Colorado woman passes on hearing in prank call case
By Russ Rizzo
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 04/28/2008 06:18:02 PM MDT
A Colorado woman being investigated for placing possible prank phone
calls that helped trigger a massive raid on an FLDS ranch in Texas
waived her right on Monday to a first appearance later this week in an
unrelated case.
Rozita Estraletta Swinton, through a defense attorney, waived her
right to a first appearance set for Thursday in another prank-calling
case in which she is accused of pretending to be a teenager held in a
basement. The 33-year-old Colorado Springs woman was arrested April 16
after Texas Rangers contacted Colorado Springs about possible prank
calls related to a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day
Saints sect in Eldorado, Texas. Swinton was charged with misdemeanor
filing a false police report in the February incident in Colorado
Springs.
Court records in the Colorado case linked a phone number previously
used by Swinton to phone calls to a Texas help line; a call to that
same help line triggered a raid at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in
Eldorado. Texas authorities took more than 400 children from the ranch
but have not found the 16-year-old pregnant girl who first called for
help.
Swinton is scheduled for a pre-trial conference in front of Fourth
Judicial Judge Daniel Wilson on June 6 in the Colorado case. She has
not been charged in connection to the Texas calls.