Samuel Bateman, the self-described “prophet” who led a sect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Arizona-Utah border town of Colorado City, was sentenced in December 2024 to 50 years in prison for horrific sexual crimes against children as young as 9 years old.
Bateman, who was originally convicted on federal charges along with 11 of his adult followers, was convicted again on Friday — this time on a triplet of state child abuse crimes.
‘I just trusted myself.’
Quick background
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints fragmented in the early 2010s after its polygamist leader, Warren Jeffs, was sentenced to life in prison for raping two little girls he claimed as “spiritual wives” — one of whom ultimately bore his child.
Bateman presented himself as Jeffs’ successor, formed a splinter sect, and began amassing followers in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, and Utah in 2019. According to the second superseding indictment filed against him in May 2023, Bateman told recruits that he had “impressions of Heavenly Father’s will” and was doing “Uncle Warren’s” will.
In addition to having sexual relationships with various adult female followers, several of whom he impregnated, Bateman convinced his followers to give their children to him as “brides” to sexually abuse. He victimized at least 10 children.
The Justice Department noted at the time of Bateman’s sentencing that the perverted cult leader would regularly force his victims to participate in individual and group sexual activities — both with other adults and children.
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Colorado City, Arizona. George Frey/Getty Images
In at least one instance, Bateman gave one victim to an adult male cultist to be sexually abused. In another instance, Bateman transmitted a live video stream of child sexual abuse to his followers.
Bateman and his cronies transported the victims over state lines to facilitate the nightmarish abuse, which continued until his arrest in September 2022.
On Aug. 28, 2022, Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers spotted a GMC Denali dragging along a wooden trailer on Interstate 40. After someone alerted authorities to having seen children’s small fingers moving in the gap of the rear trailer door, troopers pulled over the vehicle in a Flagstaff parking lot and discovered three kids between the ages of 11 and 14 in the boiling-hot trailer.
The unventilated trailer contained a bucket for a toilet, a trash bag, and camping chairs to sit in.
After Bateman’s initial arrest, his followers bailed him out, enabling him to return to his home in Colorado City, where FBI subsequently re-arrested him two weeks later.
False prophet convicted again
Just days after telling an Arizona jury that he is “a kind and loving father” who doesn’t ever “willingly harm anybody,” Bateman was convicted Friday on three state counts of child abuse in connection to the trailer incident, the Associated Press reported.
During his trial concerning his endangerment of three minors — specifically his placement of kids in an enclosed cargo trailer, surrounded by unsecured objects, and without ventilation or seat belts — Bateman admitted that he knew the girls were in a sweltering-hot trailer for hours with virtually no ventilation but downplayed the severity of the conditions.
“I just trusted myself as a driver,” the convicted sex offender said. “I asked God to bless me every time we hopped in that vehicle.”
Bateman, who claimed ahead of the trial that the state had insufficient probable cause to search the trailer, claimed that the girls were free to get out of the trailer whenever they stopped and that he was “shocked as could possibly be” when he learned that they were still trapped in the trailer when troopers pulled him over.
Eric Ruchensky, deputy county attorney at the Coconino County Attorney’s Office, told jurors, “It’s common sense that you don’t carry people in a trailer designed for cargo on a hot day with no ventilation.”
Each of the child abuse counts comes with a mandatory prison sentence between four and eight years, further ensuring the cult leader will die behind bars.
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