When was the leader of the Church of Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints, Samuel Bateman, arrested?

Samuel Bateman, a former real estate agent and motivational speaker, declared himself a prophet and established his own FLDS sect in 2019. Within a few years, he accumulated 22 “wives,” 10 of whom were minors at the time of their marriages, according to federal prosecutors.

Approximately two years after he was first questioned regarding allegations of child brides, Bateman was arrested in August 2022 in Flagstaff, Arizona. Public safety troopers stopped him and discovered three girls aged between 11 and 14 in the unventilated box trailer he was towing. State police reported that someone noticed small fingers protruding from a gap in the trailer door.

After posting bond, Bateman was arrested again the following month and indicted for destroying records to obstruct a federal investigation. At that time, nine children were removed from his home in Colorado City, Arizona, and placed in state foster care.

Prosecutors indicated that Bateman then enlisted three of his wives to help retrieve eight of the girls—whom he also regarded as his wives—from social services.

Two additional superseding indictments led to further charges against Bateman, including kidnapping, conspiracy to transport a minor for criminal sexual activity, production of child pornography, and witness tampering.