Idiot of the Week: AZ Religious Leader Now Jailed, who Sex Trafficked Girls

This week's idiot is another man hiding behind religion to do heinous things. He is an Arizona FLDS religious leader named Samuel Bateman. He has now been sentenced to 50 years in prison for sex trafficking little girls as young as 9 years old. Let me understand this- Republicans think drag queens reading books to kids is atrocious, but they won't go after so-called religious straight people who sex traffic children. Abusers have been known to hide behind religion- just look at the history of various churches over the last 500 years. Here's this idiot's story

(Image: Samuel Bateman, the leader of a small polygamous group near the Arizona-Utah border Coconino County Sheriff's Office via AP

Leader of Arizona polygamous sect sentenced to 50 years in conspiracy to transport children for sex 

CBS NEWS Dec, 10, 2024

A polygamist religious leader who claimed more than 20 spiritual "wives" including 10 underage girls was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Monday for coercing girls as young as 9 years old to submit to criminal sex acts with him and other adults, and for scheming to kidnap them from protective custody.

Samuel Bateman, whose small group was an offshoot of the sect once led by Warren Jeffs, had pleaded guilty to a yearslong scheme to transport girls across state lines for his sex crimes, and later to kidnap some of them from protective custody.

Under the agreement, Bateman pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for sexual activity, which carries a sentence of 10 years to life imprisonment, and one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which is punishable by up to life imprisonment. He was sentenced to 50 years on each count, to be served concurrently.

The rest of the charges were dismissed as part of the agreement.

Authorities say that Bateman, 48, tried to start an offshoot of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints based in the neighboring communities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. The fundamentalist group, also known as FLDS, split from the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after Mormons officially abandoned polygamy in 1890.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Brnovich sentenced Bateman after hearing statements in court by three teenage girls about the trauma they still struggle to overcome. Although they gave their names in court, The Associated Press does not name victims of sexual crime, and some appeared to still be minors.