Around the World: United States

Polygamist's trial begins

The first of a dozen polygamist sect members charged with abuse of women was standing trial yesterday, 18 months after agents raided the group's remote ranch and carted off more than 400 children in the largest child-custody case in US history.

Raymond Jessop, 38, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of sexual assault of a child, a charge stemming from his alleged marriage to an underage girl in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The sect is a breakaway of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago. Jessop will be tried later on a separate count of bigamy related to a second alleged underage bride.