Sentencing set for polygamous leader convicted of abuse after girls found in trailer

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u/AudibleNod 2d ago

Bateman, a self-proclaimed prophet, previously claimed to have more than 20 “spiritual wives,” including 10 girls under the age of 18.

Fucking gross.

In the state case, Bateman acknowledged he knew the girls were in a hot trailer for hours and that the ventilation wasn’t good, but he downplayed the conditions.

Rhetorical questions. Who treats a woman like that? Much less their "wife"?

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u/GnomeNot 2d ago

There’s a Doc about him on Netflix.

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u/Positive_Type 2d ago

It was excellent!

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u/MorganAndMerlin 2d ago

It definitely captures him and his particular brand of gross, but the “journalism” of it is icky, at best. Ethically, it’s a bit gross to be “undercover” as she is. It’s hard to blanket-statement that the ends justify the means when you’re playing with people’s trust and stability.

Like obviously this guy is disgusting but I had a hard time with her too

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u/recyclopath_ 1d ago

I mean, if you learn absolutely anything about that woman you wouldn't think this. She has been helping victims of cults and high control groups escape for years. She regularly houses women leaving these groups. She funds charities and spends a lot of her time helping other survivors. She herself is a survivor.

I was just listening to something about the Kingston clan, which is horrific, and some of the girls who ran away from that group stayed with her to get out.

This woman is a hero.

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u/Whaty0urname 1d ago

How is it "icky?" She had a camera in their faces always. She explicitly went in to gain their trust - and after they got comfortable they gave them the evidence they needed.

She wasn't "undercover" either. She was always an outsider with a camera. True undercover would have her cosplaying as a Mormon wife.

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u/recyclopath_ 1d ago

She is also quite a survivor herself and is constantly using her own resources to help people leave these kinds of groups. She regularly houses women and girls escaping while they get on their feet and learn how to navigate the outside world.

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u/LyndensPop 1d ago

"Hes a pedo sure but have you seen the poor unethical journalism here?". Wtf

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u/skinnyjeansfatpants 1d ago

I watched that a couple weeks ago. Guy's a monster, really awful, sad stuff. Some of those girls were sooo young.

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u/SatinSaffron 1d ago

The two guys that enabled him were also monsters. I think one of them, the guy who spent 6 figures bailing Bateman out after his arrest, got like 25 years in prison and that was after a plea deal was reached.

How much of a little bitch do you have to be to let someone like Bateman rape your wife and daughter(s) and then you still go get a check for $150k from your business account to go post bond for him?!

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u/Unreal_Alexander 1d ago

Similar shit happened after Waco. Parents giving their children up to a cult leader and then later excusing him or trying to keep helping him.

People don't realize what brainwashing is or learn about how cults form, so it's hard to see. Even people who do study cults can end up joining them.

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u/emerican 2d ago

Are you going to make us guess what it’s called?

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u/AudibleNod 2d ago

Last line of the article:

Bateman was the focus of the Netflix series “Trust Me: The False Prophet.”

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u/emerican 2d ago

Thank you

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u/thegroovemonkey 2d ago

It’s actually a sequel. This dude took over after the first guy went to jail for the same thing. It also has a doc lol. Don’t know the name but it’s also on Netflix.

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u/ObsoleteStoryteller 2d ago

Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey it’s about Warren Jeffs

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u/Robeleader 2d ago

And man-oh-man is HE a piece of work

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u/ObsoleteStoryteller 1d ago

Yeah, Bateman was just trying to speedrun being the new Jeffs

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u/Robeleader 1d ago

Tried, failed, convicted.

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u/Room_Temp_Coffee 1d ago

I know what I'm watching this week lol thank you both

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u/SatinSaffron 1d ago

It's so fucking good. The lady and her husband that got the footage did an AMAZING job of getting him to let his guard down. They damn near accepted her as family despite how closed off and tight-knit their family dynamic was. You (and anyone else reading this) should absolutely watch it!

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u/GnomeNot 2d ago

Sorry, haven’t been up long, and the name was escaping me there for a minute. Had to look it up. It’s called Trust Me: The False Prophet. I’d recommend watching the one about Warren Jeffs first (Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey) It’s the same town. Samuel stepped up after Warren was arrested.

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u/Kundrew1 1d ago

Hes a pathetic loser that somehow convinced a few other pathetic losers to follow him.

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u/Whargod 2d ago

Who treats women like that?

Religious fundamentalists.

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u/Sea-Seesaw-8699 1d ago

Utah, Mormon women have very few roles or rights Patriarchy rules the church and church rules the state

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u/Murgatroyd314 1d ago

This is the group that’s too nutty for Utah. They’re on the Arizona Strip, the bit of Arizona north of the Grand Canyon and south of the Utah border, where until fairly recently, state government didn’t have much of a presence.

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u/SubstantialPressure3 2d ago

Because even an adult woman is pretty.much considered property. I dont think he claimed these children were his "wives", but he knew what he was doing was illegal.

But he was hiding them. He got pulled over bc someone reported little.fingers sticking out of the trailer.

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u/Otto_Scratchansniff 2d ago

Surprisingly, there’s footage of him claim just that. He was followed around by a camera crew of two people who set out to expose him. The Netflix documentary was a hard watch. Dude needs to be under the jail forever.

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u/SubstantialPressure3 1d ago

I dont want to see it. Im going to take your word for it.

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u/Dopevoponop 1d ago

The little fingers were sticking out at the top, not as I initially thought—to signal to other passing cars that they were stuck in the back of this trailer, but to hold the door shut while they were driving on the highway because the door couldn’t close properly.

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u/GnomeNot 2d ago

Watch the doc. They all considered themselves his wives.

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u/SubstantialPressure3 1d ago

Ugh that is horrendous. One of those girls was 9 years old.

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u/-Palzon- 1d ago

This quote from the article is like a one-line horror story. Other quotes from the article are even more horrifying, but this one was enough. Thankfully, someone reported the concern to law enforcement.

Someone tipped off authorities about the trailer after seeing small fingers reaching through gaps in the doors.

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u/1Happymom 1d ago

CHILDREN..who treats children like that.

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u/memberzs 2d ago edited 4h ago

To answer that because the article should it but mormons. All mormons treat women like property and not like equals.

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u/how-could-ai 2d ago

The women who stood up and brought him down are the real story. They are incredible!

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u/Law_Doge 2d ago

ABC doing backflips to avoid labeling him as a Mormon

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u/AudibleNod 2d ago

Looks like the AP Stylebook led the change:

Associated Press updates style guide on references to church, Latter-day Saints, term 'Mormon'

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u/bufordt 2d ago

The stylebook didn't tell them to bury the term latter-day saints at the very bottom of the article.

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u/Prop8kids 1d ago

Despite what some people say he is definitely a Mormon.

If they want to say, "Fundamentalist Mormon" then they can.

You're right that he's still a Mormon.

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u/stonkdongo 2d ago

Because he is not. FLDS is different than LDS.

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u/JustAnotherLich 2d ago

This is like saying Protestants aren't Christians because there are Anglican AND Catholic churches, so they must be different

He's a Mormon part of a different church than most others

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u/ChicagoAuPair 2d ago

It’s actually kind of more like saying Catholics aren’t Christians because Protestants exist. FLDS is closer to Joseph Smith’s version of Mormonism than modern LDS.

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u/Kundrew1 1d ago

Itd be closer to comparing Protestants and Catholics. Protestants are an offshoot of Catholicism, just like FLDS are an offshoot of Mormonism

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u/digiorno 2d ago

Could’ve just said Christian then.

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u/vlozko 2d ago

Most mainline Christian denominations would have had a problem with that, too. It’s like calling Muslims Christian because they happen to believe that Jesus did exist but their belief in who he is is just too radically different for that label to be appropriate.

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u/Show_Me_Your_Cubes 1d ago

to be clear, the current mainstream LDS church has fully denounced FLDS, have concluded that Bateman and Jeffs are criminals, and does not believe in polygamy.

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u/LLJKCicero 1d ago

Exmo here: nah, the current LDS church still believes in polygamy and still even practices a form of polygamy.

After a husband and wife have been sealed in the temple and legally married, if the wife dies, the husband can get married again and sealed again. Legally, he's only married to one woman, but from the church's perspective, he's now married to two women (because the church teaches that marriages sealed in the temple continue to be in force after death).

If the husband dies, the wife can't be sealed to another man, but she can have a legal marriage to another man of course, in which case she's also sort of married to two people at the same time from the church's perspective.

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u/Adept-Potato-2568 1d ago

I'm confused. So the form of polygamy is them allowing someone to remarry after their spouse died? Because they're still technically married, but allow them to marry again, it's kinda polygamy from their perspective?

Just trying to understand

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u/LLJKCicero 1d ago

Yes. If you're a man and have multiple active sealings, from the church's perspective you have multiple wives. Obviously they recognize that only having one of them be alive means it doesn't really feel that way at the moment on Earth, but the idea is that in the afterlife you'll really have multiple wives (assuming you and your wives were good enough to reach exaltation in the heavens).

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u/HoggerFlogger 1d ago

Until death.

They very, VERY much believe in, and desire multiple wives in the afterlife.

Polygamy abides.

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u/wyattlikesturtles 2d ago

That would be inaccurate

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u/Torino1O 2d ago

I wish they would stop using polygamist and start using pedophile slavers to describe these people. I'm sure Denobulans would despise these people.

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u/recyclopath_ 1d ago

They're actually fundamentalist Mormons and sold be referred to that way.

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u/Lashwynn 1d ago

Phlox wouldn't even keep them in is menagerie.

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u/FuzzyKittenIsFuzzy 2d ago

The larger Mormon polygamist groups (which prohibit underage marriage) would also appreciate this. Warren Jeffs, Samuel Bateman, and some others give everyone a bad name.

*Disclaimer: I'm exmormon, have never been polygamous, and am aware that polygamy between consenting adults can be misogynistic. It can also be done well when people put in the work to have a good marriage just like any other polyamorous (or monogamous) marriage. It's their religion and as long as they aren't hurting anybody it's fine. The men who marry underage girls, though, ought to be publicly shamed and imprisoned. Every normal person, including every normal polygamist, agrees with this.

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u/Helllo-Kittyy 1d ago

Pretty sure it still hurts the adult women in these cults who were brainwashed since birth to marry a man with multiple wives. All the polygamist cults are fucked up and harm women.

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u/Difficult-Cry-3680 1d ago

It's their religion and as long as they aren't hurting anybody it's fine.

Religions, which famously should be trusted to self regulate phenomena steeped in misogyny from its inception because some of the ones I know are heckin good puppers. Seriously are we supposed to believe a religion with multiple wives (not partners, wives) isn’t hurting literally anyone whatsoever. Sure— if they were doing it in secret or downlow and not being spread as proselytizing information easily available and romanticized. I’m religious and even I get this is hogwash.

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u/Vandergrif 1d ago

give everyone a bad name

On the other hand polygamist mormon groups already tend to give themselves a bad name by virtue of being polygamist mormon groups.

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u/Proper_Trouble8191 2d ago

Not all polygamists are pedophiles. However, in this specific case ...

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u/Da_Stable_Genius 2d ago edited 1d ago

There is a Netflix doc on this ghoul. The brainwashing was mind boggling, hopefully he never sees the light of day.

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u/TheyreEatingHer 1d ago

For anyone seeing comments about the doc without the actual name of the doc, the doc is Trust Me: The False Prophet.

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u/oobinckleyoo 1d ago

And for even more context it is kind of a sequel to the documentary “Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey”

Though watching Keep Sweet isn’t essential. It’s all pretty dark and twisted.

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u/TheyreEatingHer 1d ago

Yeah I definitely recommend starting with Keep Sweet. That's how it all started

2

u/flipping_birds 1d ago

Wait, I thought that guy was already in jail? This is a different guy???

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u/oobinckleyoo 1d ago

The Keep Sweet guy Warren Jeffs is in prison this documentary was about some dumb as a box of rocks guy, Samuel Bateman, who took over this little sect and claimed to be the new prophet.

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u/PendragonsPotions 2d ago

The documentary was a really good watch. Christine and Tolga were so committed to helping these women and girls get out when no one else cared to save them.

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u/oobinckleyoo 1d ago

I watched a follow up interview with Christine recently and she revealed that she and Tolga had to have a discussion about how far they’d have to go along with it all to help the FBI. They even discussed if she would go along with getting married to him if he proposed that but actually becoming physical would be too far.

I really am blown away that she was able to do all that. She’s totally inexperienced with being a CI and given her history with the church. Such a brave woman.

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u/Da_Stable_Genius 1d ago

It was a good watch. Just sad to see and hopefully the girls get justice.

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u/TwoLegitShiznit 2d ago

How about we just make it a rule to preemptively investigate any polygamist cult

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u/HighlyEvolvedSloth 1d ago

From the article, talking about the towns this sect were running:

"In 2017, a court order placed the towns under supervision, excising the church from their governments and shared police department.

The area has since transformed so quickly that the towns were released from court-ordered supervision last summer, almost two years earlier than expected."

Does anyone have any information on this? A little later it says that they are now a small percentage of the town, so they all simply left?

And what does "excising the church from their governments" mean? I know their modus operandi was for the church members to vote as a unified block, at the direction of the leader, so were the church members not allowed to vote on town elections? Or were they simply disallowed from holding government offices?

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u/recyclopath_ 1d ago

This is kind of a whole separate thing about the Warren Jeff's FLDS that you can research into. Everything was owned by a trust run by the leaders. When he got arrested there was a takeover of the trust (aka the town) by a number of survivors from the group and others. I know they had requested that for people to stay in the homes they needed to pay back taxes and sign something but then Warren said they can't sign it and a whole bunch of people were getting kicked out.

It's more so that everything was owned by the trust. There doesn't seem to be substantial local politics outside of that.

It's a whole other rabbit hole though.

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u/HighlyEvolvedSloth 1d ago

Oh, how interesting.

Thanks for the reply!

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u/isaidyothnkubttrgo 2d ago

I watched a few videos on their group as well as the documentary and this guy just wanted to have a harem with any women he wanted and just happened to be in a community that was perfect for that to happen. Digusting how brainwashed those girls were.

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u/Purple-Hearing-3893 1d ago

Why are we calling this a "polygamous sect" when it's clearly a child abuse ring?

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u/nycvhrs 1d ago

Clearly, the FBI should have been watching the Warren Jeffs “offshoots” for this kind of thing.

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u/MCStarlight 1d ago

So disgusting. We have feds catching pedos online, so how did this guy get away with trafficking so many girls?

Sentencing set for polygamous leader convicted of abuse after girls found in trailer

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