Justin Bieber's Pastor Judah Smith Speaks Out on Accusations His Church Is a 'Cult'
Christine Marie moved to Colorado City, Ariz., in 2016, to offer assistance to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And she remembers being told that they didn't need "outsider help."
"Well, guess what, they did," Marie says in Netflix's Trust Me: The False Prophet. "Yes, they f--king did."
Because, as the four-part series recounts in haunting fashion, the abuse of underage girls did not end with the arrest of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, who was sentenced in 2011 to life in prison for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl he claimed as his "spiritual bride," plus another 20 years for assaulting a 15-year-old girl.
Now multiple adherents of Jeffs, including his follower turned self-anointed "prophet" Samuel Rappylee Bateman are serving prison sentences for participating in a child sexual abuse ring.
The Netflix series details how Marie—a self-described former "mainstream Mormon" who once fell under the spell of a false prophet—and her video producer husband Tolga Katas were welcomed by Bateman to document his group, with the sect leader thinking it would be a good way to spread his message beyond their isolated community.
Instead, it was the beginning of the end for Bateman's rein.
The 50-year-old amassed more than 20 "wives" over the years, 10 of them underage, according to federal prosecutors. In December 2024, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for criminal sexual activity and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Other charges were dropped as part of his plea deal.
Courtesy of Netflix
"With respect to the minor girls," U.S. District Judge Susan Brnovich told Bateman during his sentencing, "you took them from their homes, from their families, and made them into your sex slaves. You raped them on a regular basis."
And yet Bateman's following remains largely intact, according to The False Prophet.
Courtesy of Netflix
"The vast majority of the adults featured in this film are still followers of Sam Bateman to this day,” series director Rachel Dretzin told Netflix's Tudum. “All of the minors [in the documentary] have finally separated from Sam and ‘woken up,’ as we call it, but in many cases, their parents have not.”
According to Dretzin, Bateman "is in daily contact with his wives [from prison], which in some ways allows him to still have too much power because he’s now been ‘martyred.'"
But how did he ultimately get caught? And what happened to the women who have since cut ties with Bateman and his community? Here's what you need to know.
Courtesy of Netflix
When was Church of Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints Sect Leader Samuel Bateman arrested?
Bateman, a former real estate agent and motivational speaker, declared himself a prophet and formed his own FLDS sect in 2019. Over just a few years, he amassed 22 "wives," 10 of whom were minors when they became "brides," according to federal prosecutors.
About two years after he was first questioned about the child bride allegations, Bateman was arrested in August 2022 in Flagstaff, Ariz., when public safety troopers pulled him over and found three girls between the ages of 11 and 14 in the unventilated box trailer he was towing. State police said, per the Associated Press, that someone spotted small fingers sticking out of a gap in the trailer door.
Bateman posted bond, but he was arrested again the following month and indicted on charges of destroying records to impede a federal investigation. At the time, nine children were removed from his Colorado City, Ariz., home and placed in state foster care.
Prosecutors said that Bateman then enlisted three of his wives to get eight of the girls—whom he also considered his wives—away from social services.
Two subsequent superseding indictments resulted in further charges for Bateman, including kidnapping, conspiracy to transport a minor for criminal sexual activity, production of child pornography and witness tampering.
Courtesy of Netflix
Where is Samuel Bateman now?
Bateman pleaded guilty in April 2024 to two federal counts of conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for criminal sexual activity and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. As part of his plea deal, the rest of the charges against him were dropped.
In arguing for a maximum 20-year sentence, his lawyer Brian F. Russo wrote in a sentencing memorandum obtained by the New York Times that a psychiatrist who evaluated his client had "opined" that Bateman was "mentally ill" and "delusional."
Prosecutors countered in their memorandum that Bateman treated his victims "like chattel" and the fallout of his crimes "could not be more tragic."
U.S. District Judge Susan Brnovich ultimately sentenced Bateman to 50 years in prison, calling him "the worst kind of abuser."
Courtesy of Netflix
Where is Moroni Johnson's wife Julia Johnson now?
Julia Johnson's husband handed four of their daughters over to Bateman to take as brides.
"Julia fought it and didn’t know what to do about it," Christine Marie, whose work documenting FLDS members inspired the Netflix docuseries Trust Me: The False Prophet, told Tudum. "She was crying, having mental breakdowns over it.”
Julia, who started giving Marie information about Bateman in 2022, is seen in the series warning her husband, "We’re following a false prophet, and he’s leading us right to hell, and I’m not going to go there anymore.”
Series director Rachel Dretzin said of Julia, “In many ways [she’s] the heroine of the film, because it takes so much for a woman at that age to turn against her husband and to risk what she risked in going for help.”
Moroni is now serving a 25-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2024 to conspiring to transport four underage girls across state lines for sexual activity. He and Julia are no longer together.
Courtesy of Netflix
What happened to Samuel Bateman's "wife" Moretta Johnson?
Julia's daughter Moretta, who was still a minor when she became one of Bateman's wives at her father's behest, aided in the aforementioned kidnapping plot to get Bateman's child brides out of foster care. She was 19 when she was arrested in 2022 and ultimately pleaded guilty to concealing a felony, for which she was sentenced in February 2025 to time served.
"She should have been treated as a victim from day one," her attorney Daniel Wallin told the Arizona Republic at the time. "She was quite young when she committed the offense here."
Julia said in The False Prophet that Moretta's time behind bars "helped her get into a thought process of her own" and leave the FLDS community.
Moretta has since married and started her own family.
Courtesy of Netflix
Where is Samuel Bateman's "wife" Naomi "Nomz" Bistline now?
Nomz was originally brought into the fold by her guardian LaDell Jay Bistline, who's now serving life in prison for receipt of child pornography and other roles in Bateman's sexual abuse ring.
She pleaded guilty to tampering with official proceedings for her role in the kidnapping and was sentenced to time served, plus supervised probation. She has since left the FLDS community and cut off contact with Bateman.
"I always say prison was the best and worst thing that happened to me," Nomz told Tudum. "It was another thing I had to learn to heal and survive from, but it had to happen. It forced me to start thinking for myself.”
Courtesy of Netflix
What happened to Samuel Bateman's underage "wives"?
Once Spokane, Wash., police found the eight kidnapped girls, they were separated and placed in different foster homes.
“All the minors have come out [against Bateman], and the reason for that is very simple: They were all removed from the community and from their other sister wives and put into foster care,” Dretzin told Tudum. “Once they had the perspective of being outside the group, they were able to see what had happened to them and speak out.”
Bateman's teen victims were in court when he was sentenced, according to the AP.
Faith Bistline, a family member of the three girls found in Bateman's trailer when he was arrested, told CBS affiliate AZFamily in August 2024, "It’s different for each of them, but for the most part they’re doing good. They’re in school; they have all decided they do not believe in Sam Bateman anymore, and they want to live their own life."
After her relative Torrance Bistline was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his role in Bateman's child sex abuse ring, she said in April 2025 that the girls were "so focused on growing up and exploring the world and seeing all these different options out there. 'What do I want to be when I grow up?' These are things they didn’t get while they were there."
Courtesy of Netflix
Where are Christine Marie and Tolga Katas now?
After shooting the footage that informed much of The False Prophet, Marie and her husband Katas still live in Short Creek, Utah, and work with the FLDS community.
“It was so validating for me to make sure that these girls and women were safe," Marie told Tudum of exposing Bateman's web. "Even the women who still believe in him are a hundred times safer with him not in the house. He could never rape another girl again. There was a sense of closure for me.”
For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App
此内容由惯性聚合(RSS阅读器)自动聚合整理，仅供阅读参考。 原文来自 — 版权归原作者所有。