Polygamous leader had 20 wives, many minors

The leader of a small polygamous group near the Arizona-Utah border had taken at least 20 wives, most of them minors, and punished followers who did not treat him as a prophet, newly filed federal court documents allege.

Samuel Bateman was a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints, or FLDS, until he left to start his own small offshoot group. He was supported financially by male followers who also gave up their own wives and children to be Bateman’s wives, according to an FBI affidavit. The document filed Friday provides new insight into what investigators have found in a case that first became public in August, when authorities said they pulled over Bateman on a highway and discovered he was driving three young girls in an enclosed trailer.

The latest filing accompanied charges of kidnapping and impeding a foreseeable prosecution against three of Bateman’s wives — Naomi Bistline, Donnae Barlow and Moretta Rose Johnson. Bateman is already facing state and federal charges of child abuse and tampering with evidence. He pleaded not guilty in September.

Bistline and Barlow are scheduled to appear in federal magistrate court in Flagstaff on Wednesday. Johnson is awaiting extradition from Washington state.

The women are accused of seizing eight of Bateman’s children from Arizona state custody and fleeing with them. The children were found last week hundreds of kilometres away in Spokane, Wash.

Authorities said they pulled over Samuel Bateman on a highway and discovered he was driving three young girls in an enclosed trailer