Samuel Bateman, a polygamous sect leader, has been convicted in Arizona of state child abuse charges stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in which authorities found three girls locked inside an enclosed trailer.
A Coconino County jury returned a guilty verdict on three counts of child abuse after about 40 minutes of deliberation. Bateman is scheduled to be sentenced on August 25.
Each child abuse count carries a mandatory prison term of four to eight years. The judge will decide whether the sentences run at the same time or one after another.
The case centered on an August 2022 incident in Flagstaff, where police stopped Bateman after seeing children’s fingers reaching through gaps in the doors of a trailer he was towing. Officers found the three girls, then ages 11 to 14, inside the unventilated trailer, which contained a makeshift toilet, a sofa, and camping chairs.
Prosecutors argued that Bateman knowingly endangered the girls by hauling them for hours in hot conditions inside a trailer meant for cargo, not passengers.
Bateman represented himself at trial, with appointed advisory counsel available. Testifying in his own defense, he denied intending to hurt anyone, but admitted that the trailer was hot and poorly ventilated.
He claimed he thought the girls had gotten out when they stopped and was "shocked as could possibly be" when he learned that they were still inside when he was pulled over.
Bateman has previously been convicted of federal charges related to a broader abuse and kidnapping conspiracy case. He was accused of using his status as a self-proclaimed prophet to coerce girls, some as young as 9, into sex acts with him and others.
Bateman has said he had more than 20 "spiritual wives," including several underage girls, and was once considered a trusted follower of Warren Jeffs, the former leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The FLDS church practices polygamy, a doctrine rooted in early teachings of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which abandoned the practice in 1890.
