Child brides say FLDS follower pressured them to marry abuser

Two of religious leader Samuel Bateman’s 10 child brides testified that LaDell Bistline Jr. pressured them to marry Bateman when they were 14 years old.

Court House News/September 20, 2024

By Joe Duhownik

Phoenix — Two more witnesses in a federal child sex abuse trial surrounding a polygamist religious sect said defendant LaDell Bistline Jr. pressured them into marrying the man who sexually abused them for three years while they were children.

Bistline Jr. is accused of transporting minors for sexual activity and using interstate commerce to entice a minor into sexual conduct and is charged for his role in a polygamist child sex abuse ring ran by Samuel Rappylee Bateman, a self-proclaimed prophet and leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Bistline Jr. — a member of the small Mormon offshoot community based in Colorado City, Arizona and a follower of Bateman — was appointed as a caretaker to multiple families in the community by its former leader Warren Jeffs, who is now serving life in prison.

In the eighth day of trial on Friday, two girls given to Bateman as child brides echoed previous testimony that Bistline Jr. pressured them to marry Bateman in 2020 knowing they’d be sexually abused.

“He kept telling us if we didn’t, we would go against God,” now-17-year-old J.B. told 15 jurors Friday afternoon. “We would go against God."

Girls in the FLDS grow up being taught to obey men, especially their male caretakers, no matter what. J.B. added she never wanted to marry Bateman, but had no choice and feared repercussions from Bistline Jr. or God himself.

She also said Bateman started forcing her into sexual intercourse when she was only 14, often in front of his nine other child brides and more than a dozen adult wives.

V.B., who was also 14 when Bistline Jr. gave her away to Bateman, said she was “terrified” the first time she was forced to participate in group sex. When she first met him, she said, Bateman wasn’t who she thought he would be.

“He was very short and stubby,” she said. “He didn’t seem very powerful at all.”

Despite his apparently lacking appearance, Bateman wielded great power over the women and girls in his clutches from 2019 until his eventual arrest in 2022, convincing many of them that the acts were ordained by God and training them to lie to law enforcement and child protective services if ever caught.

Friday morning on the witness stand, officers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety and the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office recounted the day Bateman was arrested driving through Flagstaff, Arizona, with four of his wives in his pickup truck and three more in a box trailer in tow. Police say they responded to the call of a driver on the freeway who said she saw fingers sticking out of the trailer, apparently holding the unlatched door shut.

In body camera footage displayed in the courtroom, three young girls are seen walking out of the trailer with their hands in the air, climbing over a reclining chair, a stroller, empty five-gallon water jugs and various other items haphazardly piled up knee high. Police found a bucket with a white toilet seat in the corner where the girls initially hid from police behind a blue curtain.

When asked what he was doing with the girls, Bateman is heard in the video saying “stuff.” He refused to identify himself and was eventually detained.

Bateman posted bail a few days later, but was arrested soon after when the FBI raided his two homes in Colorado City. Prosecutors played recordings of his phone call to another defendant Torrance Bistline, whom he asked to delete his account on Signal — an encrypted messaging app he used to communicate with his wives and followers.

Torrance Bistline, another follower of Bateman, is accused of destruction of evidence and tampering with an official proceeding, as well as using interstate commerce to entice a minor.

Past witnesses have said LaDell Bistline Jr. was present and naked for two of the group sexual acts among Bateman and his wives, and that Torrance Bistline anally raped a 14-year-old girl. Neither child bride who testified today were present on the occasions in question.

Bateman admitted to having sex with child brides in April and pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to kidnap and transport young girls across state lines.

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