Defense attacks witness credibility in FLDS child sex abuse trial

Defense attorneys in a federal trial in Phoenix spent most of Tuesday
morning questioning the honesty of a witness who said she watched two
Arizona men accused of aiding and participating in a child sex abuse
ring involving girls as young as 9 years old have sex with children. 

Naomi
Bistline is one of seven women who pleaded guilty this year to
obstruction of justice by helping Samuel Bateman — self-proclaimed
leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
— destroy evidence of a child sex abuse ring he orchestrated by
marrying and sleeping with 10 underage girls. Bistline and at least 12
other adult women were married to Bateman, mostly against their will,
between 2019 and his arrest in 2022. 

Bateman pleaded guilty
in April to conspiracy to kidnap and transport young girls across state
lines and admitted to having sex with his underage brides.

In the fifth day of trial,
Naomi Bistline said defendants LaDell Bistline Jr. and Torrance
Bistline participated in sex acts orchestrated by Bateman, which he
called “sacred ordinances” or “atonement ceremonies.” But defense
attorney Kathy Henry drew inconsistencies between Naomi Bistline’s
testimony and her prior statements to the government. 

Naomi
Bistline said she was still brainwashed by Bateman when she first talked
to the government in 2023, and believed she would be damned to hell if
she told them the truth. Her second interview in August of 2024 matched
up with her testimony Tuesday, prosecutor Dimitra Sampson said. 

Naomi
Bistline said she and other brides of Bateman were taken to one of his
two houses on Nov. 1, 2021 for the atonement ceremony. She and the other
women and girls were ordered to strip naked while Bateman prayed,
dedicating the impending acts to God.

“He said Dorothea was to be
with Torrance and I was to be with LaDell,” she said. “She was 14,” she
added about Dorothea. Sitting on the witness stand, Naomi Bisline
covered her mouth with her hand as tears welled in her eyes.

“She told him to be with her through her butthole,” she continued. “To not make her pregnant.”

While
this happened, LaDell Bistline Jr. had sex with Naomi Bistline against
her will, she said, adding that she pleaded with Bateman to make it
stop. At the same time, Bateman was having sex with one of his child
brides, Naomi Bistline said. 

She recounted another time in which
both defendants watched via video call as Bateman had sex with child
brides. She said Bateman ordered the viewers to strip naked, but she
could only see whether the defendants removed their shirts. 

Henry
pounced on differences between her testimony and past statements. She
referred to a proffer meeting between Naomi Bistline and the government
on Feb. 22, 2023 in which Bistline told FBI agents that she never
witnessed Bateman having sex with his child brides.

“If I said that, I lied,” Naomi Bistline replied from the stand. “I do not remember that whole proffer.”

“Are you saying you were overwhelmed and you lied?” Henry asked.

“I think so,” Naomi Bistline replied. Henry asked again if she was lying on the stand, to which Naomi Bistline said she wasn’t.

Henry
pushed for specific details, like who showed up to the event in what
car, trying to catch the witness in deeper lies. At the mid-morning
break, she asked the judge whether it would be right to question the
witness’s competency to participate in the trial.

Naomi Bistline
was tested for competency when she was incarcerated in 2022, and was
found to be easily confused, suffering from long term memory issues and
struggle maintaining a logical train of thought, Henry said.

U.S.
District Judge Susan Brnovich dismissed the issue, but allowed Henry to
ask the witness about those competency tests on the stand. Naomi
Bistline said she was struggling to maintain a logical train of thought
during the February 2022 proffer meeting, and doesn’t remember the
specifics of what she said.

Defense attorney Jacob Faussette asked
if Naomi Bistline trusted the government. She said she didn’t at first,
which is why her initial statements weren’t truthful.

“So you lied to the government?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

Sampson clarified with the witness that she told the whole truth in the second proffer meeting on Aug. 2, 2024. 

“Did you complete the story?” Sampson asked.

“Yes,” Naomi Bistline replied. 

“Could
there have been some small details you missed like who got out of what
car?” Sampson said, to which Naomi Bistline responded to in the
affirmative.

Henry claimed that Naomi Bistline was promised
probation in return for her testimony. Both Sampson and Bistline denied
the accusation, saying she was only asked to tell the truth and plead
guilty to one count in return for the rest being dropped. 

Moretta
Johnson, another wife of Bateman whom he impregnated when she was 17,
corroborated Naomi Bistline’s story about the atonement. Unlike Naomi
though, Johnson said she never witnessed LaDell Bistline Jr. have sex
with any underage girls. 

LaDell Bistline is indicted
on two counts of using interstate commerce to entice a minor into
sexual conduct, four counts of transporting a minor for sexual activity
and one count of transferring obscene materials to minors.

Torrance
Bistline is indicted on two counts of destruction of evidence, one
count of using interstate commerce to entice a minor, conspiracy to
destroy evidence, conspiracy to tamper with an official proceeding, and
tampering with an official proceeding. 

Seven of Bateman’s adult wives have pleaded guilty to similar charges, and some have already been sentenced to prison.