ELDORADO (Texas) - THE first of a dozen polygamist sect members charged with abuse of women is set to stand trial Monday, 18 months after agents raided the group's remote ranch and carted off more than 400 children in the largest child-custody case in American 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. In all, 12 sect members have been charged with crimes ranging from failure to report child abuse to sexual assault and bigamy.

Attorneys must cull from a pool of 300 people to try to seat 12 jurors and two alternates. Seating an impartial jury in this community of fewer than 1,900 voters may prove difficult. Images of sect girls in pigtails and women in prairie-style dresses dominated the cable news networks for weeks after the raid.

If lawyers can't come up with a jury from the initial pool, the trial could be moved to an adjoining county.

Authorities have said little about the allegations against Jessop, but documents seized from the ranch indicate the assault charge stems from his alleged marriage to an underage girl. The girl later became pregnant and was in labor for several days in August 2005. But the girl wasn't taken to the hospital, allegedly out of fear that hospital authorities would discover her age and turn in Jessop. -- AP