An FLDS splinter group led by Samuel Bateman, who declared himself Warren Jeffs's prophetic successor around 2019. Bateman pleaded guilty in 2024 to a child sex trafficking and kidnapping conspiracy involving girls as young as nine, and was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison.
Samuel Rappylee Bateman was a member of the FLDS community in the Short Creek area — Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah — the same community long led by Warren Jeffs. After Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison in 2011, leadership within the community fractured.
Around 2019, Bateman began telling followers that Jeffs had died and that he was the group’s new prophet. He drew an estimated 50 followers, informally known as “Samuelites,” and over the following three years assembled more than 20 so-called “spiritual wives,” at least 10 of whom were minors — the youngest reported to be nine years old.
Bateman is currently incarcerated; the group has no known active leadership structure at this time.