Hit Netflix show Trust Me: The False Prophet laid bare the crimes of Samual Bateman and how he was able to exert control over his ‘followers’, including the parents of his child ‘brides’
Cult leader Samuel Bateman is serving 50 years in jail after taking 20 ‘wives’, some as young as nine years old, as a self-styled ‘prophet’. But he continues to exert his dark control from behind bars.
Indeed, some of his loyal followers have argued that imprisonment has only strengthened his power; he is considered a ‘martyr’ amongst his believers, an idea he reinforces through his daily calls with his ‘wives’.
Bateman’s rise to power within the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has been documented in the hit Netflix series Trust Me: The False Prophet. The series is built around extraordinary material captured in real time by cult researcher Christine Marie and her husband, videographer Tolga Katas as Bateman assembled a polygamous splinter sect that promoted child sex abuse.
Their close proximity to Bateman’s inner circle provided federal investigators with direct evidence of his activities, including a recording in late 2021 in which Bateman described what he called an ‘Atonement’ ceremony, which he said involved “giving away” his “wives” – nine of whom were minors – to his followers and ordering them to have sex while he watched.
Another filmed interaction shows a sweaty Bateman – wearing an Elvis-style white leather jacket – reclining on a sofa, with his wives wearing 19th-century-style prairie dresses, fawn over him, stroking his chest, giggling and addressing him as ‘King’, ‘Master’ and ‘Father’.
Bateman’s ascension within the FLDS – a breakaway sect of the Mormon church – came after its former leader Warren Jeffs was convicted in 2011 of sexually assaulting two girls and sentenced to life in prison. With no leadership structure in place, Bateman proclaimed himself a prophet, and said that Jeffs was now speaking through him.
Followers were encouraged to demonstrate their loyalty through testimony, financial contributions, and, in some cases, by giving Bateman their daughters to be one of his “wives”.
“Through coercion and manipulation, Bateman regularly forced his victims to participate with him in individual and group sexual activities with adults and other children,” the Department of Justice said. “He gave one of the victims to an adult male follower to be sexually abused, and on another occasion transmitted a live video stream of child sexual abuse to his followers. Bateman and others transported the victims between states to facilitate the sexual abuse, which continued until Bateman’s arrest on federal charges in September 2022.”
Bateman was arrested when he was discovered hauling a trailer containing multiple women – and three young girls aged between 11 and 14. Someone alerted authorities after spotting small fingers reaching through the slats of the door. The Netflix series culminates with Bateman being taken into custody and his eventual sentencing. But it also ends with a chilling warning: many of his adult wives still believe he is their prophet.
It’s no surprise to psychotherapist Gillie Jenkinson, who has spent more than 30 years working with former cult members. Gillie was in a cult herself back in the 70s and went on to set up Hope Valley Counselling in 2006 to help others navigate life after leaving. Key for these warped ‘leaders’, she says, is ‘thought reform’ – a process identified by Robert Lifton which is used to break down an individual’s identity and reconstruct it under the cult’s ideology.
“Whether you’re born into it or whether you join it as an adult, they do a job on you with your identity, because you have to be the person they want you to be,” she told the Mirror.
“They’re having to obey, comply, they’re terrified, and they’re, you know, submissive. And if they rebel, and show elements of something other than what’s expected, they get into big trouble. It’s cutting you off from the outside and the idea that so nobody else has the truth. No one else knows in the way we know,” Gillie notes. “So we don’t need to listen to them. And it also includes cutting off communication with yourself.
“That internal conversation gets suppressed, and it’s a control of, so the leadership controls that internal communication. So you start monitoring yourself, this is doubt, doubt is a sin. So you can’t have an internal conversation with yourself.”
By setting up a system where people confess their sins, “followers start being way too open about what they’re thinking, which gives ammunition to the leadership. They only know because you’ve told them. But there’s also an internal confession where you reiterate how sinful and bad you are and so, you know, you do a job on yourself as well as internally and externally.”
After Bateman’s arrest, the underage girls he had considered to be his ‘wives’ were removed from his custody and placed under state protection. But two months later, he conspired with some of his followers to kidnap the children from protective custody.
Eight of the girls later disappeared from foster care in Arizona, and were found hundreds of miles away in Washington state, in a vehicle driven by one of the adult ‘wives’. Bateman later admitted his involvement in the kidnapping plot.
Furthermore, he continued his pattern of sexual abuse and control even after his arrest. While being held at the Core Civic/Central Arizona Florence Correctional Complex, he was accused of trying to intimidate a government witness and using the jail phone to have “explicit sexual conversations” with children, federal court documents revealed.
During a conversation on November 26, Bateman called a 13-year-old girl identified only as Jane Doe 4 a “sexy darling” and asked if she remembered their “sacred times” together, according to the documents. He also had inappropriate conversations with a 16-year-old girl identified as Jane Doe 11, the filing states.
“Despite Bateman’s knowledge that his non-legal communications are monitored, he brazenly engaged in explicit sexual conversations with children, including with 13-year-old Jane Doe 4,” prosecutors wrote. At the time, Bateman was prohibited from communicating with Jane Doe 4.
Bateman was also alleged to have made calls to some of his ‘wives’, directing them to send “intimidating messages” to a government witness. His phone privileges at the facility were ultimately restricted and he was told he could only communicate with his attorneys. But court documents stated that he had tried to find ways around it by using the pin number of another inmate to make calls.
His adult wives, who were aware of the restrictions, also made new email addresses and got new phone numbers to attempt to contact Bateman, according to the documents.
In April 2024, Bateman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transport a minor for criminal sexual activity and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, according to the U.S. Department of Justice . He was sentenced in December 2024 to 50 years in federal prison, followed by lifetime supervised release.
At the time of sentencing, Bateman was 48, making it effectively a life term. Federal prosecutors said he will spend the remainder of his days in custody.
Seven of Bateman’s adult ‘wives’ have since been convicted of crimes related to coercing children into sexual activity or impeding the investigation. Some acknowledged they also coerced girls to become Bateman’s spiritual ‘wives’, had witnessed Bateman sexually abusing girls, or joined in kidnapping them from foster care.
Following their imprisonment, former wives like Naomi “Nomz” Bistline and Moretta Johnson, left the FLDS sect, along with Bateman’s underage victims But others continue to communicate with Bateman and support him.
Christine, who along with her videographer husband Tolga helped bring Bateman down, says that his continued access to his followers through daily phone calls helps him maintain control. “That communication with him is like an IV of indoctrination,” she said. “It’s like they’re getting fed certainty right into their veins — their belief that he is talking to God.”
She told Netflix’s Tudum that she is convinced that freedom for these women begins with breaking contact. “Once they break from him and from the other people who believe in him, then they can say, ‘Wait, maybe I’m not so certain. Maybe he did make all this up so that he could get money, power, and sex — like every other cult leader,’” she said.
According to Gillie, while it could take years, many of Bateman’s remaining followers will likely also fall away. “They must take back control of their environment; previously everything was dictated, from what they could wear, what they ate, who they had sex with, how they spent their free time, and their social lives.
“It’s a vital part of understanding for survivors who come out, ex members, to understand this is the system you were part of,” Gillie says. “It’s very often people will be blaming themselves and thinking, “How was I so stupid?”
But both Gillie and Christine know that all the women who came under Bateman’s power deserve a life of freedom. “They deserve to find true love. They deserve to know what reality is. You can’t be free if you’re living in a world of fiction,” Christine says.
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