Samuel Bateman first said he felt prompted to take his own teenage daughter as his wife, his family later told investigators, in early 2019

Soon after, his wife and daughter left his home in Colorado City, according to the FBI, where Bateman had been raised as a member of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

But the next spring, Bateman began gathering young women, and then girls, and then the adult wives of his male followers as his own wives. He later directed and participated in group sex acts with them, according to accounts detailed in a federal court document filed Friday
Some of the descriptions are from Bateman, the document said, drawn from recordings made by a Colorado City woman who helps members of the polygamy community and her husband, who was filming a documentary[…]
Bateman told the couple that Heavenly Father had instructed him in early November 2021 to “give the most precious thing he has, his girls’ virtue,” to three of his adult male followers while he watched[…]
Bateman said the girls had “sacrificed their virtue for the Lord,” [Special Agent Dawn A. ] Martin said, noting one of the three girls he described was 12 years old at the time

“God will fix their bodies and put the membrane back in their body. I’ve never had more confidence in doing his will. It’s all out of love”[…]
Bateman “began to proclaim he was a prophet” in 2019, Martin said in her affidavit. In his small offshoot of the FLDS faith, he has “approximately 50 followers and more than 20 wives, many of whom are minors, mostly under the age of 15”[…]
The eight girls recovered in Spokane are listed in the affidavit as wives of Bateman. The young woman who was with them when they were found — Moretta Rose Johnson — also became a wife of Bateman when she was under age 18