FLDS leader Jessop to pay $148K in back child support

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Lubbock, Texas » A polygamist leader in West Texas has agreed to pay child support dating to 2003, when his then-wife left the sect with their eight children.

Frederick Merril Jessop, the bishop of the Yearning for Zion Ranch, signed the order in court Thursday. He will pay his former wife $148,000 for seven years of back child support.

Natalie Malonis, Carolyn Jessop's attorney, said Friday that the bishop will pay $2,000 a month for the first six months and then $100 a month after that to cover the delinquent child support. Frederick Merril Jessop also will pay $2,450 a month to stay current.

Malonis said he only will pay about $90,000 because Carolyn Jessop received some of his Social Security after leaving the sect.

Carolyn Jessop did not immediately return a phone call to The Associated Press for comment Friday.

Willie Jessop, a sect elder, said Friday that he was grateful for closure in the case but took issue with the venue.

"The judge took jurisdiction over a case that was ongoing in Utah, and we object to that," he said.

In September, State District Judge Barbara Walther ordered Frederick Merril Jessop to pay his former wife but he refused to sign the order and did not pay. Then in February, Walther signed the order to compel him to pay the child support from September, Malonis said.

A couple of months after that, when money still had not been paid to Carolyn Jessop, Malonis filed a motion to have Frederick Merril Jessop jailed for contempt because of nonpayment.

Before the hearing on Malonis' motion, Frederick Merril Jessop paid what he owed from September to May, but none of the amount owed before September, Malonis said.

Six men from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have faced criminal charges since the April 2008 raid on the ranch about 45 miles south of San Angelo. All have been convicted or pleaded guilty and have been sentenced to prison.

The FLDS broke away from the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.