By MICHELLE ROBERTS Associated Press Writer © 2008 The Associated Press
Dec. 8, 2008, 8:34PM

SAN ANTONIO — Investigators from the Texas Attorney General's Office on Monday took DNA samples from a baby born to a member of a polygamist sect months after a high-profile raid, thwarting efforts by the baby's mother to prevent the sample from being collected.

Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the AG's office, confirmed late Monday that investigators executed a search warrant and gathered a DNA swab. The Attorney General's Office is handling the prosecution of some members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints accused of charges including bigamy and sexual assault of a child.

Child welfare authorities previously tried to examine and collect a sample from the baby born June 14, saying they wanted to establish paternity, but the baby's 17-year-old mother refused to disclose the child's whereabouts. A stand-off in court in San Angelo on Nov. 25 led to an undisclosed agreement between the two sides.

But the search warrant, obtained in criminal court, forced the issue.

FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop said authorities went to an FLDS home in the San Antonio area, where some of the families have moved since the April raid on their West Texas ranch, and collected DNA from the baby girl.

He had said previously the teen mother, who was in foster care late in her pregnancy, was afraid authorities would take the newborn if she allowed them to examine the baby.

Child Protective Services said in court filings investigators believe the girl was married to a man in FLDS when she was 14. In Texas, someone younger than 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult, and The Associated Press does not name possible victims of a sex crime.

The teen mother was among 438 children taken from the Yearning For Zion Ranch and placed in foster care in April. The Texas Supreme Court ruled less than two months later that the state had overreached in the foster care placement, and the children were all returned to their parents. One girl was later returned to foster care.

All but a few dozen of the children's cases have been dropped from court oversight altogether.

Twelve FLDS men, including the sect's jailed prophet Warren Jeffs, have been indicted on charges related to underage marriages and bigamy. Jeffs, convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape, awaits trial in Arizona on other charges related to the marriages of the sect girls there.

The FLDS is a breakaway sect of the Mormon church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6154225.html

Emphasis added by H4K Editor