DECEMBER 10, 2024:
PHOENIX (AP) — A polygamist leader in Arizona has been sentenced (Dec. 9, 2024) to 50 years in prison. Samuel Bateman had pleaded guilty to claiming more than 20 spiritual “wives,” including 10 underage girls. He acknowledged coercing girls as young as 9 years old to submit to criminal sex acts with him and other adults. Bateman declared himself a prophet of a small offshoot of a sect once led by Warren Jeffs, who led the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Bateman admitted he schemed for years to transport girls across state lines for his sex crimes, and later to kidnap some of them from protective custody.
Extended version:
PHOENIX (AP) — A polygamist religious leader who claimed more than 20 spiritual “wives” including 10 underage girls was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Monday (Dec. 9, 2024) for coercing girls as young as 9 years old to submit to criminal sex acts with him and other adults, and for scheming to kidnap them from protective custody.
Samuel Bateman, whose small group was an offshoot of the sect once led by Warren Jeffs, had pleaded guilty to a yearslong scheme to transport girls across state lines for his sex crimes, and later to kidnap some of them from protective custody.
Under the agreement, Bateman pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for sexual activity, which carries a sentence of 10 years to life imprisonment, and one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which is punishable by up to life imprisonment. He was sentenced to 50 years on each count, to be served concurrently.
The rest of the charges were dismissed as part of the agreement.
Authorities say that Bateman, 48, tried to start an offshoot of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints based in the neighboring communities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. The fundamentalist group, also known as FLDS, split from the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after Mormons officially abandoned polygamy in 1890.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Brnovich sentenced Bateman after hearing statements in court by three teenage girls about the trauma they still struggle to overcome. Although they gave their names in court, The Associated Press does not name victims of sexual crime, and some appeared to still be minors.
“You should not have the opportunity to be free and never have the opportunity to be around young women, “ Brnovich told Bateman, noting that for a man of his age the 50-year sentence was effectively a life sentence.
“You took them from their homes, from their families and made them into sex slaves,” the judge said. “You stripped them of their innocence and childhood.”
A short competency hearing that was closed to the public was held just before sentencing to discuss a doctor’s assessment of Bateman’s mental health. The defense had argued that Bateman could have benefited from a maximum of 20 years of psychiatric treatment behind bars before being released.
The girls told the court, sometimes addressing Bateman himself, how they grappled to develop relationships in high school, among other struggles. Now living with foster families, they said they had received much support from trusted adults outside their community.
After the sentencing, the teens hugged and wept quietly. They were escorted out of court by a half dozen men and women in jackets with the slogan “Bikers Against Child Abuse,” a group dedicated to protecting children from what it calls dangerous people and situations. A woman who sat with the teens said no one in the group would have a comment.
There was no one in the courtroom who appeared to be a supporter of Bateman.
The alleged practice of sect members sexually abusing girls whom they claim as spiritual “wives” has long plagued the FLDS. Jeffs was convicted of state charges in Texas in 2011 involving sexual assaults of his underage followers. Bateman was one of Jeffs’ trusted followers and declared himself, like Jeffs, to be a “prophet” of the FLDS. Jeffs denounced Bateman in a written “revelation” sent to his followers from prison, and then tried to start his own group.
In 2019 and 2020, insisting that polygamy brings exaltation in heaven and that he was acting on orders from the “Heavenly Father,” Bateman began taking female adults and children from his male followers and proclaiming them to be his “wives,” the plea agreement said. While none of these “marriages” were legally or ceremonially recognized, Bateman acknowledged that each time he claimed another “wife,” it marked the beginning of his illicit sexual contact with the woman or girl.
Federal agents said Bateman demanded that his followers confess publicly for any indiscretions and he imposed punishments that ranged from public shaming to sexual activity, including requiring that some male followers atone for their “sins” by surrendering their own wives and daughters to him.
Bateman traveled extensively between Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Nebraska and regularly coerced underage girls into his criminal sexual activity, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona said. Recordings of some of his sex crimes were transmitted across state lines via electronic devices.
Bateman was arrested in August 2022 by state police as he drove through Flagstaff, Arizona, pulling a trailer. Someone had alerted authorities after spotting small fingers reaching through the slats of the door. Inside the trailer, which had no ventilation, they found a makeshift toilet, a sofa, camping chairs and three girls, 11 to 14 years old.
Bateman posted bond but was soon arrested again, accused of obstructing justice in a federal investigation into whether children were being transported across state lines for his sex crimes. Authorities also took nine children from Bateman’s home in Colorado City into protective custody.
Eight of the children later escaped from foster care in Arizona, and were found hundreds of miles away in Washington state, in a vehicle driven by one of the adult “wives.” Bateman also admitted his involvement in the kidnapping plot.
Federal prosecutors noted that Bateman’s plea agreement was contingent on all of his co-defendants also pleading guilty. It also called for restitution of as much as $1 million per victim, and for all assets to be immediately forfeited.
Seven of Bateman’s adult “wives” have been convicted of crimes related to coercing children into sexual activity or impeding the investigation into Bateman. Some acknowledged they also coerced girls to become Bateman’s spiritual “wives,” witnessed Bateman having criminal sexual activity with girls, participated in illicit group sex involving children, or joined in kidnapping them from foster care. Another woman is scheduled to be tried Jan. 14 on charges related to the kidnappings.
Two Colorado City brothers also face 10 years to life at their sentencings, on Dec. 16 and Dec. 20, after being convicted in October of charges including interstate travel to persuade or coerce a child to engage in sexual activity. Authorities say one bought Bateman two Bentley automobiles, while the other bought him a Range Rover.
In court records, lawyers for some of Bateman’s “wives” painted a bleak picture of their clients’ religious upbringings.
One said his client was raised in a religious cult that taught sexual activity with children was acceptable and that she was duped into “marrying” Bateman. Another said her client was given to Bateman by another man as if she were a piece of property, feeling she had no choice.
DECEMBER 7, 2022:
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Authorities say the leader of a small polygamous group near the Arizona-Utah border had taken at least 20 wives and punished followers who didn’t treat him as a prophet. The details of Samuel Bateman’s life were alleged in an FBI affidavit released last Friday. It was filed in a case that charges three of his female followers with kidnapping children from state custody in Arizona and impeding a foreseeable prosecution. Two of the women are scheduled to appear in federal court in Flagstaff on Wednesday (Dec. 7, 2022). Bateman is facing state and federal charges of child abuse and tampering with evidence.
Extended version:
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — The leader of a small polygamous group near the Arizona-Utah border had taken at least 20 wives, most of them minors, and punished followers who did not treat him as a prophet, newly filed federal court documents allege.
Samuel Bateman was a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS, until he left to start his own small offshoot group. The FLDS is itself a breakaway sect of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, widely known as the Mormon Church. Polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of the mainstream church, but it abandoned the practice in 1890 and now strictly prohibits it.
Bateman started his own small group in recent years, in in which he was supported financially by male followers who also gave up their own wives and children to be Bateman’s wives, according to an FBI affidavit.
The document filed Friday provides new insight into what investigators have found in a case that first became public in August, when authorities said they pulled over Bateman on a highway and discovered he was driving three young girls in an enclosed trailer.
The latest filing accompanied charges of kidnapping and impeding a foreseeable prosecution against three of Bateman’s wives — Naomi Bistline, Donnae Barlow and Moretta Rose Johnson. Bateman is already facing state and federal charges of child abuse and tampering with evidence. He pleaded not guilty in September.
Bistline and Barlow appeared in federal magistrate court in Flagstaff on Wednesday. Both women were ordered held and they have court hearings scheduled again next week. Johnson is awaiting extradition from Washington state.
The women are accused of seizing eight girls who Bateman considered his wives from Arizona state custody and fleeing with them. The children were found last week hundreds of miles away in Spokane, Washington.
Bateman once tried to take his only daughter as a wife, according to court filings, but she told her mother about her father’s plan and the mother and daughter moved out and got a restraining order against Bateman. The mother was Bateman’s only wife in 2019, before Bateman started taking more wives.
Bateman was arrested in August when someone spotted small fingers in the gap of a trailer he was hauling through Flagstaff. He posted bond but was arrested again and charged with obstructing justice in a federal investigation into whether children were being transported across state lines for sexual activity.
Court records allege that Bateman, 46, engaged in child sex trafficking and polygamy, but none of his current charges relate to those allegations. Polygamy is illegal in Arizona but was decriminalized in Utah in 2020.
Arizona Department of Child Services spokesperson Darren DaRonco and FBI spokesperson Kevin Smith declined to comment on the case Tuesday. Bistline’s attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment, and Barlow’s attorney declined to comment. Johnson didn’t have a publicly listed attorney.
The FBI affidavit filed in the women’s case largely centers on Bateman, who proclaimed himself a prophet in 2019. Bateman says he was told by former FLDS leader Warren Jeffs to invoke the “Spirit of God on these people.” The affidavit details explicit sexual acts that Bateman and his followers engaged in to fulfill “Godly duties.”
Jeffs is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for child sex abuse related to underage marriages.
Criminal defense attorney Michael Piccarreta, who represented Jeffs on Arizona charges that were dismissed, said the state has a history of trying to take a stand against polygamy by charging relatively minor offenses to build bigger cases.
“Whether this is the same tactic that has been used in the past or whether there’s more to the story, only time will tell,” he said.
The office of Bateman’s attorney in the federal case, Adam Zickerman, declined to comment Tuesday.
Bateman lived in Colorado City among a patchwork of devout members of the polygamous FLDS, ex-church members and those who don’t practice the beliefs.
Bateman often traveled to Nebraska where some of his other followers lived and internationally to Canada and Mexico for conferences.
When Bateman was arrested earlier this year, he instructed his followers to obtain passports and to delete messages sent through an encrypted system, authorities said.
He demanded that his followers confess publicly for any indiscretions, and shared those confessions widely, according to the FBI affidavit. He claimed the punishments, which ranged from a time out to public shaming and sexual activity, came from the Lord, the affidavit states.
The children identified by their initials in court documents have said little to authorities. The three girls found in the trailer Bateman was hauling through Flagstaff — which had a makeshift toilet, a couch, camping chairs and no ventilation — told authorities they didn’t have any health or medical needs, a police report stated. All three were between the ages of 11 and 14.
None of the girls placed in state custody in Arizona disclosed sexual abuse by Bateman during forensic interviews, though one said she was present during sexual activity, according to the FBI affidavit. But the girls often wrote in journals that were seized by the FBI. In them, several of the girls referenced intimate interactions with Bateman. Authorities believe the older girls influenced the younger ones not to talk about Bateman, the FBI said.
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