Samuel Bateman, 50, will serve 24 more years in state prison. The number came on top of a sentence he’s already serving that runs half a century.
The self-proclaimed prophet led a polygamous offshoot of the FLDS and was convicted on three counts of child abuse in Coconino County, one for each girl found locked inside the cargo trailer he was towing through Arizona.
Officers only found them because a witness reported a GMC Denali pulling a box trailer with people inside, and an Arizona DPS employee then spotted children’s fingers moving through a gap in the rear doors. The doors were locked from the outside.
Inside were three girls between 11 and 14, a couch, camping chairs, and a makeshift toilet built from an upside-down bucket, a trash bag and a toilet seat. There were no seat belts or restraints. The trailer was hotter inside than the 81-degree air outside, and the group was reportedly headed toward Phoenix, where the temperature hit 106 that afternoon.
Prosecutors said trial testimony described the trailer as “not fit for use by livestock, let alone human occupants.” Two weeks earlier, Bateman had allegedly been stopped towing the same three girls in another trailer that also held three dirt bikes and a side-by-side ATV.
One survivor, 14 when she was found in the trailer, told the court Bateman had sexually abused her at 12. “He stole my childhood,” she said.
Bateman represented himself and insisted he never meant to hurt anyone. “I love these dear people with all my heart,” he told the court, according to the Associated Press.
Judge Joshua Steinlage called the conditions an “insane danger.” Bateman’s rise and the effort to expose him are the subject of the Netflix docuseries Trust Me: The False Prophet.
