5 things to know about the latest polygamy abuse case
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Colorado City, on the Utah-Arizona border, is home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Photo: George Frey/Getty Images
The child sex abuse case against Short Creek polygamous sect leader Samuel Bateman, 48, took several unusual turns before it ended Monday in a 50-year prison sentence.
Here are five things to know about the investigation.
1. Bateman broke away from the FLDS sect due to a ban on sex.
Bateman had been a devout follower of now-imprisoned Warren Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based around the Utah-Arizona border, until the years following Jeffs' 2006 arrest.
- The faith's prophet couldn't perform new marriages from prison, and other FLDS church leaders banned married couples from having sex.
- Bateman eventually claimed prophetic authority to allow women to pray for their own marriage-related revelations, without Jeffs' OK, causing Bateman and his followers to become estranged from the FLDS.
- Bateman's network of followers, who called themselves "Samuelites," spanned Utah, Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska.
2. Bateman's victims included children as young as 9.
Bateman claimed 20 spiritual "wives," 10 of whom were underage. Some were exceptionally young, even among child brides whose abuse in Utah's polygamous communities has led to criminal convictions.
- Jeffs, for example, was convicted of abusing girls as young as 12.
Context: Bateman admitted to coercing girls to perform sex acts on him and other men in the sect, at times punishing men by forcing them to share their wives and daughters with him.
3. Charity workers played a major role in the case.
Nonprofits have long struggled to provide services in Short Creek, where polygamous families are taught to be wary of outsiders.
- But one organization gained the trust of Bateman himself, according to an investigation this week by the Salt Lake Tribune. The operators of Voices for Dignity recorded him confessing to child sex crimes.
4. Bateman was caught in Flagstaff, Arizona, in August 2022.
Officers there found three girls, 11 to 14, in an unventilated trailer after a passer-by noticed their fingers poking through slats in the door.
- A month later, federal agents raided his home in search of evidence of sexual abuse and underage marriages.
- Nine children were removed and placed in foster care — but eight fled their new homes. They were later found in Spokane, Washington, with one of Bateman's adult wives.
5. The adult wives were prosecuted, too.
Seven women in his sect were convicted of crimes related to coercing children into sexual activity or impeding the investigation, the AP reports.