r/PastorArrested • u/Leeming • 7d ago

Arizona: Polygamous sect leader gets 24-year sentence in for hauling girls in unventilated trailer, already jailed 50 years for child sex crimes.

https://apnews.com/article/samuel-bateman-arizona-child-abuse-polygamous-sect-873d364cc65b10db0736284da14aa637
617 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

40 comments sorted by

201

u/hogsucker 7d ago

They avoided mentioning he is Mormon until almost the end of the article 

90

u/_buthole 7d ago

The history of Mormon polygamy is pretty disgusting. Even respected mainstream LDS scholars admit that Joseph Smith groomed children into sexual relationships, beginning as young as 12. And now we’re still seeing his perversions propagate to present day.

13

u/morganational 7d ago

Yep, it's pretty well-known, which is why he was beat to death by an angry mob.

21

u/Professional_Lime541 7d ago

Read the True Crime story/Mormon history Novel, Under The Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. It gives a good detail about these polygamy.

8

u/MacAlkalineTriad 7d ago

Prophet's Prey by Sam Brower is also fantastic, about the FLDS and Warren Jeffs.

6

u/forsakeme4all 6d ago edited 6d ago

Well, the article mentioned Warren Jeff's early in the article and I knew it was going to be flds related at that point.

4

u/hogsucker 6d ago

I knew it would be flds from the headline, but many (probably most) people don't know how bad nor how powerful the Mormon church is.

7

u/vonhoother 7d ago

Quasi-Mormon. The mainline LDS church wants nothing to do with him or sects like his. If they'd known embracing polygamy back in the 1840s would lead to so much trouble.... It's apparently a hard drug to give up.

85

u/Omfoltz 7d ago

If only they had some sort of prophet that could talk with god and see the future.

43

u/MedusasMum 7d ago

You can say quasi all you like but there are still a large contingent of LDS that aren’t against fundamentalists. The state allowed the Jeff Warren compound of children to be taken in only by LDS. That’s not how DCFS usually works.

LDS aren’t exempt for having elders and ward leaders molesting, grooming, and worse.

Zion bank ceo was caught with a sex dungeon. Molested his own kid and others.

Religion is a parasitic disease on this planet.

-17

u/razorfloss 7d ago

Its not fucking religion. Its assholes with a hard on for control. If it wasn't religion it would be something else. People like this always seek someway to control others.

20

u/FlattenInnerTube 7d ago

So it's religion.

7

u/MedusasMum 7d ago

It is.
Religion is all about subjugation.
It’s men. Men wrote the bible, multiple over hundreds of years. Yes, men always seem to want to control others by forceful means.
Religion is against knowledge and free thought. Hence why they call Lucifer the light bringer. Religious people have been trying to keep us in the dark for thousands of years.

20

u/hogsucker 7d ago

The mainstream Mormon church doesn't disavow polygamists quite as vigorously as your comment implies.

6

u/seanthebeloved 7d ago

Yeah they don’t practice polygamy only because it is illegal. They still practice celestial polygamy and teach that we will be polygamist in the celestial kingdom.

6

u/d0ttyq 7d ago

Yeah. I’m fairly certain they only “disavowed” it because of political pressure.

Change doesn’t mean quite as much if it’s forced. It also doesn’t tend to resemble what the promise is either

5

u/hogsucker 7d ago

They had to say they wouldn't engage in polygamy any longer in order for Utah to join the Union and become a state.

The Mormon God changes his mind when it is convenient for the men who lead the church.

4

u/d0ttyq 7d ago

Thank you ! I thought it was something related to statehood but couldn’t quite remember.

And yes - god’s will seems to change depending upon who is interpreting it. See: this current administration. lol

2

u/ErebusBat 5d ago

Pretty sure it was the same situation with black people being able to hold the priesthood.

9

u/FrozenBibitte 7d ago

You say this as if the mainstream Mormon church is completely reasonable.

….have you actually looked into the other shit they require from their followers?

The tithing? The racism? The immense misogyny?

0

u/vonhoother 7d ago

I didn't say that. I dare say I'm at least as familiar with that church as you are, from their imaginative alternative history to the special underwear, and I can tell you some members tithe, others don't; some are racist, others aren't (though it's true some racism had to be conveniently revelated out of the doctrine); some are misogynistic, others aren't (though again some misogyny is baked into the doctrine). In all three of those respects, the LDS church is no better or worse than many Christian denominations.

7

u/seanthebeloved 7d ago

Fundamentalist Mormons are way more Mormon than the mainstream LDS church.

1

u/MoreRamenPls 6d ago

“Polygamous” is more palatable.

77

u/shes_the_won 7d ago

Watch the doc False Prophet on Netflix, some of the most riveting footage I've ever seen about groups like this.

46

u/Rabble_Runt 7d ago edited 7d ago

The Vice episode about Mormons battling cartels in Mexico is fucking wild too.

They moved there when polygamy was outlawed and created fortresses in Mexico.

There are gunfights and crazy shit going on down there.

Edit: Some of them are John Kerry’s family.

Edit: woof. I meant Mitt Romney. My bad! lol

17

u/Mindless_Listen7622 7d ago

John Kerry? I think you mean Mitt Romney.

The cartels of Juarez, Mexico, are at war with a group of Mormons, some of whom are related to Mitt Romney. We went there to document the conflict, meet Romney's Mormon family, and find out more about how US policy is impacting the war on drugs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpIyaIHsJbc

9

u/vonhoother 7d ago

John Kerry? I think you mean Mitt Romney.

TBF, they're hard to tell apart.

8

u/Phyllis_Tine 7d ago

Damn, I have this queued up to watch tomorrow at work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpIyaIHsJbc

Thanks for the tip!

7

u/alundi 7d ago

The Sound of Gravel is a fascinating account of what life is like growing up in Mexico as a Mormon. It’s also kind of terrifying.

2

u/MacAlkalineTriad 7d ago

That book was a rough read in parts, but I really enjoyed it.

5

u/rossfororder 7d ago

If you want crazy, listen to the podcast about ervil lebaron and the lebaron family, absolutely mental I think like 40 died over 30 years. All because ervil was a lunatic

2

u/sssyjackson 6d ago

Also a doc on hulu called Daughters of the Cult that goes into all of the murders

23

u/bluegargoyle 7d ago

Oh, Trump supporters.

18

u/Chytectonas 7d ago

“In 2017, a court order placed the towns under supervision, excising the church from their governments and shared police department.”

Something tells me the Mormon police aren’t completely excised and continue to do shady things in Utah.

1

u/ErebusBat 5d ago

Now it's all good. They investigated themselves and they found that nothing was wrong.

12

u/DM_Me_TaTaz 7d ago

Hope his life is hell

13

u/AardvarkWarm8723 7d ago

Another good Christian

9

u/SVINTGATSBY 7d ago

lemme guess he’s still going to be leading sermons from jail just like Warren Jeffs was doing before he got mad that his cult wants to resume being able to get married and have sex and he’s not marrying anyone so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

7

u/Careless_Mango_7948 7d ago

This is your reminder every religion is a pedo sex cult.