An Arizona polygamist cult leader had 20 wives aged as young as nine, married his own daughter, and drove his spouses around in a trailer with a bucket for a toilet, it is claimed.
A new FBI affidavit has revealed shocking allegations against Bentley-driving Samuel Rappylee Bateman, 46, who was arrested in Arizona earlier this year.
Samuel Rappylee Bateman, 46, is accused by witnesses of ‘marrying’ up to 20 women and girls as young as nine, including his own daughter, according to the affidavit filed on Friday, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
He has been in federal custody on obstruction charges since his September arrest, which unfolded after Bateman was pulled over by cops while transporting underage girls inside a squalid trailer furnished with a couch and a bucket for a toilet.
Bateman leads a splinter group of the radical Mormon offshoot Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS — but Bateman is apparently so extreme that he has been denounced even by former FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, a convicted child rapist.
The FBI affidavit, filed in the Eastern District of Washington, outlines sickening allegations of incest, group sex acts involving adults and underage children, and child sex trafficking.
FBI Agent Dawn A. Martin, citing witness statements, writes in the filing that Bateman ‘began to proclaim he was a prophet’ and declared his intention to marry his own teenage daughter in 2019.
The affidavit states that Bateman has since gathered ‘approximately 50 followers and more than 20 wives, many of whom are minors, mostly under the age of 15.’
Hellbound and Down 