Where is Samuel Bateman now, the FLDS cult leader who took over from Warren Jeffs?

A new Netflix documentary, Trust Me: The False Prophet, explores a branch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) in Short Creek, on the Utah-Arizona border, led by Samuel Bateman.

After the former FLDS leader, Warren Jeffs, was found guilty two counts of sexual assault against girls and put in prison, the floundering community became paralysed without him. Bateman, who claimed to be a new prophet – and who went on to have multiple 'spiritual' wives, some as young as nine years old – gladly stepped in and quickly started running a vile human trafficking ring.

When documentary maker, former cult victim and psychology graduate, Christine Marie, moved to the town in 2016 with her husband, Tolga Katas, she set about exposing Bateman in a brave operation.

This is everything we know about Samuel Bateman and where he is now...

After receiving an eviction notice, Bateman approached Marie for help and told her he was financially struggling and in the middle of a divorce.

“He could never seem to make money […] He was looking for a lifeline,” says Marie, when reflecting on their first meetings.

An ex-friend and community member describes Bateman in the documentary as a bit of a “joke” within their friendship group.

Despite the community having a marriage ban at the time, because their 'prophet' Jeffs was in prison, Bateman soon reappeared with a new, much younger wife following his divorce – and then went on to marry her sister, too. As Bateman's number of wives increased, along with children, he was soon shunned by many in the Mormon community, but Marie and Katas decided to keep an open mind and maintain contact, so they could help the women if needed.

After dinner at Bateman’s home one day, they were troubled to hear rumours Bateman was also married to underage girls.

It seemed Bateman was trying to start his own branch of the FLDS, known as the Samuelite group, and establish himself as the new Jeffs: a prophet who could save the souls of women and girls, so long as they obeyed his every command. He made the rules, recruited other families to join and is accused of taking advantage of vulnerable people in need of guidance.

During one training session, Bateman said his goals in life were to become the “most influential person on Earth, govern North and South America and probably England, and to bring the Queen of England to my home [...] I believe that’s part of the mission”.

He also started a YouTube channel, offering self-help advice and in an attempt to capture the Queen's attention.

Bateman told the FLDS community that Warren Jeffs had died in prison and claimed to be the new messenger for the community – a story much like the one Jeffs had told the community previously, when his own father (a former revered prophet) died.

“Uncle Warren made me a prophet to do His will,” Bateman told them, tapping into the group’s desire to practice their faith and to feel it again. Prominent men in the community soon began handing over their daughters and own wives over to Bateman to marry. They also gave financial donations, which Bateman spent on luxury cars.

“Everyone in a fundamentalist Mormon group wants to be associated with the prophet [...] It’s like being the wife of God, and if you’re a believer who wouldn’t want that?” explains Marie.

Bateman soon asked Marie and Katas to switch the focus of their documentary about the unfair evictions over to him, inadvertently allowing greater access to the women and girls in his life. In November 2021, Marie secretly recorded Bateman confessing to facilitating the sexual abuse of children, claiming he was only doing so after ‘receiving a message from the Heavenly Father’ who told him he had to watch his daughters and wives being abused – alleging it was ‘painful’ for him to have to see his girls lose their ‘virtue’. Some girls were as young as 9.

Marie suggests Bateman wanted people to see him as a messiah as a result and brave for burdening said pain.

Bateman then forced the young girls and abused women to testify to Marie that they were not traumatised by the abuse.

Unfortunately the tape of Bateman telling Marie that he had orchestrated the abuse of multiple women and girls was deemed not strong enough evidence by law enforcement, so Marie and Katas set out to gather more.

Bateman eventually allowed Marie to interview the wives and girls on camera, waxing lyrical about how much they love him. She also recorded women on camera saying Bateman coerced them into sex as a teenager, claiming it would bring them closer to God, a situation Marie labels off-camera as human trafficking.

After a lengthy process of gathering evidence for law enforcement, who are accused of acting without a sense of urgency, Marie presented her evidence to the FBI in July 2022 but was told they still needed an underage victim to testify to the abuse. After gaining the trust of Julia, a community member and wife of Moroni (another male community leader under Bateman's spell, and who later pled guilty to conspiracy to commit trafficking of a minor for sexual purposes), Marie shared her own story of how she was duped into believing she was the wife of another true prophet.

Christine Marie speaks with Julia Johnson about taking down Samuel Bateman

Upon hearing this, Julia took the bold step to get help and confessed to Marie how Bateman made the women work, took the profit, brainwashed them by forcing them to write about how much they loved him for hours on end and handing over their children.

Julia also said how Bateman threatened to take her one-year-old son away from her, should she not comply with his demands. “I just want to get back to my God and my true religion,” she sobs in the four-part series. “I thought ‘This man cannot go on and keep hurting people’.”

She also harrowingly spoke out about how Bateman made people watch him rape minors, sometimes on tape, and how he encouraged other men in the community to abuse women and girls.

On 28 August 2022, Bateman was caught driving with multiple women and girls in the trailer of his truck by police and pulled over, at the same time the FBI were gearing up to arrest him and worked with local law enforcement officers to ensure he was held in prison.

After the extent of Bateman's heinous crimes came to light, thanks to Julia bravely providing evidence from the inner circle and Marie diligently supporting her and recording what she could, Bateman admitted to his years-long scheme of moving girls across state lines to abuse them.

In December 2024, Sam Bateman was sentenced to 50 years in prison as part of a plea deal.

He pleaded guilty to two charges: conspiracy to transport a minor for sexual activity, which carries a sentence of 10 years to life, and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which can also lead to life in prison. Bateman was sentenced to 50 years for each charge, to run at the same time.

Judge Susan Brnovich told Bateman at his sentencing, as per a Guardian report, “You should not have the opportunity to be free [or] be around young women. You took them from their homes, from their families and made them into sex slaves. You stripped them of their innocence and childhood.”

Trust Me: The False Prophet is available on Netflix now