By admin 
FLAGSTAFF, AZ (AZFamily) — A polygamous sect leader already serving a 50-year federal prison sentence for orchestrating sex involving children was sentenced to 24 more years in prison Tuesday on separate state convictions for hauling girls through a community in northern Arizona in an unventilated trailer.
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Samuel Bateman, 50, was convicted in June of three child abuse counts stemming from an August 2022 traffic stop in Flagstaff that led to the discovery of three girls, ages 11 to 14, in the trailer. It had a makeshift toilet, sofa and camping chairs and lacked air conditioning and seat belts. Someone tipped off authorities about the trailer after seeing small fingers reaching through gaps in the doors.
Each count in Arizona carried a mandatory sentence between four and eight years.
Bateman’s group was an offshoot of the polygamous sect once led by Warren Jeffs, who is serving a life sentence in Texas for sexual assault of children.
Bateman, a self-proclaimed prophet, previously claimed to have more than 20 “spiritual wives,” including 10 girls under the age of 18.
In the state case, Bateman acknowledged he knew the girls were in a hot trailer for hours and that the ventilation wasn’t good, but he downplayed the conditions.
Bateman, who isn’t a lawyer but represented himself at trial, claimed he thought the girls had gotten out when they stopped. He said he was as “shocked as could possibly be” when he learned that they were still inside when he was pulled over.
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Federal authorities said Bateman traveled extensively between Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Nebraska as he built an offshoot network of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which historically has been based in the neighboring communities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah.
He and his followers practiced polygamy, a legacy of the early teachings of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which abandoned the practice in 1890 and now strictly prohibits it.
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