KFDA - NewsChannel 10 / Amarillo News, Weather, SportsWitness: FLDS men lead all aspects of sect life
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Associated Press - November 4, 2009 4:35 PM ET
ELDORADO, Texas (AP) - A former member of a polygamist sect says wWomen in the sect were taught that their fathers or husbands and the sect's prophet had the right to direct every aspect of their lives.
Rebecca Musser is a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She testified today in in the child sexual abuse trial of current sect member Raymond Jessop in the small west Texas town of Eldorado (ehl-duh-RAY'-doh).
Musser testified the FLDS taught that, "As a woman you have no direct connection to God." She told the Schleicher (SHLYE'-kur) County jury that "every area of our lives was directed by the church and their teachings."
Musser left the church in 2002 and never lived at the Yearning For Zion Ranch. That was the site of a state raid in April 2008 that led to the trial of the 38-year-old Jessop for allegedly marrying an underage girl.
Jessop is the first man from the sect to face trial since the raid. Records authorities seized in the raid show the girl he allegedly married when she was 15 had been "reassigned" to Jessop from his brother.
If convicted, Jessop faces 20 years in prison.
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