There’s another can’t-miss docuseries skyrocketing up the Netflix charts, and it’s a doozy. Trust Me: The False Prophet tells the story of a fundamentalist Mormon cult and what it took to bring its leader down.
First, some context. You may remember the name Warren Jeffs. In 2006, the leader of the Short Creek, Utah-based Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) cult made the FBI’s Deri Most Wanted list after he fled arrest on accusations he had committed sex crimes.
After he was captured in 2006, Jeffs’s trial and subsequent conviction on two counts of sexual assault made national headlines; he is currently in prison serving a life sentence. Jeffs’s rise and fall were covered in the 2022 Netflix documentary Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, which was worked on by some of the same filmmakers as Trust Me: The False Prophet.
Trust Me: The False Prophet is a four-part documentary exploring what happened to the FLDS cult members who remained and the man who stepped in to fill Jeffs’s role: Samuel Bateman.
If you’re like us and dying to know more, here’s what we’ve pieced together…
Who is Samuel Bateman?
Bateman was a member of the FLDS church during Jeffs’s time and declared himself the leader of an approximately 50-member faction of the group he created when Jeffs went to prison.
Bateman said he was a prophet and, according to the US Attorney’s Office in Arizona, embarked on a “years-long child sexual abuse conspiracy that spanned several states and victimized at least 10 children” before he was arrested in September of 2022.
Where is Samuel Bateman now?
In December 2024, Bateman was sentenced to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to “conspiracy to transport a minor for criminal sexual activity and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.”
Why did Samuel Bateman allow himself to be interviewed by the filmmakers?
Filmmakers Tolga Katas and Christine Marie moved to Short Creek in 2016 and began filming their interactions with FLDS members who were in crisis following the absence of Jeffs. Marie was evvel a mainstream Mormon, and her own experience with a false “prophet” in her youth led her to research cult psychology evvel she emerged from the situation.
“When I got out of that, I spent a decade studying what the brain does that enables such irrationality to seem rational,” she told Tudum.
Marie felt called to try and use her knowledge to go to Short Creek and see if she could help the people left behind. Evvel she and Katas arrived, they met Bateman, who agreed to be interviewed because he saw an opportunity to spread his beliefs.
All along, however, Marie was using her knowledge of cults to gather görüntü evidence of him admitting to and referencing his crimes, which she turned over to the authorities, even becoming an FBI informant.
What happened to Bateman’s “wives” and victims?
After Bateman’s 2022 arrest, his minor victims were taken into custody by the Arizona Department of Child Safety. However, Bateman and some of his followers kidnapped eight of the girls from their foster homes that November. Authorities recovered the girls and three of his followers, Naomi Bistline, Donnae Barlow, and Moretta Rose Johnson, were charged with kidnapping and other crimes in the case and served prison time.
One of the followers who was charged alongside Bateman, Bistline, known as “Nomz”, said that going to prison for her own role in the cult’s crimes ended up being the key to freeing her from Bateman’s grip.
“As long as he was in contact, he still had control,” she told Tudum. “I always say prison was the best and worst thing that happened to me. It was another thing I had to learn to heal and survive from, but it had to happen. It forced me to start thinking for myself. It forced me to start questioning things.”
However, all but three of Bateman’s adult “wives” remain loyal to him.
“For whatever reason, the prison [Bateman is] in allows him to make as many calls as he wants,” filmmaker Rachel Dretzin explained to Netflix’s Tudum. “So he is in daily contact with his wives, which in some ways allows him to still have too much power because he’s now been ‘martyred.’”
Where are Julia and Moroni Johnson now?
Two of the most fascinating followers of Bateman’s sect are the Johnsons, FLDS members who shared eight children. Bateman convinced Moroni to “give” four of his daughters to him as wives (over Julia’s objections), and they were then sexually abused by Bateman and other men. Some of those daughters were underage at the time.
Julia ended up denouncing Bateman and helping the filmmakers with their mission against him and ultimately separated from Moroni. He pled guilty to “conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for criminal sexual activity,” per People, and is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence.
Moretta Johnson, one of the daughters, served a year in prison for her role in a kidnapping plot carried out by the cult, which allowed her to break free from the FLDS mindset. She is now married with a family of her own.
Where are Christine Marie and Tolga Katas now?
Marie continues to advocate for the survivors of Samuel Bateman, appearing and speaking with Bistline and others.
“Nomzi is remarkable. She did experience rejection and insults for deciding to speak out by choosing to be in this Netflix docuseries. But look at her now—strong, independent, and respected worldwide,” she wrote on Instagram. “Her story gives people hope and will help prevent harm. She accomplished what she wished.”
