Bigamy charges against West Texas sect leader Yisrayl Hawkins were dismissed Thursday after the head of the House of Yahweh pleaded no contest to four cases involving child-labor violations, the Callahan County attorney announced.

The dismissal of the charges shocked Margo Hawkins, Yisrayl Hawkins’ 36-year-old daughter, who left the House of Yahweh when she was 22. “It’s a cult. They brainwash people,” she said.

The bigamy trial of House of Yahweh leader Yisrayl Hawkins has been moved to Parker County, after 42nd District Judge John Weeks approved a change of venue today.

The cult recently mailed out a 33-page publication depicting Jesus and some of the apostles in the same orange jumpsuits worn by its leader.

House of Yahweh leader Yisrayl Hawkins has penned a four-page newsletter sent to thousands of residents in Taylor, Callahan and Jones counties, claiming the news media has wrongly portrayed the group.

House of Yahweh adviser John Young said the newsletter isn’t an effort to influence potential jurors when Hawkins goes to court — probably later this year — to face bigamy and other charges.

A fire this afternoon burned four structures at the House of Yahweh compound.

The sect’s leader, self-proclaimed prophet Yisrayl Hawkins — whose doomsday predictions have come and gone — is scheduled to go on trial next year.

Hawkins is accused of having more than 20 wives and performing polygamous weddings.

A judge sentenced a religious sect’s elder to 30 years in prison for molesting an 11-year-old girl during a phony cervical cancer exam.

Hawkins has no medical training but used a gynecological medical instrument to examine the girl at a home in 2005, according to trial testimony. A former House of Yahweh member testified that Hawkins actually was worried the girl was not a virgin.

Yedidiyah Hawkins, 40, a House of Yahweh elder, was convicted Monday of aggravated sexual assault of a child. A judge will set the sentence, expected within 45 days. Hawkins earlier decided that he wanted a judge to assess the punishment if jurors found him guilty.

The sect’s leader, self-proclaimed prophet Yisrayl Hawkins, faces trial later this year on bigamy and child labor charges. He is accused of having more than 20 wives, performing polygamous weddings and forcing about 40 children to work jobs at his 44-acre compound in rural Clyde near Abilene.

Testimony from a 15-year-old girl revealed new details Friday about the allegations of sexual assault of a child by a House of Yahweh elder.

The girl, 11 at the time of the alleged assault, testified that her stepfather Yedidiyah Hawkins, 40, used a vaginal speculum — a medical instrument used by gynecologists — to perform an examination on her.

For at least the third time in seven years, a self-proclaimed Texas prophet’s prediction of doomsday failed to come true.

Yisrayl “Buffalo Bill” Hawkins’ popularity was not limited to Texas, or even the United States. For years his House of Yahweh sect was booming in the nation of Kenya, at least until his last doomsday prediction in September 2006, which ended up dooming the group’s success in the East African country.

If nuclear war doesn’t begin next Thursday, June 12, as he has predicted, self-proclaimed Texas prophet Yisrayl “Buffalo Bill” Hawkins will be left to face a widening investigation of his activities, including several felony counts of bigamy.

Unfortunately for Hawkins, it is not the first time he predicted the outbreak of nuclear war. Most recently, Hawkins set Sept. 12, 2006 as the beginning of the end.

Grace seemed fixated on the birth of the nuclear baby Hawkins originally prophesied in 2000 and later said would be “born” Sept. 2007, and, at one point, asked him how long the gestation period is for the nuclear baby. Hawkins’ response: Yahweh held back on nuclear war but it will eventually happen.

In an interview for “20/20,” Hawkins’ former wife Kay says he began to preach polygamy after he was caught having an affair with a church secretary. “He began to rewrite the Scriptures,” she said. “Any Scripture that did not go along with more than one wife was rewritten to imply that it was all right to have more than one wife.”

Authorities in February charged the group’s 73-year-old leader with performing polygamous weddings and forcing about 40 children – some as young as 11 – to work jobs at his 44-acre compound.

The 73-year-old was arrested and indicted in February – less than two months before raids on the Eldorado compound – charged with four counts of promoting bigamy, made a felony in 2005 after the unrelated FLDS group arrived from Utah.