ELDORADO (Texas) - AFTER days of meticulous plodding through photos and records seized from a polygamist sect's West Texas ranch, jurors could begin deliberating the sexual assault case against one of its members as early as Thursday.

Texas District Judge Barbara Walther told jurors in the trial of 38-year-old Raymond Jessop that attorneys hoped to offer closing arguments by midday Thursday.

Jessop, on trial for sexual assault of a child, is the first polygamist sect member to face criminal trial since authorities raided the Yearning For Zion Ranch last year. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

Assistant Attorney General Eric Nichols used the testimony of Texas Rangers and a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to introduce church marriage records, family photos and dictation by jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs as evidence in Jessop's trial.

One dictation by Jeffs indicated that he advised Jessop and others in August 2005 not to take the girl to the hospital even though she had been struggling in child labor for days.

'I knew that the girl being 16 years old, if she went to the hospital, they could put Raymond Jessop in jeopardy of prosecution as the government is looking for any reason to come against us there,' Jeffs said, according to seized church records. -- AP