Polygamist Cult Leader Now Charged With Child Sex Abuse

Horrifying new details have emerged from an FBI investigation into a self-proclaimed Mormon “prophet” who allegedly raped girls as young as nine-years-old and took 20 wives, half of them underage.

A new 51-count indictment filed in an Arizona court reveals the lurid new allegations against Samuel Rappylee Bateman, 47, who claimed in 2019 to be the successor to Warren Jeffs, the former leader of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamist sect. Jeffs—known to followers as “Uncle Warren”—is currently serving life in prison for child sexual assault, after 12 of his 78 “wives” were revealed to be under the age of 15.

Bateman convinced some of his early followers that he had “impressions of Heavenly Father’s will,” according to court records, and encouraged them to “bear testimony” to other potential followers that Bateman was doing “Uncle Warren’s” will.

Read more at The Daily Beast.