In an affidavit, a man who was reported as an Arizona-based cult leader who was also suspected to have attempted to marry his own daughter was accused of having at least 20 wives, many of whom were less than 15 years old.
Samuel Rappylee Bateman, 46, was the leader of a small sect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that embraced polygamy.
Now, Bateman is charged in an affidavit that was submitted by the FBI in Spokane, Washington on Friday with marrying more than 20 women and girls, the youngest of whom was only nine years old. And as well as tampering with evidence and attempting to obstruct the investigation into their conduct, Bateman and a number of co-conspirators had been charged with a long list of sex offenses against juveniles. According to the affidavit that was acquired by The Salt Lake Tribune and made public on Saturday.
Bateman is accused of both directing and participating in a number of sex acts with the girls. As the affidavit states that Bateman felt “prompted” to wed his own teenage daughter in 2019. But after that revelation, his wife and daughter left the house. However, in the months that followed, he and several followers began collecting girls.
Claiming that they had “sacrificed their virtue for the Lord.” And “God will fix their bodies and put the membrane back in their body. I’ve never had more confidence in doing his will. It’s all out of love,” when Bateman allegedly gave three of the girls — one of whom was just 12 at the time —to three adult male followers.
In late November, eight of the girls went missing on the same day after being placed in group homes close to Phoenix, that was when the saga began in September, when officials first raided Bateman’s home in Colorado City, Arizona, after which the state’s Department of Child Safety (DCS) removed nine girls — aged 11 to 16 — from the group’s followers.
And after tracing the credit card data from an Airbnb property, a Spokane County Sheriff’s Deputy discovered all of the girls on Thursday. Moretta Rose Johnson, the 19-year-old who was driving the automobile, was charged with abduction in the complaint. And another of Bateman’s followers, a 24-year-old woman was also booked at Mohave County jail, after being arrested in Colorado City on Thursday.
For a number of charges ranging from kidnapping and resisting arrest to obstructing a criminal investigation. She was arrested after a phone call from Bateman in jail linked her to the plot to kidnap the girls from the group homes.
Watch the video report below for more details:
Sources: Dailywire, KTLA, Calgarysun
