{"id":1762670,"date":"2022-12-05T05:08:52","date_gmt":"2022-12-05T10:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1762670"},"modified":"2022-12-05T05:08:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T10:08:59","slug":"fbi-arizona-cult-leader-accused-of-having-20-wives-most-under-15-years-old-and-it-gets-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fbi-arizona-cult-leader-accused-of-having-20-wives-most-under-15-years-old-and-it-gets-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI: Arizona Cult Leader Accused Of Having 20 Wives, Most Under 15 Years Old \u2014 And It Gets Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">38<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffbi-arizona-cult-leader-accused-of-having-20-wives-most-under-15-years-old-and-it-gets-worse%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1762670&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>An Arizona-based <a href=\"https:\/\/dailywire.com\/news\/former-child-member-sex-cult-telling-her-horrific-hank-berrien\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cult leader<\/a> stands accused of having at least 20 wives, according to an affidavit \u2014 and in addition to many of them being under 15 years of age, and he is suspected to have attempted to marry his own daughter.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/12\/04\/polygamous-leader-samuel-bateman-had-20-wives-most-under-age-15\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">affidavit<\/a>, filed Friday by the FBI in Spokane, Washington, Samuel Rappylee Bateman, 46, is accused of marrying more than 20 women and girls \u2014 the youngest of whom was just nine years old. Bateman was the leader of a small sect of\u00a0Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that embraced <a href=\"https:\/\/dailywire.com\/news\/push-polygamy-begins-amanda-prestigiacomo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">polygamy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Salt Lake Tribune obtained the affidavit and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/news\/2022\/12\/03\/polygamous-leader-samuel-bateman\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published it<\/a> on Saturday, revealing that Bateman and several co-conspirators had been accused of a litany of sex crimes against minors as well as tampering with evidence and attempting to obstruct the investigation into their conduct.<\/p>\n<p>Bateman, according to the affidavit, felt \u201cprompted\u201d to marry his own teenaged daughter in 2019. His wife and daughter left the home following that revelation, but he and several followers began collecting girls in the months that followed. He is accused of both directing and participating in a number of sex acts with the girls.<\/p>\n<p>In one instance, Bateman allegedly gave three of the girls \u2014 one of whom was just 12 at the time \u2014to three adult male followers, claiming that they had \u201csacrificed their virtue for the Lord.\u201d He then reportedly claimed, \u201cGod will fix their bodies and put the membrane back in their body. I\u2019ve never had more confidence in doing his will. It\u2019s all out of love.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The saga <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/news\/2022\/12\/02\/officials-took-girls\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">began in September<\/a>, when officials first raided Bateman\u2019s home in Colorado City, Arizona, after which the state\u2019s Department of Child Safety (DCS) removed nine girls \u2014 aged 11 to 16 \u2014 from the group\u2019s followers. The girls were placed in group homes near Phoenix, but eight of them went missing on the same day in late November.<\/p>\n<p>A Spokane County Sheriff\u2019s Deputy found all of the girls on Thursday, after they traced the credit card information from an Airbnb rental, and the 19-year-old driving the vehicle \u2014 identified as Moretta Rose Johnson \u2014 was accused in the complaint of kidnapping.<\/p>\n<p>Another of Bateman\u2019s followers, a 24-year-old woman, was also arrested in Colorado City on Thursday, after a phone call from Bateman in jail linked her to the plot to kidnap the girls from the group homes. She was booked at Mohave County jail for a number of charges ranging from kidnapping and resisting arrest to obstructing a criminal investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Arizona-based cult leader stands accused of having at least 20 wives, according to an affidavit \u2014 and in addition to many of them being under 15 years of age, and he is suspected to have attempted to marry his own daughter. According to the affidavit, filed Friday by the FBI in Spokane, Washington, Samuel &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":1762673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1762670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1762670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1762673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1762670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1762670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1762670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}