Polygamist cult leader Samuel Pittman was convicted of three counts of child abuse
A polygamist cult leader already serving a 50-year federal prison sentence for child sex crimes was found guilty Friday of state child abuse charges linked to three young girls who were discovered in a trailer he was towing through Arizona.Authorities were alerted about the trailer in August 2022 after someone noticed tiny fingers poking through gaps in its doors. Officers stopped Samuel Pittman’s vehicle near Flagstaff and found three girls, ages 11 to 14, inside an enclosed space containing a couch, camp chairs and a makeshift toilet.In the federal case, Pittman was convicted of forcing girls as young as 9 to perform sex acts and conspiring to kidnap children from state care.
His crimes are the subject of a Netflix documentary series.Bateman had previously claimed to have more than 20 “spiritual wives,” including 10 who were underage. Testifying in his own defense, he told jurors he would never hurt those he loved. He admitted that he knew the girls had spent hours in a hot trailer with poor airflow, but he downplayed the severity of the matter.“I trusted myself as a driver,” Pittman said. “I asked God to bless me every time we got in that car.”
He claimed he thought the girls had left the trailer during the stop and was “shocked as can be” when he discovered they were still inside when he was stopped by police.“It makes sense not to load people in a trailer designed for shipping on a hot day with no ventilation,” prosecutor Eric Rushinski told the jury.Pittman served as his own attorney in the state trial, though the judge forbade mention of his federal conviction.
He raised it himself repeatedly, prompting the judge to strike out those statements.The jury took about 40 minutes to convict Pittman on the three child abuse charges. Each carries a mandatory sentence of between four and eight years. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for August 25.
background
Pittman, who called himself a prophet, traveled across several Western states to build a branch of the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a polygamous group historically based in the Arizona-Utah border towns of Colorado City and Hilldale.He was a follower of Warren Jeffs, the former cult leader now serving a life sentence in Texas for child sex abuse.The mainstream Mormon Church abandoned polygamy in 1890 and strictly prohibits it today.The polygamist sect’s control over the border towns has been greatly weakened. A court order in 2017 removed the church from local government, and the communities were released from court supervision last summer, nearly two years ahead of schedule. Practicing sect members are now a small minority in the region.