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rosecutors have widened their case against members of a small polygamous group that resides near the Utah-Arizona border, detailing its leader’s sexual encounters with children he took as wives in new charges filed earlier this month.

A grand jury accuses Sam Bateman of recording the child sex abuse in a superseding indictment filed recently and adds new counts to charges filed last year for kidnapping and impeding an investigation. The May 18 document provides new details about how Bateman — with the help of followers — took wives as young as 9 years old and created a sprawling network spanning at least four states as he attempted to start an offshoot group of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

A call to one of Bateman’s lawyers seeking comment about the case wasn’t immediately returned Thursday.

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