COLORADO CITY, Arizona (CNN) — A 16-year-old girl in Arizona has alleged sexual abuse in a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints community, sources in Arizona told CNN Friday.
Authorities are investigating calls made by a teenage girl alleging abuse in her home by a male relative, according to the sources, who said the calls were similar to those made last week to Texas authorities from the polygamist sect’s ranch in Eldorado, Texas.
The Texas calls prompted a law enforcement raid in which more than 400 children were taken into state custody.
The sources told CNN the Arizona calls came from a teenager in an FLDS household.
Church members openly practice polygamy in Colorado City and in Hildale, Utah — two towns straddling the Arizona-Utah state line.
Warren Jeffs, the 52-year-old leader and “prophet” of the 10,000-member sect, was convicted in Utah last year on two counts of being an accomplice to rape, charges related to a marriage he performed in 2001. He faces trial in Arizona on eight charges of sexual conduct with a minor, incest and conspiracy.
Critics of the sect say it forces girls as young as 13 into arranged marriages.