PHOENIX — A polygamous religious leader who claimed to have more than 20 religious “wives,” including girls as young as 10, was sentenced to life imprisonment at 50 on Monday for forcing girls as young as 9 to have legal sex with him. He was sentenced to one year in prison. adults, and to plan to snatch them from protective custody.
Samuel Bateman, whose mini-team was once an offshoot of the sect led by Warren Jeffs, pleaded with those in charge for a one-year plan to bring women into the fold of the order for their sexual crimes and then catch some of them Was. From the defense of custody.
Under oath, Bateman requested to be charged with at least one count of conspiracy to transport a minor for sexual exploitation, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and one count of conspiracy to kidnap , which is punishable. As much as during imprisonment. He was sentenced to 50 years on each count, to be served concurrently.
The remaining portion of the fee was ignored as a part of the oath.
The government says Bateman, 48, attempted to start a branch of the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Era Saints, based in the neighboring communities of Colorado Town, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. The fundamentalist movement, sometimes called the FLDS, formally broke away from the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Mormon Church in 1890, disavowing polygamy.
The U.S. District Court sentenced Bateman at Susan Brnovich’s sentencing, then heard statements from the three teens in court about the loss they are still trying to come to terms with. Despite the fact that they gave their names in court, the Associated Press no longer identifies victims of sex crimes, and some are still considered minors.
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“You should never have the opportunity to be free and never have the opportunity to be around young women,” Brnovich told Bateman, noting that a 50-year sentence for a man his age was effectively a life sentence. Was.
“You took them from their homes, from their families and turned them into sex slaves,” the judge said. “You took away from them their innocence and their childhood.”
A cut competency hearing was held just before sentencing to discuss a doctor’s review of Bateman’s mental condition, which was closed to the crowd. The defense had argued that Bateman would have benefited from a maximum of twenty years of psychiatric treatment behind bars before being released.
The girls told the court, at times addressing Bateman himself, how they struggled to form relationships in high school amid various conflicts. Now living with foster families, he said he has received a lot of help from trusted adults outside his crowd.
After the sentencing, the teens hugged and cried quietly. He was escorted out of the court by some men and women wearing jackets with the slogan “Bikers Against Child Abuse”, a group dedicated to protecting children from poor country life and conditions. A woman sitting with the teenagers said no one on the team would comment.
There was no one in the court who appeared to be a supporter of Bateman.
The alleged tendency of sect members to sexually abuse women whom they declare religious “wives” has long troubled the FLDS. Jeffs was convicted in Texas in 2011 of racketeering charges related to the sexual assaults of his underage fans. Bateman was once one of Jeffs’ loyal fans and, like Jeffs, considered himself a “prophet” of the FLDS. Jeffs denounced Bateman in a written “revelation” sent to his fans from jail, and attempted to start his own private task force.
Hildale, Utah, sits at the foot of the Purple Rock Cliff Mountains, with its sister city, Colorado Town, Ariz., in the foreground on December 16, 2014. Rick Bomar/AP Photograph
In 2019 and 2020, while insisting that polygamy brings advancement to heaven and that he was acting on the orders of “Heavenly Father”, Bateman began taking female adults and children from his male fans and sending them to his “Wives” declared. Mention of oath. While none of these “marriages” were known to be legal or formal, Bateman stated that each month he claimed another “wife”, this marked the beginning of his illicit sexual contact with the woman or women. Did.
Federal agents said that Bateman demanded that his fans publicly confess to any indiscretions and that he subjected them to punishments ranging from crowd shaming to sexual activity, adding that some male fans threatened their spouses and daughters. Make amends for your “sins” by surrendering yourself. Him.
Bateman traveled widely between Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Nebraska and often forced underage women to engage in his legal sex work, as noted by the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona. Recordings of some of his sexual crimes were transmitted through digital devices to order lines.
Bateman was arrested by order police in August 2022 while he was driving through Flagstaff, Arizona, while pulling a trailer. Then someone alerted the government after seeing small hands entering between the door planks. In the trailer, which was denied ventilation, they found a makeshift toilet, a sofa, tenting chairs and three girls aged 11–14.
Bateman posted bond but was soon rearrested, charged with obstruction of justice in a federal investigation into whether children were being transported across the border for his sex crimes. The government also took nine children from Bateman’s home in Colorado Town into protective custody.
Eight children then ran away from foster care in Arizona, and were found several miles away in a car in Washington, being driven by their most adult “wives.” Bateman also admitted his involvement in the kidnapping plot.
Federal prosecutors said Bateman’s plea bargain was also dependent on all of his co-defendants pleading guilty to the charge. It demanded compensation of up to $1 million per victim and immediate confiscation of all assets.
Bateman’s seven adult “wives” were convicted of crimes such as forcing youths into sex work or obstructing Bateman’s investigation. Some also said he forced women to become Bateman’s religious “wives”, witnessed Bateman have legal sex with women, participated in illegal workforce intercourse with children, or kidnapped them from foster care. got included in. Another girl is scheduled to be tried for attempted kidnapping on January 14 on similar charges of kidnapping.
Two brothers from Colorado Town also face 10 years in prison at their sentencing hearings on Dec. 16 and Dec. 20, then in October, for soliciting or coercing a child to engage in sexual activity, including interstate travel. Pleaded guilty to the charges. The government says one bought Bateman two Bentley cars, while the other bought him a Territory Rover.
In court news, attorneys for some of Bateman’s “wives” painted a bleak picture of their clients’ religious upbringing.
One said her client was raised in a religious sect that taught that sex with children was appropriate and that she was tricked into “marrying” Bateman. Another said that his client had been assigned to Bateman by someone else, as if that was the specialty’s work, feeling that he had been denied the choice.
Via Jacques Billaud and Anita Snow
