Christine Marie and Tolga Katas, once considered outsiders, managed to infiltrate the inner circle of polygamist leader Samuel Bateman. Their mission: to reveal him as a fraudulent prophet and a predator of children.
Their investigative journey, highlighted in Netflix’s documentary Trust Me: The False Prophet, led to Bateman’s arrest. Federal prosecutors described his actions as a “years-long child sexual abuse conspiracy” in Short Creek, a community straddling the Arizona-Utah border, which emerged in the power vacuum left by the deposed leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), Warren Jeffs.
With Jeffs no longer at the helm, his followers were left without guidance, making them susceptible to Bateman’s manipulative influence. According to the United States Attorney’s Office, Bateman claimed the mantle of “religious prophet,” exploiting this position to take young girls, some as young as nine, as his “brides” for his own sexual gratification.
The horrific abuse was uncovered when Christine and Tolga, under the pretense of filming a documentary to promote Bateman’s teachings, recorded incriminating conversations between him and his victims.
In 2024, Bateman faced justice with a conviction and a 50-year prison sentence. As for Christine and Tolga, what became of them after their daring exposé, and how did Bateman’s wives cope with the fallout of his arrest?
Where Are Christine Marie and Tolga Katas now?
Christine and Tolga were pivotal in bringing Bateman’s crimes to light. Christine clandestinely captured a conversation in November 2021 where Bateman, alongside three of his wives—one being underage—discussed an event they termed the Atonement. In this conversation, Bateman shockingly detailed “giving these three wives to his three male followers,” as outlined in a probable cause affidavit.
The pair also turned over valuable footage showing Bateman at home with his wives as they sung his praises and described their relationships.
Christine shared with Tudum that as an “outsider,” she was able to speak out without fear of being ostracized from the FLDS community. She said she had also once fallen victim to influence of a fundamentalist man herself and had a unique understanding of how the victims could become under another’s control.
For Christine, Bateman’s conviction reinforced the undercover work she did to expose his crimes.
“It was so validating for me to make sure that these girls and women were safe. Even the women who still believe in him are a hundred times safer with him not in the house,” she told Tudum. “He could never rape another girl again. There was a sense of closure for me.”
Today, the couple remains in Short Creek and continues to help the FLDS community. According to Tolga’s website, he still works as a music producer and cinematographer.
In April 2025, Christine celebrated the couple’s marriage.
“I love being married to this man @tolgakatas,” she wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of the pair. “After over 20 years together, my heart still flutters when he walks into the room.”
Where is Julia Johnson Now?
Christine and Tolga weren’t the only ones who worked to expose Bateman. FLDS member Julia Johnson put herself at great personal risk, according to the docuseries, by working with the couple as well as the FBI after several of daughters became Bateman’s wives.
“Julia did not give her children away,” Christine told Tudum. “Julia fought it and didn’t know what to do about it. She was crying, having mental breakdowns over it.”
Eventually Julia—married to Bateman’s devoted follower Moroni Johnson—began to share what she knew after realizing that the family was following a false prophet.
“Julia is extraordinary,” filmmaker Rachel Dretzin told the publication. “In many ways [she’s] the heroine of the film, because it takes so much for a woman at that age to turn against her husband and to risk what she risked in going for help.”
Today, Julia and Moroni—who is serving out a 25-year sentence for conspiracy to commit trafficking of a minor for sexual purposes—are no longer together.
As she questioned in the docuseries, ”How do I teach my daughters to walk from it if I can’t?”
What Happened to Sam Bateman’s Wives?
When he was arrested in 2022, Bateman had both young women and minors as his wives. The youngest had been just 9 at the time of the marriage, prosecutors said.
“Through coercion and manipulation, Bateman regularly forced his victims to participate with him in individual and group sexual activities with adults and other children,” prosecutors said after his conviction. “He gave one of the victims to an adult male follower to be sexually abused, and on another occasion transmitted a live video stream of child sexual abuse to his followers.”
After the arrest, the filmmaker said that the minor victims had turned against Bateman, in large part because they were removed from the community and put in foster care.
“Once they had the perspective of being outside the group,” she told Tudum, “they were able to see what had happened to them and speak out.”
But she said the “vast majority” of the adult wives continue to follow Bateman, even as he remains behind bars.
“All of the minors [in the documentary] have finally separated from Sam and ‘woken up,’ as we call it,” she continued, “but in many cases, their parents have not.”
Ruth Johnson—the daughter of Julia and Moroni—was just 14 years old when she was told she would be marrying Bateman, just as many of her sisters had already done.
“[My dad] gave me a hug, which we never did,” Ruth, now 20, recalled to KSL. “He said, ‘Samuel’s outside waiting for you.’ I went out the back door and Samuel said, ‘Do you have a testimony about this?’ I was like, ‘What’s he going to do if I said no?’ So, I said, ‘Yeah.’”
Ruth recalled trying to prove her love to her much older husband through obedience.
“In order to get him to notice me, I just needed him to approve of me,” she explained. “The belief system he created was that obedience is how you show someone you love them. I was as obedient as I could be.”
She said the documentary depicts a time in her life when she was exploited for her “naivete” and doesn’t represent who she is today.
“We were raised that way. That’s all we knew,” she told KSL. “Just like I’ve changed in the last four years, everybody’s changed. It’s hard for people to understand that, because (what is in the documentary) is all they see.”
After Bateman’s arrest, Ruth went on to complete high school and now dreams of one day writing a book.
“My pain has become my power,” she said. “If I can do some good in the world, I want to do it.”
Moretta Johnson Served Time in Prison, Left the FLDS Community
Ruth’s sister Moretta Johnson found herself in her own legal trouble after getting involved in a kidnapping plot, orchestrated by Bateman, to rescue eight minors from state custody, according tot he court records.
She was charged with kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping and spent a year behind bars after pleading guilty to a lesser charge of concealing a felony, according to The Arizona Republic. The time allowed her to break free from Bateman’s grasp.
“Her words are, ‘Prison set me free,” her mom Julia said in the docuseries. “It helped her get into a thought process of her own.”
Moretta left the FLDS community and has since gotten married and started a family of her own.
Naomi “Nomz” Bistline Left the FLDS Community, Now Focusing on Music
As one of Bateman’s most obedient wives, Naomi “Nomz” Bistline was a frequent presence by Bateman’s side—but she’s since renounced her former husband and embarked on a new life.
Like Moretta, Nomz served time in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to tamper with an official proceeding for her alleged role in helping with the kidnapping plot, which gave her a chance to separate from Bateman.
“I always say prison was the best and worst thing that happened to me,” she told Tudum. “It was another thing I had to learn to heal and survive from, but it had to happen. It forced me to start thinking for myself. It forced me to start questioning things.”
She now realizes that “nothing was really compelling” about Bateman, adding she was “too terrified” to ever voice her doubts about him.
“Every one of us really hated him at first,” she recalled to Tudum. “And then he would break us down and make us into what he wanted. It was a lot of abuse and coercion.”
Although Nomz admitted she felt betrayed after learning Christine had ulterior motives, she reconnected with her once she learned of Christine’s past.
Today, she talks to Christine and Tolga every day.
“I’m very close with them,” she told Tudum. “They’ve been the biggest support and have been helping me navigate the outside world and making connections.”
With Tolga’s help, Nomz has now turned her focus to music, working with a vocal coach and meeting with other music producers.
“I’ve been really obsessed with music, especially because it helps me process things,” she shared. “The other thing that I’ve kind of played around with is modeling.”
Although she still lives in Short Creek, Nomz said she is no longer part of the FLDS community and is still working through her own thoughts on religion.
“I have a really hard time believing there is this one God that’s over everything, because if he is all-powerful, how could he have let this happen?” She asked, according to Tudum. “I do believe there is something — a higher power, the universe, God, whatever you want to call it. I’m still processing that. For me now, though, I only believe something if it’s been scientifically proven. I question everything now.”
