Prosecutors have widened their case against members of a small polygamous group that resides near the Utah-Arizona border, detailing its leader's sexual encounters with children he took as wives in new charges filed earlier this month.
A grand jury accuses Sam Bateman of child pornography in a superseding indictment filed recently and adds new counts to charges filed last year for kidnapping and impeding an investigation. The May 18 document provides new details about how Bateman — with the help of followers — took wives as young as 9 years old and created a sprawling network spanning at least four states as he attempted to start an offshoot group of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
