'Trust Me: The False Prophet' Recap: Where Are Sam Bateman And His Victims Now?

Trust Me: The False Prophet is a 2026 Netflix true-crime documentary series that goes into the very depths of religious exploitation and the mindset that allows women to give up all agency and submit to their leader in polygamous cults. The 4-part documentary series follows Christine Marie and her husband, Tolga Katas’ long-spanning efforts to find incriminating evidence against an FLDS leader, Sam Bateman, while pretending to make a documentary on him. Overall, the documentary mini-series makes for an intriguing but harrowing watch, because of the details of the terrible crimes that Bateman’s victims were subjected to.

What did Christine And Tolga Find Out?

The False Prophet begins with an introduction to the heroes of this tale, Christine Marie and her husband, Tolga Katas, who had a very specific mission in mind when they moved to Short Creek, a small town on the Utah-Arizona border, back in 2016. Short Creek is a well-known safe haven for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a religious group that separated from the broader LDS Mormon religion. While the LDS has changed its views on polygamy, bringing reforms to the original beliefs and religious laws by renouncing polygamy, the FLDS still strongly preaches the religious need for a man to have multiple wives. Thus, the FLDS members and their leaders openly practice polygamy in their towns and communities, despite polygamy being illegal in all 50 states of the USA. As a result, the group has been on the radar of the authorities for crimes related to child sexual abuse, kidnapping, and human and child trafficking. In 2011, the FLDS president and leader, Warren Jeffs, was arrested for aggravated sexual assault of a child and statutory rape, and is currently serving life in prison.

To Christine Marie, the FLDS was not a new matter of interest, but rather an origin of serious abuse and trauma, as she too had once been a victim to religious exploitation. Christine had been born and raised in a mainstream Mormon family, and she was totally dedicated to her faith and her church. Since it is still common in these sects of Christianity to believe in prophets, Christine was convinced when a man told her that he was a modern-day prophet who could lead her to heaven through a pious and devoted life. Without ever questioning his intentions, she agreed to become one of his many wives, before going through a series of horrific experiences. Her husband/religious leader sexually exploited Christine for many years, forcing her to get intimate with other men and even taking photos of her in compromising situations. What was undoubtedly worse was the fact that the young woman did not even realize something terribly wrong was happening with her until years later.

Once Christine understood how she had been made a victim to religious exploitation, and managed to successfully leave the group, she tried her hand at various things, from performing tricks as a magician to hosting her own TV program as a ventriloquist. After meeting and falling in love with Tolga Katas, a photographer and record producer from Turkey, Christine finally found support in her life, and wanted to do something to help young women who were stuck in a similar situation as she had once been. For this very reason, the couple moved to Short Creek in 2016, to learn more about the FLDS and understand why hundreds of people still put their faith in the religious group led by a convicted child abuser. It was difficult to integrate with the starkly different society at first, since Christine and Tolga were one of just two monogamous families in the whole town. Because of both their professional specializations, the couple obviously wanted to shoot a documentary about Short Creek and its residents, and despite facing opposition at first, they managed to convince the people that it was all to represent the diversity and beauty of American society. It was through this supposed documentary, which was really just a front to gather information about the community and check whether anything wrong was happening with the numerous women and children there, that they managed to get close to Sam Bateman and find out about his horrific secrets. The False Prophet is as much a testament to the bravery and will of Christine and Tolga, as to the crimes of a shameless predator.

How did Sam Bateman create a ring of abuse?

When Warren Jeffs was sent to prison, he ordered all his followers to stop getting physically intimate with their partners, and to bring a halt to all childbirth. It is not hard to guess that the man simply did not want anyone else to enjoy life when he couldn’t, and although the very basic rules of the FLDS stated that followers must give birth once every year to expand their community, they accepted their prophet’s order. But one man in the community, Samuel Bateman, seemingly had had enough, when he suddenly started bringing in new wives to his home around 2019. Samuel, or Sam as he was better known, was not a popular figure in the community anyway, and his antics angered the others, who quickly ostracized him. But that was only until Sam came up with a really easy, but effective, plan to dupe the others—he started to claim that Warren Jeffs had died while in prison, and the media was simply lying to the world about him still being alive. Since Jeffs had stopped addressing his followers from jail after developing mental illnesses, this was not a difficult lie to sell. 

Sam further stated that Jeffs spoke to him from the afterlife, and while it might seem like a joke to you and me, it was a serious matter to the FLDS folks. Warren Jeffs himself had managed to become the leader of the community by claiming that his father and the previous leader, Rulon Jeffs, had spoken to him from the afterlife, and therefore had chosen him among his numerous other brothers. Thus, Sam used a similar lie to establish that he was receiving messages from the previous prophet to marry and start repopulating the community once again, which meant that he was the new prophet and leader. Although not everyone was convinced, there were quite a few who decided to join what was now an off-shoot from the FLDS, known as The Samuelite Group. It is important to acknowledge here that women in the FLDS community have absolutely no say in such matters, and are treated like cattle, who are meant to give birth, raise children and look after their husband and their home. Therefore, Sam’s next step was to exert control over three important men in the community—Moroni Johnson, Torrance Bistline and Ladell Bistline Jr. 

It was a very calculated move, which quickly gave Sam access to all the three men’s successful businesses, their wealth and of course, their families. His first group of wives, probably about 8 or 10, had been women from the neighboring states or towns, whom he had technically trafficked over state borders. As he now had the complete trust of Moroni, Torrance and Ladell, the three men agreed to give up their wives, daughters, sisters, nieces and any other women in their families or under their care to be wives to the prophet, Sam Bateman. Very evidently, the social framework and mindset in which all these women had been raised became important in them submitting themselves to what was simply an atrocious situation. Women in the Mormon faith, and especially in the FLDS community, are raised to believe that being obedient is their one true purpose in life, which will lead them to Heaven after death. 

The women and young girls whom Sam brought in as wives initially must have been members of the Mormon or FLDS community in the neighboring states, which led them and their family members to genuinely believe that the modern prophet was asking for their support. Therefore, the women expressed happiness in ‘serving’ the prophet, who had been ‘kind’ enough to take them as his wives, while in reality they had just been so used to oppression and mistreatment that they sought comfort in the thought that they were now with the leader of the community, and therefore as safe as could be. In a matter of a few years, Sam Bateman’s wives included more than 20 adult women, and also 9 minor girls. Apparently, religion (or at least the FLDS religion) does not really abide by the legal age of consent, as in, a girl does not necessarily need to be a legal adult in order to be married. The next obvious question is whether Sam Bateman was then getting intimate with these young girls, who were apparently his wives, and the answer is more disgusting than you’d think. As he himself admitted to Christine and Tolga, Sam would make the minors get sexually involved with not just him, but other men as well, basically using them as pawns to make business deals or get more followers. It was also revealed that his sexual perversions included torturing all his wives to get intimate with him at any moment of the day, and he would also make explicit content out of these acts. 

How was the criminal ultimately arrested?

Among his many flaws was the absolute self-obsession that Sam Bateman possessed, as is evident from the original interviews of him that Christine and Tolga shot and as presented in the documentary. He absolutely loved the idea of documenting his life and his work, and was so delusional that he wanted to take over governing Britain, and wanted Queen Elizabeth to come to Short Creek and become one of his wives. In fact, Sam and his wives had actually shot an extensive music video to convince the queen to come and live with them. Therefore, Christine and Tolga decided to take advantage of Sam’s love for being recorded, in order to try and gather evidence against him which they could hand over to the authorities. It was because of their efforts that the FBI eventually got involved and started secretly investigating the matter. They also got help from an insider, one of Sam’s older wives, Julia, who had started to see through his lies and question his authority. 

The first time that Sam got arrested by the police was in August of 2022, at Flagstaff, Arizona, after the local authorities spotted his box trailer containing children driving on the freeway. At the time, Sam had gotten whiff of the authorities in Short Creek investigating him, and was attempting to flee along with a few of his wives. His box trailer was in such a horrid condition that it was not staying shut, and the young girls he had put inside were having to hold the doors shut from inside. This was why the police could spot their fingers sticking out in the first place, and stopped him on the freeway. But since the indoctrinated women and girls refused to say anything against Sam, and even denied that they were his wives, no serious charge could be brought against him. Flagstaff Police let Sam go the next morning, and although they confiscated his phone and handed it over to the FBI, nothing incriminating could be found on it.

Sam had always been quite cautious about not keeping any public proof of his crimes, like he did not let anyone take photos of him with his younger wives. But what he had not considered was the possibility that Christine and Tolga were the ones gathering evidence against him. When he had opened up about having forced his younger wives into sleeping with other men, all because he got a divine message from Warren Jeffs to do so, Christine had secretly made a recording of the conversation on her phone. Over the following months, she and Tolga kept handing over information to the local authorities and then to Dawn Martin, the FBI agent who took over the case. Ultimately, the FBI decided to intervene and conduct a raid at Sam’s two homes to find more incriminating evidence against him, a few weeks after his first arrest and release, in 2022. Tolga’s videos once again came in handy, as he’d neatly shot the entire layout of the houses so that the raid could be conducted successfully. On September 13th, 2022, the FBI finally conducted the raid, with around 50 officers from various states on duty, and Sam Bateman was arrested. Although significant amounts of evidence was found against him, they still needed the minors who had been living with him to open up about their experiences so that he could be charged with statutory rape. Possibly in an effort to get rid of the influence Sam and his other wives had over the minds of these 9 young girls, the Department of Child Safety took them away from Short Creek, and they were put up together at a group home.

Could the authorities have acted quicker against the false prophet?

While Sam Bateman was ultimately arrested, Trust Me: The False Prophet also makes viewers question whether the authorities could have acted quicker, while also subtly pointing out how the law itself sometimes requires too much evidence before significant steps can be taken. To begin with, the Colorado City/Hildale police department, represented by Sgt. David Wilkinson in the docuseries, admits to having received complaints against Samuel Bateman for having brought in wives from other states even before Christine and Tolga filed their complaints. But they supposedly had to wait for more proof to make a move, even after Christine submitted the audio recording in which Sam had himself admitted to sexually forcing himself upon minors. 

Even FBI Agent Dawn Martin admits to being bewildered at why the local police did not step in after learning that young girls were in danger. In way too many instances, Christine Marie and Tolga Katas had to carry out the jobs of the police, as they worked as investigative journalists trying to gather evidence. This put their lives at significant risk as well, but the local police did not seem concerned. Even after Sam’s arrest, the FBI needed official statements from the 9 young wives of the man, and they relied on Christine’s help once again, since she was considered close by everyone in the Samuelite group. But in an extremely callous move, the Department of Child Safety had mentioned her name in one of their documents, which was found by one of the girls, and Christine was recognized as the traitor in the group. As a result, the women and girls felt even more threatened, and they conducted an audacious operation in which the 9 girls were freed and picked up from the group home by the others, all on the orders of Sam, who was still exerting control over them from inside prison. Despite now being called names and threatened with divine punishment, Christine remained dedicated in her work to help the women. Perhaps without the personal determination of Christine, Tolga, and Dawn Martin, the case would not have reached a successful end, as the authorities seemed too disinterested to take any step.

Where are Sam Bateman and his victims now?

Once the 9 young girls were ultimately found in an Airbnb in Washington, and sent to different foster homes, they came to their senses about what had been happening with them for so long, and each of them agreed to help the FBI. In the trial that took place in 2024, each of these 9 minors appeared as key witnesses against Sam. One of his closest and most obedient wives, Naomi, who had once been almost like a henchman to Sam, had also been arrested by the police earlier, and incarcerated for 21 months. While in prison, Naomi went through a significant change, as being distant from her abuser made her realize the truth about Sam Bateman, and she too testified in court against him. At the end of the trial, Sam Bateman was sentenced to 50 years for conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and transportation of a minor for criminal sexual activity. His other follower, Moroni Johnson, agreed to a plea deal and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Torrance and Ladell Bistline were also found guilty in the case and were sentenced to 35 years in prison each. All the four men are currently serving their sentences in prison. 9 of Sam’s adult wives were given prison sentences for helping in his abuse of minor girls, and many of his adult wives still believe him to be their prophet, who has only been wrongly imprisoned. Others, like Julia and Naomi, have been able to quit the group and build a normal life, pursuing education and having reunited with their families. Christine Marie and Tolga Katas, the heroes of this unbelievable tale, meanwhile want to continue working around the FLDS, helping women and children escape lives of misery. While a Netflix docuseries with their brave work at its center might make them more recognizable to criminals like Sam Bateman, the positive impact that it would have on women and girls stuck in a similar situation will surely outweigh that.

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