Case for suspected FLDS 'Sarah' delayed

CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — A probation violation hearing for a woman suspected of making the hoax call that sparked the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch in Texas has been continued.

Court minutes indicate the hearing for Rozita Swinton, 33, was continued until Jan. 12, 2009 — a week after a trial is scheduled in Colorado Springs on a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report.

Swinton is accused of making a hoax call in Colorado Springs in February, claiming to be a drugged and sexually abused 13-year-old girl chained in a basement. She recently pleaded not guilty and her attorney told the court she was seeking a mental evaluation.

Swinton was on probation in Douglas County, Colo., for a 2007 hoax call where she pretended to be a pregnant teen who was going to abandon her baby and kill herself. She pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor false reporting charge and received a deferred sentence.

Swinton is also a "person of interest" in the call that sparked the raid on the YFZ Ranch in April. A phone number linked to her was used to call family crisis centers. In those calls, a 16-year-old girl named "Sarah" claimed to be pregnant and in an abusive relationship to a man named Dale Barlow.

Sarah has never been found. Barlow was never arrested. The Texas Attorney General's Office told the Deseret News the case remains under investigation.

— Ben Winslow

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