The 48-year-old man rose to power among several polygamous families in 2019 after claiming that he was a new prophet.
Phoenix, Arizona * She was 14 years old in 2021 when Samuel Bateman decided he wanted her as a wife -- and the self-proclaimed prophet took her as one of 20 women and girls he "spiritually married."
Bateman was leading a sect that broke off from the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Being a Bateman "wife," the girl said in a victim impact statement, harmed every part of her life.
He stripped her of her personality, her dreams and her ambitions, she wrote. She lost her chance for an education and self-confidence. He sexually abused her and he harmed her family relationships.
This girl and the nine other children that Bateman married will "live with the memories and the trauma" for the rest of their lives, federal prosecutors argued in court papers prior to Bateman's Monday sentencing in an Arizona courtroom. For that, the government attorneys urged, Bateman deserved to spend 50 years in federal prison -- essentially a life sentence for the 48-year-old.
U.S. District Judge Susan Brnovich agreed, sentencing Bateman on Monday to serve 50 years in federal prison. Bateman did not speak before he was sentenced.
Bateman rose to power among several polygamous families in 2019 after claiming that he was a new prophet. Originally charged with more than 50 felonies, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for criminal sexual activity and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
In a plea agreement, he acknowledged that he had spiritually married 20 wives, including 10 underage girls. His intent in marrying the girls, who were as young as 9 years old, "was to engage in sexual activity with minor girls," he admitted.
"And he did so on a regular basis," the plea agreement he signed states.
Federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo that the only reason Bateman was given the plea deal was in an effort to spare his victims from testifying at trial, and because he took accountability for what he did. They noted, however, that the girls did end up on the witness stand describing the sexual abuse they endured, after two male followers went to trial instead -- and lost.
Bateman's defense attorney, Brian Russo, had asked Brnovich to sentence Bateman to 20 years of incarceration, and for him to be able to serve that sentence at a treatment center. Russo cited the opinion of a psychiatrist hired by the defense, who said Bateman was "mentally ill" and "delusional."
The psychiatrist opined, according to Russo, that Bateman's "upbringing in a certain lifestyle was an indoctrination that normalized certain behavior that is otherwise criminal conduct."
Bateman was raised as a member of the FLDS faith in Short Creek, the community in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, where the polygamous sect was historically based. He, like other FLDS members, believed that Warren Jeffs is their prophet. Jeffs is currently imprisoned in Texas for sexually assaulting two underage followers he had taken as "wives."
But prosecutors pushed back on the assertion that Bateman and the men who followed him -- who were involved in group sexual activity that at times included abusing children -- didn't know what they were doing was wrong, and that it was against their FLDS beliefs. They were shunned by their community, prosecutors argued, but still continued to do what they wanted.
"These men were not victims of the FLDS teachings," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. "They created their own ideology to serve their selfish interests, and they elevated the defendant as their new leader to accomplish their goals."
Prosecutors argued that the men took advantage of the leadership void left with Jeffs behind bars, after their leader had gone largely silent and stopped approving marriages and banned the FLDS faithful from having marriages.
Bateman and two of his male followers, they said, declared Bateman as the new "prophet" to get what they wanted: "new wives, sexual activity, and more children."
Read: The undercover effort to stop Samuel Bateman, a two-part series Part 1
Part 2