Parade
April 1, 2026
When cult expert and researcher Christine Marie and her videographer husband, Tolga Katas, decided to secretly document the aftermath of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) following the imprisonment of former leader Warren Jeffs, they didn’t expect to uncover the horrific child sex abuse hidden beneath the surface.
That discovery is the basis of the upcoming Netflix four-part documentary, Trust Me: The False Prophet, streaming on the platform beginning April 8.
Per Netflix, the documentary, which includes the secret footage recorded by Marie and Katas, “chronicles the rise of Samuel Bateman, the self-proclaimed heir to Jeffs, as seen through the eyes of the couple who infiltrated his inner circle as they gain Bateman’s trust and uncover evidence…revealing the depths of his control and the women brave enough to speak up.”
The director of the documentary, Emmy-award winner Rachel Dretzin, also helmed another Mormon-based docuseries for the streamer with 2025’s Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey.
Dretzin told Netflix’s Tudum that her involvement in the project began after meeting with Marie and Katas, and seeing their disturbing footage documenting the ongoing child sexual abuse of young girls.
“Trust Me offers intimate access to a normally closed world — and in doing so, I hope it exposes both the violence that enforced secrecy enables and what it takes to tell the truth when everything is at stake,” she said.
“What these women did matters far beyond their community. It is a blueprint for how to dismantle even the most entrenched systems of abuse,” Dretzin added.
Polygamist Bateman, who had more than 20 wives, which reportedly included one of his own daughters in addition to several other minors, was indicted in 2022 due to engaging in "group sex" with some of the minor girls and watching them be sexually abused, according to the FBI affidavit obtained by The Washington Post. The minor girls ranged in age from 11 to 16.
He is currently serving a 50-year prison sentence after entering a guilty plea to conspiracy to transport a minor for sex and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, per PEOPLE.
https://www.aol.com/articles/religious-cult-responsible-horrific-child-183811043.html
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