Samuel Bateman pleaded guilty to a years-long scheme to transport girls across state lines for his sex crimes
A polygamous religious leader who claimed more than 20 spiritual “wives” including 10 underage girls was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Monday for forcing girls as young as nine years old to submit to criminal sex acts with him and other adults.
Samuel Bateman, whose small group was an offshoot of the sect once led by Warren Jeffs, has pleaded guilty to a years-long 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.
The US district court judge Susan Brnovich sentenced Bateman after hearing statements in court by three teenage girls about the trauma they still struggle to overcome.
“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 in effect 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 struggled to develop relationships in high school, among other difficulties. Now living with foster families, they said they had received much support from trusted adults outside their community.
After the sentencing, the teenagers 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 teenagers 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 who 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.
Read More: US polygamous leader with 20 ‘wives’ sentenced to 50 years for sexual abuse of children
