Apr 24, 2008 10:00 am US/Eastern
Hoaxer's Phone Linked To Sect Abuse Calls
Colorado Springs, Colo. (CBS) ―
An unsealed arrest warrant indicates that at least one of the phone calls which triggered a child abuse investigation against a fundamentalist Mormon sect may have been a hoax, from a woman claiming to have multiple personalities.
According to the affidavit made public Wednesday, a phone number used to report alleged abuse at the FLDS compound in Texas has been linked to a woman suspected of making false abuse claims in Colorado.
It's not yet clear whether authorities suspect Rozita Swinton, 33, of Colorado Springs, made the calls that triggered the April 3 raid on the compound. The arrest warrant affidavit released Wednesday says that several calls alleging abuse there were made using several phone numbers, including the number linked to Swinton.
The more than 400 children found at the retreat in Eldorado are now in state custody. Texas officials and lawyers have said that even if the call that prompted the raid turned out to be a hoax it would not affect their custody case because the state acted in good faith.
Swinton was arrested April 16 and later released on a misdemeanor charge of false reporting in a February case in Colorado Springs with no known ties to the raid in west Texas. She's accused of posing as a teenager named "Jennifer" and falsely claiming in a 911 call that her father had locked her in her basement for days, the arrest warrant affidavit released Wednesday said.
Swinton's whereabouts were unknown and she did not immediately return a phone message. It wasn't known whether she had an attorney.
CBS Station KEYE correspondent Keith Elkins reports that Swinton has a history of claiming to be a repeat victim of sexual abuse, of filing false reports, of using many names - and claiming to have "different personalities," according to Colorado Springs Police.
Swinton pleaded guilty to misdemeanor false reporting in a 2005 case out of Castle Rock, Colo.; a one-year sentence was deferred. She had claimed in phone calls to be a 16-year-old named Jessica who was suicidal after giving birth; there was no baby.
"The investigator ... was surprised at her age because she sounded like someone who was in her mid- to late teens even though she was 30," Castle Rock police Lt. Douglas Ernst said.
The warrant also links Swinton to calls made throughout October from a "Dana Anderson." The caller claimed to be a young woman being abused by her pastor at Colorado Springs' New Life Church, and later as a 13-year-old student at Liberty High School who said she was being drugged and sexually abused by her father.
Officers linked the calls to Swinton in March after a Colorado Springs counselor got someone named Dana Anderson to acknowledge that her first name was Rozita, the document said.
In mid-April, Texas Rangers called Colorado Springs police regarding their investigation into the Eldorado polygamist retreat, Yearning for Zion Ranch.
The calls that triggered the raid of the ranch were purportedly made by a 16-year-old girl who said her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her. Texas authorities have not found that girl but say they have found evidence other children were abused.
Texas Ranger Brooks Long asked Colorado Springs police about two telephone numbers (both with Colorado Springs area codes) that were used to make calls to a Texas crisis center. One of the phone numbers, the document says, "was possibly related to the reporting party for the YFZ Ranch incident," and was one of the numbers police had connected to Swinton.
The document says the calls were made sometime since October but was not more specific. The raid was triggered by three calls made March 29 and 30 to the Newbridge Family Shelter in Texas.
Texas authorities also are investigating a separate batch of calls made to a crisis center in Washington state.
Authorities have called Swinton a "person of interest" in the Texas case. Two Texas Rangers were with Colorado officials when they searched Swinton's home.
Texas authorities said the search turned up several items suggesting a connection between Swinton and calls regarding the Eldorado retreat and other Texas and Arizona compounds owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon sect. The items weren't identified.
Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange on Wednesday said only that the Texas Rangers' investigation is continuing.
The calls that triggered the raid were made by someone using the name named Sarah Barlow, according to Long.
Flora Jessop, executive director of the Child Protection Project, a Phoenix-based organization that helps girls and women leaving the polygamous culture, said she has recorded nearly 40 hours of conversations with someone who said her name was Laura. "She claimed to be the twin sister of Sarah, who made the initial call in Texas," said Jessop, a former member of the FLDS church.
The caller got most of the details of the sect right, from specifics of the religion and culture, to the of homes in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., where she said she was being held, Jessop said. She added, however, that other things she said made her suspicious, such as calling her parents "Mom" and "Dad" instead of "Mother" and "Father," as FLDS members do.
Texas' child welfare agency says its investigation into the ranch, including interviews with children, has found evidence of abuse. They allege that the sect encourages adolescent girls to marry older men and have children, and that boys are groomed to become future perpetrators. Sect members deny the allegations.
Documents related to Swinton's arrest had been sealed by a judge at the request of Texas authorities. The arrest warrant affidavit was released Wednesday after The Associated Press filed a motion to unseal the records Monday.
Timeline Of Events June 2005: Swinton is arrested in Castle Rock, Colo., after she contacts an adoption center and authorities, claiming to be a 16-year-old named Jessica who was suicidal after giving birth, Castle Rock police say. She later pleads guilty to false reporting and receives a deferred sentence.
September 2006: A counselor at Rampart High School in Colorado Springs tells police a student identified as "April" called her and claimed she was sexually abused by her father and uncle. Similar calls were made by an "April" to a safe house for domestic abuse survivors in Washington state. The calls were later connected to Swinton, according to the Colorado Springs police document released Wednesday.
Oct. 21, 2007: A "Dana Anderson" begins a series of calls to a Colorado Springs safe house. Anderson reports she is in her teens and, at various times, claims she is being abused by a pastor at a prominent church and by her father. A counselor at the safe house, Jennifer Pierce, continued communication with Anderson over several weeks, eventually helping police conclude that Anderson is Swinton, the affidavit says.
Oct. 23, 2007: Through Pierce, Colorado Springs police Detective. Terry Thrumston speaks to Anderson on a three-way call. Thrumston speaks to the woman several times over the next week. He connects phone numbers used by the woman to numbers used to file five reports of abuse in Longmont, Colo., and two reports in Pueblo, Colo. - all from earlier that year.
Feb. 26, 2008: Colorado Springs officers receive a call from a girl who claims to be 4 years old and is locked in her basement. Officers conduct a door-to-door search for the girl but do not find her. During the search, they are contacted by Pierce, who says she knows whom they are looking for.
March 4: Pierce meets with police and explains that "Dana Anderson" has continued to call her. Pierce tells police that Anderson said she had another personality named "Rozita." Anderson has also been calling from a new number that police match to the Feb. 26 call to 911 and to calls made to a crisis hot line in Texas.
March 29: A series of phone calls begins to the crisis hot line in Texas. A woman who identifies herself as 16-year-old Sarah Barlow says she is being physically and sexually abused at the Yearning for Zion Ranch.
April 3: Texas authorities raid the Yearning for Zion Ranch. They take more than 400 children into custody.
April 13-14: Texas Rangers call Colorado Springs police as part of their investigation. A ranger reports two numbers with Colorado Springs area codes. One of them - "possibly related to the reporting party" - matches the number used to call 911 on Feb. 26 and used to call Pierce.
April 16: Colorado Springs police arrest Swinton and search her residence in connection to the Feb. 26 call. Two Texas Rangers observe the arrest but return to Texas without making an arrest. Authorities in Texas later call Swinton a "person of interest."
April 23: An arrest warrant affidavit is released, stating that Swinton used a telephone number that was later used to report alleged abuse at the polygamist retreat. It isn't clear whether
authorities suspect Swinton made the calls that triggered the raid of the compound.
Meanwhile, the hundreds of children from the compound taken into state custody are on their way to group homes, shelters and residences, but experts and lawyers fear their transition may be much harder than it is for other foster children.
The 437 children taken from the compound in West Texas will be plunged into a culture radically different from the community where they and their families shunned the outside world as a hostile, contaminating influence on their godly way of life.
Many of the children have seen little or no television. They have been essentially home-schooled all their lives. Most were raised on garden-grown vegetables and twice-daily prayers with family. They frolic in long dresses and buttoned-up shirts from another century.
"There's going to be problems," said Susan Hays, who represents a toddler in the custody case. "They are a throwback to the 19th century in how they dress and how they behave."
Buses have already shipped 138 children to group homes or boys' and girls' ranches, but most of the remaining children will be separated from their mothers for the first time when they are sent out of San Angelo in the coming days.
The state Child Protective Services program said it chose foster homes where the youngsters can be kept apart from other children for now.
"We recognize it's critical that these children not be exposed to mainstream culture too quickly or other things that would hinder their success," agency spokeswoman Shari Pulliam said. "We just want to protect them from abuse and neglect. We're not trying to change them."
The children were swept up in a raid earlier this month on the Yearning for Zion Ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon splinter group. Authorities say it believes in marrying off underage girls to older men, and that there is evidence of physical and sexual abuse at the ranch.
The youngsters are being moved out of the crowded San Angelo Coliseum and will be placed in temporary facilities around Texas - some as far away as Houston, 500 miles off - until individual custody decisions can be made.
Those decisions could result in a number of possibilities: Some children could be placed in permanent foster care; some parents who have left the sect may win custody; some youngsters may be allowed to return to the ranch in Eldorado; and some may turn 18 before the case is complete and be allowed to choose their own fates.
Pulliam said the temporary foster care facilities have been briefed on the children's needs. "We're not going to have them in tank tops and shorts," she said.
Pulliam said the children will continue to be home-schooled by the temporary foster-care providers instead of being thrown into big public schools, where they could be bullied because of their differences.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
