SPOKANE — An Arizona woman arrested Thursday leaving a Spokane Airbnb with eight girls who were believed to be the underage wives of a polygamist with ties to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has been ordered home to face federal charges.
Moretta Rose Johnson is scheduled to appear before a federal judge in Arizona on Dec. 16, facing obstruction of justice and kidnapping charges. A Spokane County Sheriff’s deputy performing a “knock and talk” at an Airbnb on Thursday found Johnson and the eight girls, all of whom had run away from group homes in late November following the arrest of Samuel Rappylee Bateman. Bateman is described in a 22-page complaint filed by FBI Special Agent Dawn Martin as a self-proclaimed prophet in the FLDS church, an organization once run by convicted child rapist Warren Jeffs.
Johnson was one of Bateman’s underage wives, though she has since turned 18. Two other women, whom Bateman also referred to as his wives, are named in the complaint as having aided the girls in escaping homes in Arizona, but were not arrested Thursday. The FBI in Phoenix did not immediately return a request for comment Sunday on their status, nor did they respond to a question about what happened to the girls who were with Johnson when she was arrested.
The FBI’s investigation into Bateman included audio and video recorded by a filmmaking couple that had been granted access to Bateman’s home in Colorado City, a town of about 2,500 people on the Arizona/Utah border that is part of the Short Creek community where the fundamentalist church was started.