Texas grand jury indicts polygamist sect members

"We're actually quite shocked. As soon as we know who they're looking for, we'll try to face it," Jessop told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday. "We believe in our innocence."

He said that he didn't know who was indicted and that no one from law enforcement had tried to enter the ranch Tuesday evening.

The criminal indictments were issued after a separate child custody case in which more than 400 children were placed in foster care. The Texas Supreme Court ruled child welfare authorities overstepped in taking all the children from their parents even though many were infants and toddlers and the state failed to show any more than handful of teenage girls were abused or at risk.

The criminal charges came during the panel's second meeting on the case; it met in June without taking any action.

Abbott spent Tuesday in the small community building where the grand jury was meeting near the courthouse. Women and girls in prairie dresses, including a 16-year-old daughter of Jeffs, were escorted in and out, while lawyers and FLDS members crowded a bench in front of the courthouse.

Grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret, but documents released as part of the separate child custody case involving the FLDS children have revealed some of the evidence collected by law enforcement during the weeklong raid that began April 3.

Among the hundreds of boxes of photos, papers and family Bibles, investigators found photos of Jeffs in intimate embraces and kissing several apparently underage girls, the documents say.

A journal entry purportedly from Jeffs attached to a report by a child advocate indicates he married his daughter to a 34-year-old man the day after she turned 15. The girl turns 17 on Saturday and has denied being married, though the child advocate report indicates intimate notes between the girl and man were also found in the raid.

In addition to discussions of the girl's marriage, the Jeffs journal entry also indicates he blessed marriages of two other underage sect members to himself and another member.

FLDS leaders have consistently denied there was any abuse at the ranch and vowed not to sanction underage marriages.