AP โ 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.
Polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of the mainstream church, but it abandoned the practice in and now strictly prohibits it. 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.
Bateman is already facing state and federal charges of child abuse and tampering with evidence. He pleaded not guilty in September. Bistline and Barlow appeared in federal magistrate court in Flagstaff on Wednesday. Both women were ordered held and they have court hearings scheduled again next week. Johnson is awaiting extradition from Washington state. The women are accused of seizing eight girls who Bateman considered his wives from Arizona state custody and fleeing with them.
The children were found last week hundreds of miles away in Spokane, Washington. Bateman was arrested in August when someone spotted small fingers in the gap of a trailer he was hauling through Flagstaff. He posted bond but was arrested again and charged with obstructing justice in a federal investigation into whether children were being transported across state lines for sexual activity. Court records allege that Bateman, 46, engaged in child sex trafficking and polygamy, but none of his current charges relate to those allegations.
Polygamy is illegal in Arizona but was decriminalized in Utah in Criminal defense attorney Michael Piccarreta, who represented Jeffs on Arizona charges that were dismissed, said the state has a history of trying to take a stand against polygamy by charging relatively minor offenses to build bigger cases. Bateman often traveled to Nebraska where some of his other followers lived and internationally to Canada and Mexico for conferences.
