Hidden True Crime - TIM BALLARD: Sound of Freedom or the Voice of Victims?

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Many consider Tim Ballard a hero; a man fighting human trafficking and the subject of the movie “Sound of Freedom”. This week several woman have come forward accusing Tim Ballard of assault. Hidden True Crime delves into the controversial figure and topic in a way no one else does. JOHN MATTHIAS is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist with 30 years’ experience in both clinical and forensic work. He serves as an expert witness for the federal government and has consulted on numerous high-profile cases for District Attorney’s offices and defense attorneys in several states. In the forensic area, Dr. Matthias has developed expertise in personality assessments, hidden behavioral motivations, complex trauma and criminal psychology. In the clinical realm, he has worked with numerous victims. He received his Master’s degree in Marriage, Family and Child counseling, as well his doctorate degree, from the University of Southern California. Dr. Matthias graduated with honors in philosophy from Princeton University, and he won the prestigious McCosh Thesis prize while there. In high school he graduated valedictorian from a large public high school in Chicago where he was chosen to participate in a ground-breaking valedictory study that continues to this day. Dr. Matthias has been an adjunct assistant professor in the University of Nevada Las Vegas clinical psychology doctoral program since 2007. He supervises UNLV doctoral students on forensic assessments, clinical case formulation, and various therapeutic approaches to clinical work. LAUREN MATTHIAS has worked as an anchor and reporter for ABC, NBC, and FOX News in East Idaho, Boise, Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah. She spent a decade reporting on a diverse range of topics from high profile crimes to Presidential visits. Most recently, she reported for Salt Lake City’s ABC affiliate News4Utah. In 2015 she received the Idaho State Broadcaster’s Association Best Reporter award. She left the reporting world to produce the Hidden True Crime Podcast along with her husband Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist. Your support helps us produce these podcasts/videos. We have some big plans to explore the true crime terrain in a way that no one else has attempted. HIDDEN: A TRUE CRIME PODCAST is: CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY REINVENTED. Join us on a journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind and the unconscious motivations that drive human behaviors in order to understand the world and ourselves. LAUREN MATTHIAS has worked as an anchor and reporter for ABC, NBC, and FOX News in East Idaho, Boise, Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah. She spent a decade reporting on a diverse range of topics from high profile crimes to Presidential visits. Most recently, she reported for Salt Lake City’s ABC affiliate News4Utah. In 2015 she received the Idaho State Broadcaster’s Association Best Reporter award. She left the reporting world to produce the Hidden True Crime Podcast along with her husband Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist. WEBSITE: https://hiddentruecrime.com/ TO SUPPORT: https://www.patreon.com/hiddentruecrime https://paypal.me/hiddentruecrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lately, I've been trying to be more intentional about what I wear, intentional about everything, just choosing pieces that feel effortless, still put together, timeless, but also not overthinking it every morning. It's why I keep going back to quince. Their pieces just make getting dressed easier and I feel so classy. I feel elevated. The fits are flattering. The fabric is really high quality. Everything is wearable day to day. I actually got this really, really, beautiful yellow V-neck midi dress from them, and I paired it with some Italian leather sandals. It's one of those outfits that just works. It feels polished but still comfortable. It's exactly what I've been looking for. What surprises me, though, is the quality for the price.

Quince uses premium materials like European linen, organic cotton, but they cut out the middleman. So everything is priced way lower than you'd expect. Refresh. your every day with luxury you can actually use. Head to quince.com slash hidden true crime for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince, quince, q-u-in-c-e-com slash hidden true crime for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash hidden true crime. Who is Tim Ballard? He is a man who has a national platform, actually an international platform since the The 2020 movie came out Sound of Freedom. He is also the founder of the nonprofit organization Operation Underground Railroad,

or also known as OUR, whose cause the foundation claims is to rescue trafficked children. This episode about Tim Ballard aired live on our YouTube channel on September 30th, 2023. And since this live streaming, a civil lawsuit was filed in the third judicial district court in Salt Lake City by five women against Tim Ballard, against Operation Underground Railroad, and its board members are also all named. The lawsuit alleges defended Ballard intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly committed battery and sexual assault of plaintiffs as all sexual touching was done under the couple's ruse in order to help save traffic children and women. The allegations in the nearly 90-page lawsuit are shocking. Truly, my jaw drops numerous times while reading them last night.

in this morning. And the claims in this lawsuit were unknown prior to the recording of this episode. We will further our analysis very soon with the new info that is now available. Hidden, a true crime podcast, a forensic psychologist and a journalist explore the hidden motives behind unthinkable crimes while examining our deepest fears along the way. Thank you, everyone, for being here for a very special hidden hour. It is a very important hidden hour. And one reason it's so important, I want to make it very clear that John and I care greatly about concerns about human trafficking.

We care greatly about any harm being done to minors. I'm using interesting language, by the way. We want to keep YouTube's rules and regulations. We want to follow what YouTube has set out for creators to say and do. So if some of the language I use seems to minimize certain things, that's not because I'm trying to minimize. It's because I'm trying to follow guidelines set by YouTube when it comes to content on this worldwide format.

So please understand that too. So, you know, it's a difficult topic. But John and I care greatly about the issues with trafficking. And that's actually the reason we wanted to go here. We cover crime. and there was a press conference this week for those that are new to the story or have seen the Sound of Freedom movie that's been quite popular about the issues surrounding human trafficking. Tim Ballard is the subject in that movie.

And he started a nonprofit organization called Operation Underground Railroad, which fights allegedly human trafficking. This last week, an attorney has come out speaking for several women. She claims spiritually manipulated, coerced, groomed by Tim Ballard. And when a reporter asked if they would be speaking to police, referring to pressing charges, while there was no direct statement that charges would be pressed, what was her exact response? but it was certainly implied.

She couldn't speak to it. So most of the, I think the point of her press conference was just to bring the allegations to light. And of course, they still are allegations. We don't know, you know, we're a true crime podcast. So we don't know if there's going to be any charges or crimes here. But we felt like this is a really big, important topic. So we're going to cover it. And Tim Ballard has been fairly controversial.

And we do see similarities here with some of the people we talk about a lot, like Chad Daybauer, Jody Hildebrand. So there are parallels. There are parallels worth discussing here. And I think ultimately we want to bring awareness to human trafficking because obviously we're quite sensitive to that. And as we do with domestic violence or other areas that are important. to our work. But we want to also discuss, I think, that this could potentially illuminate something of the criminal mind, even though I have to say, you know, Tim Bauerd is not a criminal at this point, and he's not been charged with anything. And so we want to be careful

with that. Everything has been alleged at this point. Correct. And in true hidden true crime form, as John said, we don't shy away from controversial topics. We know that many of our hidden gems, who we love, have stated their opinions about Tim Ballard, their love of Tim Ballard, their concern that we're covering this. And I want you to know that we hear you. And the reason we're moving forward with this is because of the multiple discussions that the two of us have had at our dinner table with each other on our couch. And the importance of this outweighs any concerns about people being disappointed in us right now. And let me point out that we're not, you know, we want people to disagree with us.

We're here to start a dialogue, to have a dialogue about this topic. You know, I think part of the problem with conversations these days is there's no dialogue. There's no open-mindedness. There's just opinions and dogmatic opinions of that. And people want to cancel each other and shut each other down if they disagree. And we want you to disagree, but we want to listen to each other too if that's possible. So yes, this might be somewhat controversial, but let's talk about it. Let's have a dialogue about it.

We hear you. And I guess that's what I want to start too. We hear you. We understand your concerns with this topic. We have been listening. We're not disregarding anyone. And so thank you for being here tonight, even if you have your concerns. Yeah, thank you.

And as we always discuss, you know, there's with few exceptions, there's no such thing as a purely bad, corrupt evil criminal. The criminals in most cases are human beings. They have the same needs, wants, desires, dreams as many of us. They just go down a bad path and they lose their way. And so we're not in any way saying that the person we're talking about is evil or even a criminal at that. But it is an interesting story.

and it's worth discussing. So here we are. And also I want you all to know, John and I have been discussing Tim Ballard for years at our dinner table for years. It just wasn't to this point where we felt after this press conference with the attorney.

Right. This is the first time, I think, that the possibility of specific criminal charges might be out there. That the implication is that there were, we don't know the details of the crimes, but clearly some type of sexual abuse and multiple victims, same MO. So obviously that, I think at that point to us, it becomes more impactful and more interesting

to discuss. Yeah. Rather than up to this point, it's largely been financial fraud or financial issues or mixing money between for-profits and nonprofits, that kind of stuff. Now you have potentially you have actual victims of sex crimes. There's one thing I think that the majority of us have in common. How about this? I'm hoping that 100% of us here tonight have this in common.

But I guess I can't be certain. There's no journalist in me. But I hope 100% of us have one thing in common. And we are against human trafficking. We want to stop it. We want to help. So let's all remember that no matter our disagreements tonight. Right.

And child abuse and child exploitation. Let's begin with this idea that the origins of OUR Operation Underground Railroad are noble, right, in the sense that the goal here is to intervene when there's human trafficking and to help victims of human trafficking and to hopefully. get them on track to a better normal life, whatever that means. And so I think that the question I've been trying to answer since we decided to do this, cover this topic is, is this organization doing more good than harm, right? And, you know,

I think with the latest allegation, well, first of all, we should point out, too, that Tim Bauer resigned from OUR. that's important thank you for mentioning that yeah do you want to pick that up in it actually oh you are put out a statement this week stating that they had heard of allegations the same allegations that the attorney

brought forward with multiple women and that they do not stand for any type of abuse or harassment so they put tim ballard on leave while they investigated they state in their full state statement this week that at the end of that investigation, they had Tim Ballard resign. So he was pretty much had no choice but to resign from the organization that he started. You know, I think that when these allegations came forth, I think that equation changed for me in the sense that if the goal here of OUR, and again, I guess we should say, you know, there's, I don't know how, there's pre- Tim Ballard OUR and Post, right? The Post is without him in the organization.

So I don't really know, we can't really comment on what's going on in OUR now without him. But the identity of that organization is certainly hugely influenced by him. So when I'm talking about OUR, I'm generally going to be speaking about OUR with Tim Ballard, not after his resignation. But that's important to note. Yeah, that's really important. That's really important because I know people in OUR might write to us and say, hey, look, we're different now.

And I acknowledge that. And I don't know if they're doing the same things, if they're operating in the same way. Maybe the whole culture is changing because Tim Bauer's not there. I don't know. So I'm just referring to OUR with Tim Bauer at the helm. And this question about doing more. good than harm. I think the equation changes for me with these allegations. They're pretty serious. And I think if the goal of this organization is to prevent sexual abuse and trafficking and

exploitation, then you have a situation here where someone who, Tim Bauer, the leader of that organization, has this goal of preventing exploitation. And then, you, you have a situation. And then at the same time, simultaneously, he's engaging in sexual abuse and exploitation. Right. So at the very least, that's hypocritical. You know, I mean, not only is it hypocritical, but it lacks a lot of self-awareness. It lacks a lot of empathy, right? It really raises the question about what he's really up to.

And if he knows, does he know the harm and the damage that he's caused? causing to, and these, by the way, the victims here or the alleged victims are employees, although you are. We should keep in mind that according to some of the articles we've been reading, there could be many more victims. And in fact, Jimmy Rex says that. Do you want to explain who Jimmy Rex is? Yes, Jimmy Rex.

We're going to be listening to quite a bit Jimmy Rex tonight. We have, like we always do for our hidden hours, we have pulled some clips to share. with you tonight. And to those saying that the media, I just have to say one other thing, too. I think first off to those that are new here, I guess we should have introduced ourselves because this is a new crime. Every time there's a new discussion, we should introduce ourselves, but let us give you your background so you can be rest assured that we've done our due diligence here. Dr. John is a forensic psychologist. I was a television reporter for nearly a decade in Utah and Idaho. Tim Ballard runs Operation Underground Railroad in Utah. In Utah,

and the much of the news that's coming out is in Utah. And I can assure you that the news coming down is real. My friends there that are journalists are incredible, they seek the truth. Statements coming down from both the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as Operation Underground Railroad or ORR, are in fact real. And it all happened in a very normal, non-nefarious way

when the church gave their statement, it was the Church of Jesus Christ, Laudet of the Saints gave their statement to Vice News. It was in response to a question they had, which means they're doing fair journalism and getting both sides. It's all very, so trust me on that. As far as the media being fake,

it's not going to happen here. We've done our due diligence. So, Jimmy Rex, all right, with that out of the way, Jimmy Rex is someone that worked with Tim Ballard, who would go on the, these raids with him. He seems to have known everyone. Vice News has been reporting on this in depth, in detail for years, actually. And Jimmy Rex years ago was interviewed by Vice News. And Jimmy Rex has

always used his name. People say they don't want anyone anonymous. Well, here you go. Here's Jimmy Rex. And he has come forward with his information, using his name, sharing who he is. And he was there for much of, for many of the experiences that Vice News discuss and worked directly with Tim on on multiple, as he calls them, ops. So which one do you want me to start with, babe? Let's start with clip two. Right. Here we are. Mute. Oh, sorry. He was a horrible decision maker. I thought the job was too big for him. But, and that's why I was so hurt by these, what I heard came out about these women and that part of it because I did see that part of Tim that was good and I think that he wanted this to be something good. I think that again, I think he pushed out all

the people that would push back on him. I think all the people that held him in check were pushed away and he kept all these yes men around him. I know one of the people he kept around him very closely and he's a snake. I won't go into that. But long story short, I think these last couple of years he just had the wrong people around me. He didn't have the people that cared. And because they started making really poor decisions it sounds like. And so these women are going to come forward, unfortunately. It's going to happen. If anybody that's supporting Tim is going to look stupid, I promise you, I already know from all the inside sources, you'll hear it next. The church already disavowed him. Tony Robbins team's is going to be next. Glenn Beck will be next. And the thing that sucks is we all wanted to support

oh you are. We all wanted to support this organization. We all wanted to support fighting against child trafficking. And both things can be true. We still can. There you go. So, Okay, so let's talk about why that clip's really important. It's important because you have an insider who was friends with Tim Ballard and was in the organization for years, who went on ops. He was an operative, so he participated in rescue operations. This is someone who's an insider. This is someone who knows him. He's a friend with him.

And he's telling you right there that these victims are real, that they're telling the truth. I mean, I'm going to acknowledge that the charges, there's no charges yet, and these victims are stating alleged crimes. But Jimmy Rex, who is a credible source with this organization, is telling you that these victims are real. They're telling the truth. More will be coming forward. When he says more will be coming forward, I think he's referring to non-employees of OUR that have not. that are not among the victims, supposedly seven victims. And it's important to note, too, that Jimmy Rex said that whatever these victims say,

there's more in the sense, Lauren didn't play it in the clip, but there's more in the sense that Tim Ballard was having multiple affairs, multiple sexual relationships with these women, and many of these women have said that they were manipulated by him. And so, you know, whether that's consensual or not, I don't know. Whether that would be considered assault, I don't know. That would be up for the courts to determine. But it's out there.

It's real. Jimmy Rex couldn't be a more credible source. You know, I think it took a lot of courage for him to break ranks with Tim Bauer. So, but there he is stating what he believes to be true. Yes. So even if people, I noticed a couple of comments about Vice and, And that's, the advice is in a real journalistic source and so forth. Like, first of all, that's not true.

First of all, that's not true. But even if you, even if you negate vice, even if you claim that vice is not a true journalistic source, which is, even the winner of the Edward Murrow Award, which is a huge distinguished award. But you're right. Even if you say it's not, even if we can't convince you it is. Right. Even if you think Vice is, as Tim Ballard says, I forget it what he's.

Tim Ballard's, one of Tim Ballard's arguments is that Vice is a tabloid. A tabloid, right. So even if you think that Vice is a tabloid, you have to contend with Jimmy Rex. And Jimmy Rex is telling you his perception that these are real, these victims are real, this happened, more will be coming forward. And all of the news media in Utah that is covering this extensively and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you have to dismiss them and the statement directly from Operation Underground Railroad. You'd have to dismiss many, many sources. Yeah. So, and I want to also point out that Jimmy Rex, the, the information that's coming out, this is important to. People have mentioned this investigation's been closed. There was an

investigation through Davis County, Utah, into these allegations or into many allegations as to how they were using their money. That was, that was actually what the criminal investigation was about. And it was closed without charges. Because of that criminal investigation that was opened and closed without charges, there are a lot of FOIA documents. We know about FOIA documents here. Jimmy Rex is in the FOIA documents. These people, this is how the information is coming out. This is information from that investigation. So while there were no charges, it left us with a lot of clues and a lot of things that delve into and many news outlets now have gotten their hands on these FOIA docs. So, and so Jimmy Rex is a part of that investigation.

But so let's let's start digging a little deeper into Tim Bauer and OUR and what this organization is, how they perceive the world, how they operate, and why that matters. So let's start with the origin story. of all you are. So I always love origin stories because they tell you a tremendous amount about an organization. And it's my belief that like human beings, that origins and organizations and gurers have a tremendous amount of stain power. So even though, for example, like with Disney, Walt Disney's original stamp that he left on that organization still has tremendous power. and it still has a lot of influence on the culture at Disney.

So that's an example. Walt Disney's been dead for many years now. So let's start with the origin story of OUR. There's really two components to the origin story of OUR. One is that by many accounts, Tim Ballard will speak publicly now about the fact that he had a vision. He had a vision and God told him in that vision that he needed to, quote, find the children.

So we start right away with this idea that this is something spiritual. This is driven by God and his mission given to him by God is to children. So, you know, you talked about on one of your posts on Facebook, that we're going to talk about some parallels with Chad Daybell. And here's one, that Chad, Davell also has a vision of running the New Jerusalem where he'll, you know, he'll be a god of sorts in the New Jerusalem post-apocalypse. And that vision is what drives Chad DeBel's behaviors and his relationship with Lori DeBal. And so, and if we talk about, we talk about Jolie Hildebrand,

similar, that Jody Hildebrand had a vision that her therapeutic system should be based on distortion versus truth. And that was also God-given. So here you have these parallels among these three that God really sets the stage and provides the vision. And in the case of Tim Ballard, that vision is to find the children. Yeah.

A vision. Yes. And I believe that, you know, I've been listening to a lot of Tim Ballard. I've been listening to a lot of Tim Ballard podcasts. It's telling this to John. and I was going to bring up the visions more. I want to talk a little bit about the visions

because this has been my point of research and I don't have the textbooks. We actually, John and I did a lot of filming last week. We can't share about what yet. But there was a lot of filming in our house this week and I showed the people filming a visions and dreams workbook that is given out at preparing a people. preparing a people is a conference that gave Chad DeBel his platform.

It's like-minded members of the Church of Jesus Christ, Lauder Day-day Saints. They oftentimes have like-minded political beliefs. And their beliefs, their beliefs that they discuss there when it comes to their religion usually are beyond what is taught in church on Sundays. It's not necessarily what's taught in Sunday school. And for those of you know, Lori Valo and Chad Daebel, of course, met at one of these conferences. this we've often referred to these groups as preppers a vow is the same thing a vow is a website in rexburgh those are following our daybell our daybell coverage Lori valich had daybell coverage know about a vow it's a website where you prep for the final days but what we don't always talk

about is it's not just prepping it's prepping visionaries it's people that have visions and dreams of the last days and they prepare for them oftentimes near-death experiences are part of the visions but these groups are actually teaching everybody to have visions and to have good visions and to have better visions and to have powerful dreams and then how to believe your visions are real and to believe your dreams. And what's in the other room, I wish I had it because it's always usually sitting right here in my office, but it's in the kitchen, is a dreams and visions workbook that was given out at preparing a people.

Why does this matter? it matters because Tim Ballard has been connected to preparing a people as well as the Firm Expo, which is also like preparing a people. It's a breakoff of preparing a people since 2011 and has been a prominent speaker there. He was even a speaker at the conference I attended to try to understand what Lori Ball and Chad Daybel are learning. I am not. I am not saying that Tim Ballard is now connected to Chad Dayball, despite this being a very, very small group of people, and they just happen to be connected. But I think what is important about this

is that this group does believe that they have the answers in the last days. They do believe that they are calling by God. This group of people, you know, he was good friends, he is also good friends with Jason Mao. We have pictures of them together. This group of people believes, in a sense, that they were saved for the last days.

And many of them, I'm going to admit it, I'll just go here. John, you help me out here. They have a Messiah complex a bit. So their visions aren't just like I've been inspired. That's beautiful. I think most nonprofits start through inspiration, through a feeling, through a gut, through a wanting to make a difference. People probably pray before they start a nonprofit. But I'm just trying to explain that the visions and dreams that this group adheres to, it's on a different level. We're talking different level. And we're talking, I want to say oftentimes the they have a bit of a Messiah complex. I'm just, I'm just going to say it.

Well, yeah, and we'll talk about that in a second. But let's, let me dig a little deeper into the origins of this, this, of all you are. So it's not, it, to have a vision inspired by God wouldn't in and of itself be peculiar necessarily, right? Like it would be fine if he felt inspired by God to start a nonprofit that helps kids, right? That, that's, problem, right? But it's kind of this next step that makes things interesting. And that step is that there's this little boy. His name is Gardi Marty. And he goes missing in Haiti in 2013. And he's, he happens to be, the family happens to be American. They're just visiting Haiti. But he goes missing in Haiti. And nobody knows where he is. They still don't know where he is, by the way.

And Tim Bowerd was really moved by the story of Garty Marty and decided that one of his goals in starting this organization, OUR, was to find Garty Marty and to bring him back to the states alive or to rescue him if he was being trafficked. Nobody knows to this day what happened to this little boy. But that was a big part of the origins of OUR. And the reason this is important is because several years later in February of 2016, Tim Bauer takes a psychic, meaning someone who can see the future. Her name is Janet Rusan. Am I pronouncing that right? Do you know?

Russon. Russon. Russon. Russon. Yeah. Russin. He takes a psychic who's based in Utah who claims she can see the future and that she she communicates directly with Nephi.

Nephi is, maybe you can explain better who Nephi is. Nephi is a Bible, or sorry, a Bible. Nephi is a prophet in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is additional scripture that those that are LDS read along with the Bible. So those that are LDS read both the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Book of Mormon. those that are LDS believed that the Book of Mormon was also written by ancient prophets, but in America, not the Middle East. It ranges from 42080 to 360 BC.

And it's of those ancient prophets leaving their information on records that was later found in North America. So prophets in North America. Nephi is the first prophet to write the first books in the Book of Mormon. He actually leaves Jerusalem and goes to, America, which is the promised land in the Book of Mormon. Nephi is a big deal in the Mormon faith, and he's an ancient prophet. So she has a direct line with the prophet Nephi, and a lot of her intelligence is gathered by communicating with Nephi and by communicating with the dead. So in 2016, Tim Bower takes Janet and a crew of paramilitary people operatives to Haiti.

to try to locate this boy because Janet has told him that Garty Marty is in a city in Haiti and it's time to go. It's time to go find him. So they show up in the city and they're with the father of this little boy. And they do their best. I don't know how exactly they execute these types of raids or searches or whatever they're doing. But the boy is not there. nowhere to be found.

So the interesting part to me of this story is that, and this has come out in FOIA docs, is that Janet Rusan or Rusin or Janet is... Janet Russon. Janet Russon. Janet Russon is the only source of intelligence that Tim Ballard uses to find victims. So in other words, if you think about law enforcement

And, you know, I've been in the forensic world for many years. If you think about how law enforcement collects information and how they vet information, they will, you know, they use technology. They use modern technology, like satellites, cell phones, computers, online, social media. You know, it depends on the year, I guess, right? But clearly, like, for example, when law enforcement is setting up a sting operation, they might listen in uncertain communications if they can get a warrant. They have to get a warrant for that, usually.

They will look at social media posts. They will get on to certain areas of the internet, dark areas of the internet that might not normally be used. They will use essentially modern technology and information gathering sources. You know, part of that obviously can be human contacts or human. sources. But for the most part, they're using and collecting information in a very sophisticated, up-to-date, technologically savvy way. Right. And Tim Ballard is using one source of information, and that is a psychic who has visions of the future. And so in this

particular case, apparently, she located Garty Marty in a Haitian city because she was communicating with Garty's apparently deceased mother and with Nephi, and they told her where the child would be. Clearly the child wasn't there. But I, you know, I just, so I think learning this, me, for me personally, learning this and the way they're using psychics to locate victims, you know, it, I think it really, for me, it really kind of, it created a certain amount of questioning of the validity of this organization and how they're going about their business and how they're finding victims. And, you know, it seems to me that if that's the way you're collecting intelligence to find victims, you know, you're probably not going to have a really high success rate.

This is a problem. And the psychic is one of the big reasons that Elizabeth Smart and her father distanced themselves from Operation Underground Railroad as well. Okay. So they knew about that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they learned after they thought it was a wonderful cause. And then they realized his intel was a psychic who was channeling, yeah, the angel, the ancient prophet Nephi. So I think that that really, if you were, you know, and let me continue with this too. So that the other thing that's going on with OUR is that for the most part, they're a hugely isolated entity in the sense that they're not really communicating with other law enforcement agencies. They have no relationships with federal agencies. They have no relationships really with state agencies.

they have some relationships with local law enforcement. They gave some money to local law enforcement, but then they, within several years, they gave the money back and said that it wasn't something they needed. So, you know, I think it's really interesting that they're a bit of an island, that they're really not, they're making this decision, at least under Tim Bauer, I don't know about now,

but they're making this decision to really isolate themselves and to not collaborate with us. other organizations that could be tremendously helpful to them, not only law enforcement, but certainly like the FBI, right? And so in that sense, they're a very insular closed organization. And maybe part of that is that they don't want other organizations like the FBI to observe that they're using psychics, that they're using these non-traditional ways of collecting and gathering intelligence to find victims, right? Maybe, Maybe that would be a little embarrassing.

So when I learned that component, I thought, okay, you know, this makes sense that they, you know, they don't want to collaborate because maybe they're fearful of showing or demonstrating other people how they're doing this. And but I think the problem with that with not collaborating is that this is a very large issue. It's a very complex issue. You know, when law enforcement is looking at child exploitation situations, those are big operations. Those are multi-state, multi-agency operations that involve a lot of agencies, federal, state, local, right? Everybody collaborates because that's the only way to really intervene successfully in these types of situations. You need resources. You need a lot of intelligence.

you need smart people, right? You need experience. That's what you do when you bring in other agencies. And I can't imagine that in this arena, that being an island and being sort of separate and kind of your own entity would be a good strategy or at least a good business strategy, right? So I think that's important.

And when you think about it, and this, I think will take us back, to your idea of you mentioned a Messiah complex. So let's talk quickly about that. And before we get into that, by the way, I'm going to go back to Jimmy Rex. Okay. So because I'm not going to,

I can't diagnose Tim Bauer. I don't know the guy. I've never met him. I don't know enough information about him. I don't know his family. And we're not even delving that much into, to, yeah, right. Right.

But my point is that Jimmy Rex talks. Jimmy Rex uses the term ego and he uses the term narcissism to describe his friend. He does. He does. So I'm going to share, should I, can I bring up the Jimmy Rex clip where he discusses the story? Which? The story of the photo. Yes.

All right. And I want to, yeah, what John just said. By the way, the link to Jimmy Rex's video where he shares a lot, we're only sharing a little bit. You can find that in the description of this video. Head on over there. We're grateful that he came forward. We're using some of his content here. And we would love it if you would also go over and check out his channel as well.

We thank him for his voice. So Jimmy Rex did refer to Tim as being someone that is narcissistic. He referred to narcissism getting in the way. this particular story doesn't mention that so I'll just share that but then he he shares this story which I find interesting number three to go with Tim and his wife and actually Janet the weird psychic lady was part of that and that's a whole other conversation we'll get into but she was actually really nice I didn't know she was a psychic never knew that until Paul told me later but we're at this event raising money we raised $150,000 at the charity again Sean

Reyes was the guy auctioning everything off. It was really beautiful. And all of a sudden, we were talking about the Nazarene Fund, and there had been a really beautiful story that, and Andy and Paul had been a part of it. And they showed a picture. And it was the picture, it was this girl they'd rescued, being reunited with it, reunited with her mom. I mean, we're all in tears. Two hundred of us at the event, all of us in tears. And, um, and the picture was Paul, Andy and this little girl, I think. I just remember that Tim wasn't in it because is what the fight was about. All of a sudden, the middle of the speech, I'm on the stage, Tim and his wife sitting front row like get up and walk out and so I'm kind of like what's going on I can tell they're pissed and Paul kind of goes around there and I kind of had a chance to sneak off a minute later and they're yelling at each other full on Paul and Tim are like fighting in the back of this club at the sky club and Salt Lake and I'm like what guys what's going on and Tim was pissed Tim's wife was like how dare you show a picture that Tim's not in and you're not giving us any credit I'm just like oh my gosh like it's not about who the hell cares who gets the

credit. It was this big fight. Okay. I mean, I couldn't agree. I couldn't agree more with Jimmy Rex. When he's telling me the story, my first thought was, who cares who gets the credit? And then he took the words right out of my mouth and stated that. I also want to bring up another interesting point, though, is one of Tim Ballard's major tactics. And I just want to point out, I just want to point out the irony and the confusion and make people note some things. The irony is one of Tim Ballard's, Ballard's biggest tactics is that he himself goes undercover. That's why he's allegedly a hero to Minnie is that he's boots on the ground, right? That he's getting fake tattoos written all over

himself to look like he's, you know, a trafficker. If that, if he truly cared about that to be undercover, why would you ever care about your photo being shown to thousands of thousands of people? why would you care about that attention? If that was truly your tactic and you were really good and you were really good at Boots in the Grants, why would you want any attention? Wouldn't you want to hide for the children's sake? And I know that that was not the reason for this clip. You're going to refer to, I'm sure, narcissism and some other things.

But I just also want to point out all these little odd things if you really think about it. Let's not put photos of you up at events, Tim, to keep you hidden. Anyway, go ahead. Right. And by the way, that's the way most operations like this do business, that they're undercover. They don't want, if you're going to find human traffickers and arrest them and, you know, corral them, you don't want your identity to be known in advance. That's typically, so law enforcement goes to great lengths so that when they're engaged in sting operations,

that their identities aren't known. But let's talk about what was just said there. So he's at this fundraiser. Everybody's in tears. They show a picture that doesn't have Tim in it. And he freaks out. He gets angry. He goes backstage.

He's yelling at one of his best friends. He just can't believe he's not in this picture. I mean, think about that. So Jimmy Rex uses the term ego and narcissism. So when I use those terms, I'm going to be referencing Jimmy Rex. I'm not going to be referencing my personal opinion on that. But I think if you look at this story about a fundraiser

where Tim Bauer is not in a picture and he absolutely loses it because he's not front and center, you'd certainly have to wonder about whether there is some narcissism there. I mean, Jimmy Rex says obviously there is. So let's get back to this idea of the Messiah complex that you mentioned. What is the Messiah complex? Messiah complex is essentially someone who believes that they can save an entire group of people. So here you have, potentially you have that in the sense that you have someone who founded an organization, oh, you are, believing that he can save an entire group of people, which is the victims of human trafficking.

And he believes, moreover, that he's probably one of the few or maybe the only one who can do that. So part of a sort of part of a Messiah complex is the belief that you're special, that you're significant, obviously, and that you can, you're probably the only one who can do something effectively. And so one of the problems with, I mean, there's a lot of problems with having a Messiah complex,

not, you know, that if you look at the, if you look at some of the biggest criminals in the history of the world, like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, they both have Messiah complexes. And I'm not comparing Tim Bauer to them at all. I'm just saying that a Messiah complex,

in terms of the criminal mind, the Messiah complex can be a real problem in terms of crossing a boundary into criminality. Because you think you're so special and because you think you're significant and because you think that you're the only one who can accomplish an important task, you're more likely to violate boundaries

and potentially violate other people's bonds. boundaries, and presumably that seems to have been part of what happened with the victims that are now coming forward with Tim Bauer. So if this whole idea of the Messiah complex, I think, would go a long way towards explaining why OUR is an island and why they're not collaborating with other people. So in addition to the fact that they're using unusual intelligence gathering methods, you also have an organization founded by someone, who believes he can save a group of people. And let's bring in Chad Daybell again too. So Chad Daybell believes that he's going to save the 144,000. Those are the people that he's gathering for the post-apocalyptic world,

the New Jerusalem. He thinks he's going to save them, and he's going to lead that new Jerusalem. So arguably, Chad Daybell has this Messiah complex as well. Yes. And so one of the, there's, there's a lot of problems with the Messiah complex, but one is that the most obvious here is that you're not as willing, since you think you're the one that can accomplish everything and you're special, there's going to be less willingness to bring in other organizations and to collaborate and to use those organizations to gather intelligence. So I think that would explain the unusual intelligence gathering methodology. I think it would explain why they're really not open to other organizations because the founder is not a particularly open guy.

He wants to do things himself. I want to bring up the Messiah complex thing a little bit too. And as you brought up Chad Daybill because, as everyone knows, John and I have always had the debate with many of you too. Did Chad Daybell really believe himself or was he just a, you know, a shady, a con man? making it up and he knew he's completely making it up. And I want to say that I, a few things. First off, I know some people that know Tim Ballard personally.

And they have good things to say about him. And they say, what are the things they say is that he's a very spiritual man, very dedicated to God. And as is his wife. And Tim Ballard says the same thing about his wife all the time. And the fact that the origin story of OUR is sort of a vision and an inspiration. I don't doubt that. I have been listening to several podcasts with Tim Ballard, one of them being, you know,

Tom Harrison is the man behind Visions of Glory. He is Spencer in Visions of Glory. And Tom Harrison started a podcast called Eternal Core. And it's about therapy. Tom Harrison actually worked in aftercare for OUR. And so he did multiple podcasts with Chad Daybell in this Eternal Core podcast. And because many of you, that follow our daybell footage.

No, I have such an interest in the visions of glory book that Lori and Chad both loved and devoured, which, you know, again, Spencer is Tom Harrison, as well as a curiosity about Tom Harrison and then these groups, these preparing people groups, I've listened to all of these podcasts. We'll get into that another night. Here's the one thing I want to take away, though, and I said this to John. Tim is very sincere, comes across as very sincere in these podcasts. I believe that he believes it.

In other words, we refer to him oftentimes as a grifter or a con man. I'm not so sure. And I guess maybe I'm posing this to you, John. I think he, as far as the Messiah complex, there are people that are grifters and they're completely making things up. I do think that Tim's sincere. That's my takeaway. I do think he believes himself.

And I don't know if that makes it better or worse. I don't know. You know, certainly makes Lori Valo actually a bigger threat to society, which is why it's good she received three life sentences. I don't know. Any thoughts on that? I just thought that was an interesting aspect, too. We always discuss whether Chad believes or not. And I'm starting to believe, I guess I'm starting to believe that Chad really did believe himself, too.

I think Chad believes it. I think, and I think Tim Bauer believes it too. Yeah. So I think they're both, I think they're both true believers for sure. You know, I just read because we were talking about Chad Daybell this past week. I reread parts of his autobiography. And towards the end of Chad's autobiography, he says essentially, I'm not very creative that all my ideas are directly downloaded from God.

That my visions are real. They're factual. That his writings, even though he sells them as fiction, they're factual and they're downloaded from God into his brain because of his torn veil. So I don't think you, I think he really meant that when he wrote it. I think he still means it to a large degree. And I want to say in this sense, and maybe this is wrong of me, you guys can shame me. I do have some empathy for Tim Ballard because I do think that he started Operation Underground Railroad because he felt he was called of God.

I do think that he started it with good intentions. Jimmy Rex states that, so I'm going to believe Jimmy Rex. And I think in some ways, Tim Ballard is shocked by the churches condemnate. The church has called him immoral, and they've put that in public statements and confirmed those public statements multiple times to news outlets. I think I believe the people that know him personally

who say he's a very, very spiritual man. I don't know. And so I guess, you know, in this sense, it becomes like the Daybell case. at what point do these spiritual beliefs become dangerous? Or firm beliefs? At what point do they obstruct our ability to interpret the world? Or at what point do they create a certain amount of blindness that creates problems, right?

I think that's a part of the issue here is that there's that he's not. And Gina just said he and Gina just pointed out. you know, but, you know, I think this is where it comes down to something interesting. He knew he was manipulating people when he's doing it. That isn't spiritual. And I guess that's the eternal question. At what point do they become absolute manipulators? Or do you think that he convinced himself it was God's work?

That's the question, right? That's where it gets weird. Well, so. Sorry. Yeah. Let me just. Let me just weigh in on the sexual abuse allegations right now in terms of, so one of the things he would tell his victims, his alleged victims, let's say that, is that he was testing sexual chemistry because that was approved by God. Wow, right. Wow. Exactly. And there's another component that's really important in there, too, by the way. And this is where the psychic comes back.

back into play. This part just blew me away. So the psychic is involved in this to some degree. I don't, I don't think if there are charges here, I doubt she'll be charged. But she apparently, her role, she had a role in the, in the victimization in the sense that she apparently helped persuade the women of Tim Bowerd's claims that these were, that he was doing God's work. and he would ask them, how far are you willing to go to help children? But the psychic contributed to that in the sense that she validated

that Tim Ballard was a man of God and that he was doing God's work, right? So she contributed. She helped. And I don't know, you know, I don't know if that made a difference or not, but it's interesting that he brought her into the equation. Yeah.

And the attorney of the victims that gave a press conference did state spiritual abuse. Very clearly, spiritual abuse. Right. And grooming. That would mean he used spiritual tactics to groom these women. Right. And so to get back to your question, you know, it's a, is this just a peer manipulation? Or does he, because it starts with, it's, the, the abuse starts with him, say, him inventing

this thing he calls the couple's ruse. Right. The couple's ruse is that he would take female employees and they would pretend to be his wife. And so that meant that they had to sleep with them in the same bed. They had to shower with him. I don't know why they had to do that, by the way. I think there's other ways. Have affairs with him.

As Jimmy Rex says, full on affairs. Yeah. But the part that's, so that's how this begins, this couple's ruse idea. But his argument is that he needs to do, he needs to have a wife or a partner to fool the traffickers. Otherwise, if he's just by himself, they'll be on to him. Never mind the fact that he's on all these media outlets all over the world. and his face is everywhere. That doesn't matter.

But apparently having a wife is going to solve that problem or it will allow him to, I don't know, go deep undercover or appear more normal. I'm not quite sure what the logic is there. But somehow he believed that he could fool traffickers by having a partner or a wife or whatever, right? So I still don't. According to Tim Ballard on his Instagram account,

he stated that that way when they offered him, you know, when they said, yeah, we'll take care of you as a client, he could say, oh, no, my wife won't let me or she's around. That was his reasoning. Couples ruse. Yeah. Well, I mean, okay. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Right. The logic is still. I don't have enough money or, you know, I'm busy. I don't know. Anyway. Anyway, so, but that's, that's how it begins. It begins with this. So is that the question, is, is that a pure manipulation or does he really think that God wants that? That God intends him to,

because that's the only way, as you point out, that's the only way that he can somehow infiltrate these trafficking rings without having to engage in trafficking, I guess, himself, apparently, that he's still carrying out God's work. And now we're going to take a quick break to hear from a of our sponsors. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. Ora actively removes your data

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Well, so let's stay with this idea. let's get back to this idea of the Messiah complex. And let's talk about some of the downside of that, by the way. So the one problem with this Messiah complex and this idea that you're the only one who can solve a problem or do something effectively is that you really neglect your own relationships. And in addition to the fact that you can imagine that if you have this complex, you're going to be really controlling and manipulative.

But I think Tim Ballard also had this issue with anxiety that when he wasn't engaged in a covert operation or he wasn't out there trying to find these evil doers or these bad guys, these traffickers, that he felt like he should be. And so why don't you play the clip about number seven with the clip about his wife? Oh, yeah. So this is to set the stage here, Tim Ballard did a press conference after the Church of Jesus Christ, a lot of these things, after it came out that the church, of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints said that they were no longer connected to Tim Ballard in any way,

while he had a friendship with M. Russell Ballard, a member of the Quorum of 12 Apostles, top leadership in the church, no relation, despite their last names. They additionally stated that actions by Tim Ballard were immoral. And they then, the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints, in which Tim is a member, they took down every article. or talk mentioning Tim this week, Desiret Book, a well-known bookstore among the LDS population, has also removed all of Tim Ballard's books. I even tried to get a few from different publishers, Shadow Mountain.

You can no longer get these books of Tim Ballard. So anyway, the moment this news came down, which shocked the LDS community, many of them were supporters or still are supporters of Tim Ballard in Operation Underground Railroad. Tim Ballard heard word of it while he was on a tour in Boston. He was doing a covenant tour.

Fun fact, he does these covenant tours with Bruce Porter. You guys don't remember Bruce Porter. Bruce Porter made it into the FOIA documents with Chad Daybell, the love story, to be exact. John's nodding. John and I read this love story together, and there's a moment where Chad Daybell text Lori Valo and he says, I would have made a baby with you,

had Bruce Porter not been around. Well, Bruce Porter, so Bruce Porter has a famous or infamous name in the daybell case for being the ultimate, well, I won't say it, but I guess he stopped Chad and Lori from procreating on the couch at a preparing a people conference. He is the one who does the tours with Tim Ballard that had nothing to do with our analysis, just throwing in a fun fact for y'all. So, go ahead. He's like, he's like the Forrest Gump of Mormon fringe groups. right right he's just always there yeah he's always there he's always he's always there where there's some type of crazy action bruce porter and i met i saw him i was so excited i was like bruce i was fan girling bruce at one of these conferences i was like can i take a picture he's like who are you i'm

like i'm just a fan get over here and we took a selfie but yeah he's like the forest comp of these fringe grooves it's at everything so he's doing these covenant tour in boston it's not child trafficking and he gives a statement that's recorded on cell phone footage. So it's a very raw statement. It's very interesting. We received this. It was sent to all of the media. We pulled this from Fox 13. You can go check out their website. They've been great with the Ballard coverage. And yes, they do great news. They're real. I was a TV reporter in Utah. Here we go. This is one moment that is really interesting in this raw. cell phone footage.

Decided to make up this story. My children are being horrified. My children, my wife, I have missed the majority. For those that couldn't hear the full thing because it was quiet and not even transcription picked this up, Tim Ballard states

that his children are horrified and then he says, My wife has lived the life of a widow for years. I have missed the majority of my children's. I believe he says sports. I thought he's in childhoods, but okay.

But implying that he's missed their childhoods. He has missed their childhoods. And his wife has been a widow for years. Can I point out where he is, though? I just want to say, go home then. He's not, he's not on a undercover mission here. he's he's on a he's on a covenant tour go home why is he there why is he not home well it it gets to a larger issue i think and that is that what's the price someone pays for it gets to the larger

issue about this messiah complex or ego whatever we want to call it that that if you feel like you're the only one who can do something effectively and if you feel like that's your mission that's given to you by God and that you need to be a part of it and you feel a lot of anxiety when you're not in the action or you're not intervening, then this is what you get. But the thing is, the problem I have with this is this is self-inflicted. He can delegate all of this. He can be with his children. He can be with his family, right? But that's not the world he's created. created. And this gets into another issue with Tim Ballard and Chad Daybell and Jody Hildebrandt and many, many criminals. I could go on and on. And that's the idea of fantasy. That at some level,

what Tim Ballard has done here, and I don't know when this starts. So he works at Homeland Security for a number of years. I guess we don't, it's a little vague because to get someone's work history, and information about their work history and feedback about their work history is nearly impossible if they work for the government. So, I mean, there's obviously a lot of privacy around that, but we've heard some people tell us that he was just like a mid-level bureaucrat,

but that's not the story he tells. The story he tells is that he was in the thick of human trafficking, right, and he worked with ICE. So it's not clear. His history isn't that clear, But there is this fantasy about his importance, his self-importance. And there's this fan, I think at some point, Tim Ballard, for whatever reasons, I'm sure some of this relates to his childhood, I'm sure some of it relates to his work history.

Maybe he didn't feel like he was making a difference at work. Maybe he was relegated to some mid-manager role and he thought that he should be on the front lines. I don't know where this begins. We would love to learn that. Hopefully we'll learn that over time. But I think at some point, Tim Ballard has this fantasy that he's this action adventure hero. Yes.

Yes. He creates this fantasy of being this larger than life, Indiana Jones type action adventure hero who's out there rescuing kids because God told him to. Yes. So a lot of this is driven by that fantasy. And if you have that fantasy, and you believe you're the only one who can enact it

or can actually intervene effectively in these types of situations, then your family's going to be secondary. It's going to be less important. So when he's talking about being a widow, I mean, obviously he's not, his wife is not a widow. He's still alive. She's not a widower. He's still alive.

And he can still visit his family. It's just that he chooses not to. Right. He's in Boston giving a tour. right now. Yeah, he's in Boston. Like, go fly home. Go fly home. Go home. Especially during this crisis. Stop giving statements. Go get on a plane. If your children are horrified, go get on a plane. Go be with them. Stop everything and go home. Right. And so, so I think that's where, that's where this is one of the big downsides of

narcissism in general that and many times narcissism and narcissists, especially narcissistic personality disorder, is driven by these fantasies of greatness and the sense of grandiosity. Keep going. I'm going to take my own advice and go attend to our child who needs me right now. Keep talking. I'm listening to everything you're saying. Okay. What, what?

I don't know what I'm going to do. Continue with the narcissism. Continue with the narcissism. Unlike Tim Bauer, I don't know what I'm. I'm going to do without my family. You can do. We're right here. Okay.

So this idea of fantasy, I think, is really a crucial component of narcissism and this idea of the Messiah complex. And, you know, when I was thinking about this in terms of Tim Bower and kind of this idea of him creating this action-adventure hero or stepping into that role, as a type of action-adventure hero who's running around in the wilds of Columbia or South America or whatever, you know, I don't know where most of his, his operations occur. But I actually thought a lot about, for those of you who, for those of you have seen the documentary on Netflix, Inventing Anna, which is a story about Anna Delvey, that's not her real name.

her real name is Anna Sorokin. Anna Sorokin grew up in Russia. And then her family, when she was a teenager, roughly 16 years old, they moved to Germany. Her family was a family of modest means. They lived pretty simply. And that wasn't enough for Anna Delvey. Anadelvie, during her childhood,

she somehow felt that she wanted more. wanted to feel special and significant. And in the series, spoiler alert for those who haven't seen it, she gathers together, she decides that she's going to be an expert on fashion and all things fashion. And she gathers together a bunch of magazines and Vogue magazines. I don't know. Lauren needs to be here to tell me what the fashion magazines are. But she, there's, there's a scene.

And again, I don't know, I don't know if this is exactly accurate, but there's a scene in the documentary or the show where it's a fictionalized account. It's not a documentary where Anna Delvey surrounds herself with all these magazines. And she decides that she's, she wants to be someone who she's not. She creates this fantasy that she's this really fashionable, wealthy heiress. And that her family is wealthy beyond compare. and at some point as a young adult, she moves to New York City, she moves to Manhattan, and she perpetuates this fantasy of being a German heiress that's extremely wealthy,

that's really knowledgeable about fashion and wealth and good taste and all the things I'm not very aware of. but the point is that that she steps into this fantasy, this role of someone she is not. And it ends up sending her to prison, by the way, because she embezzles hundreds of thousands of dollars from banks and wealthy people. And she just absolutely uses everyone. And she's eventually convicted of fraud.

But I think that's a good example of, with Tim Ballard, I think you have a version of that. that at some point he creates this action adventure hero role and he steps into it and he doesn't know how to step out of it and I think stepping out of it would mean

that he would have to really change his perception of himself as this rescuer right and that gets into another really important component of the story and that by the way that is one of the criticisms of the movie Sound of Freedom is this idea that

human trafficking needs a rescuer, that human trafficking is about rescue and not about something else. And I think that that has also been one of the criticisms of all you are, is that this idea that if you go to a foreign country and children are being trafficked and you take them from one location and move them to another location, maybe you've helped them in that moment, obviously, maybe you've rescued them for a month, a couple of weeks, but have you really affected change? There's a high probability that in those cases that the victims are probably going to go back right where they started, and there's a high probability that the victims could be arrested, maybe not children, but certainly adults.

In some cases, children can be punished after the fact. And there's also the element of trauma that these raids, these sudden potentially violent raids are traumatic for victims. They take a toll, right? These are kids that are in the thick of trauma. And so I think it's interesting to note, that there's this mythology with Tim Bauer about how human trafficking should look.

And there's this mythology about, about rescuing victims and seeing that as the most compelling narrative in terms of how human trafficking should look. So, Lauren, can you hear me? Can you, oh, okay. So. Oh my goodness.

Wait. Christina, thank you so much and thank you everyone. Yes, I'm here. Okay. Yeah. I'm my advice right now.

We have a little, he's a little sick. So. Oh, okay. Yeah. But he's being a trooper. But I was listening to everything you're saying. The best I guess.

So I'm just making the point that, you know, that I think what's going on here, part of what's going on here is, and that's not, to say, I don't want to argue, by the way, that there aren't kids in South America or Thailand or foreign countries that need to be rescued. They do. And Tim Ballard has rescued children, some that he's even adopted.

You know, nothing as, as Jimmy Rex often says, actually two things can be true at the same time. Or that's how he says it. But right. There are children that need to be rescued. Right. There absolutely are. But I think it's also important to pull.

point out that the statistics aren't clear, that most of the human trafficking that occurs does not involve rescue. It involves most human trafficking, most victims are trafficked by people they know. And so it's not, it's not this notion of some crime syndicate that, you know, some nefarious unknown crime syndicate of strangers, which the movie portrays, that are just picking kids off the street left and right and trafficking them all over the world. That's, that's a myth. Why don't I play what Jimmy Rex state his thoughts? Jimmy Rex has, you know, again, he's been on multiple rescue missions and he has his thoughts about it. And again, the question is the question isn't you know operation on the ground railroad has not helped anyone tim ballad has not

helped anyone the question is are they doing more harm than good i think that's always the question one needs to pose because nothing is black and white are they doing more good than harm are they doing more harm than good that that is the question we should be asking right because you know everybody so so let's listen to jimmy rex what he thinks when it comes to his thoughts i had a problem with though the reason why I stopped doing it is because there were times when I felt like so one of the opposite we did I'll be honest it was the one in Cancun it was the one that Tim led these guys these kids they were like 22 23 I don't think they'd been trafficking if they had not much and I remember you know they went out and they found these guys and it took them about three days in cancun to find anybody trafficking somebody

and they finally found these kids and part of me was like well were these guys really trafficking because they were young kids they were kind of idiots they were like 20 again they're like in their young 20s And I remember when they showed up to the party and they had these girls. And I remember thinking to myself like, did these guys just go round up some girls they know or like whatever and said, come to this party, sleep with these Americans. These rich Americans will pay you or something. And I never, you just never sat right with me. And I saw that firsthand. And so when people say maybe they create trafficking, I'm not saying that didn't happen.

I do think it was a flawed method now looking back with perspective. I had to tell one kid in Ecuador. I remember he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we traffic girls or whatever. And I remember to look at the kid. I'm like, this kid doesn't traffic girls. He was like, 21 years old. He's like, yeah, yeah. And I remember he's like, I'll be back in two hours.

I'll show you. And he brings this girl back. She was like, 16 probably. And he's like, yeah, yeah, what do you guys think? And I remember, I pull him aside. We're in like the basement of this warehouse thing. And I'm like, dude, this isn't, who is this? Is this your sister?

Is this your girlfriend or what? And he's kind of like, what? And I was like, is this your girlfriend? He's like, yeah. I was like, you don't traffic this girl, do you? And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, dude, get her out of here. You don't know what the fuck you're doing.

Get her out of here. You don't traffic this girl. And he's like, okay, and that was my last stop I ever did. I was done after that. That's interesting. That would imply that would imply that they're creating a bit of a need, right? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, right. And that's, that's been one of the criticisms of, oh, you are, is that if a bunch of seemingly wealthy Americans show up and they're waving money around and they're looking for trafficking or traffickers, then people will show up with victims, supposed victims of trafficking who aren't really victims. And so this is an example of that, right? That people were showing up with girlfriends and sisters and these weren't victims of trafficking. These were just

locals that were looking to make some money who saw a bunch of gullible rich Americans that were waving money around and they wanted to take it. Correct. Here's another story from Jimmy Rick. This is a concern that he has actually about a possible. So he continues with ways he's concerned that perhaps they're creating a need or they're creating trafficking and he brings up his thoughts about sound of freedom even the movie sound of freedom that is

touted as bringing awareness to child trafficking here we go is i do have another entire problem with this entire thing and this is what i want to say about like there's this thing energetically with the universe that like when you start talking about something more it's like you're you're going to notice it more you're going to be more aware of it and i think the very active talking. I've changed my opinion on this. My original opinion was like, we have to make sure everybody knows about trafficking. This is like this evil that nobody's talking about, that nobody knows about. And so it was like I wanted to help spread the word to everybody. And the more it gets talked about, though, the more it becomes real to people. And I think

that plants the seed for a lot of people that never would have thought about it to actually participate in it. And the numbers that I've heard that it's only going up, the number of children being trafficked in the last 10 years. So since OUR was founded, it's not. not doing any better. It's actually doing much worse. And so I just think that the whole thing is, I kind of wish, I don't know, like part of me thinks that it needs like the very active sound of freedom becoming the number one movie. It's great for awareness, but how many people now have the seed planted that, oh my gosh, you can actually go get this where they never would have thought about it before. And so that part is tricky. And I think that that is being miss, it's just

not being counted into the fact of everything that's going on. It's his, it's his perspective. You know. Let me tell you this. There is a man. So this is local news. August 23rd, 2023. This is ABC for Utah. This is where I used to work as a reporter.

This is my station in Salt Lake City. Tim Ballard supporter, former LDS youth leader sentence for possessing something I'm not going to say. You know what? Material of the depicting minors. a former youth leader for the Church of Jesus Christ, Laudity Saints, was sentenced this week for possession of, you know what. And he was also known to support Tim Ballard, which fights against trafficking.

According to court documents, Eric Mosteller, 58 was convicted after pleading guilty to two second-degree felony charges of exploitation. A court document states that the child stuff was viewed and distributed by him, and that he, according to his sisters, he was invited to be involved in a movie premiere about Tim Ballard's Operation Underground Railroad, he then discovered the deep web and downloaded information not available to general web users and claims that this was part of his research. So, I mean, there's an example right there.

You know, I think it's a big question about, it's a big question about how I think transparency is generally a good thing, but I think it's a big question about how to discuss it without creating harm or potential harm and how to discuss like anything, right? Like, you know. And as you said, having a discussion about how to create, you know, how to discuss it, to discuss how to do this without creating harm is an eternal question we should all be asking. It's about best practices. It's about learning and growing and not being an island either,

working with other agencies in what to do to not create harm. I think so on the one hand, you might say that he's downplaying the impact or importance of human trafficking. And that could be a potential problem. But on the other hand, I think he's raising a real question about whether this whole idea of the rescue mythology is the best way to handle it. So, you know, again, like, I mean, I think part of the reasons we're talking about this is this is really complex. This isn't as simple, you know, it'd be nice if we lived in a world where all kids were trafficked in the same way. And all we had to do was send in squads or paramilitary groups to go rescue that. Right.

And then, you know, but keep in mind, these kids all have families. Where are they going to go? who's going to care for them? Who's going to give them medical treatment? Right. There's so many unknowns here. Right. I agree with you.

Wouldn't it be nice if everything was done the same way? Exactly. Wouldn't it be nice if things were so black and white and we could just solve this with a hero? We want a hero. Humans want heroes. We want to think that somebody knows what they're doing and they solve the problem. But the truth is, we don't live in a world where one person can be a hero. It takes a village.

It takes research. it takes evidence, it takes a lot of skill, a lot of agencies, a lot of education. It takes so much more than a hero who has a vision and believes that God called him to this. As good as that sounds. Wouldn't it be nice? Right, exactly. And I think part of the problem is you're here, you're trying to oversimplify a very complex problem. And there's a paradigm here that's doing that.

And the paradigm is you have a victim, you haven't, so you have a victim of trafficking, you have an evil doer who's harming that victim in some way, and then you have a savior, or a Messiah who's intervening, right? Those are the three components of this story. And that's not, that's a very complicated story in the sense that a lot of times the evildoer is someone who knows the victim. The evil doer oftentimes is closer to home. They're not in Columbia.

They're in your backyard. In fact, I'm going to read, this is a quote from, this is a quote from Teresa Hozard. She's the CEO of the National Children's Alliance. She says, quote, we want to believe that people trafficking children are unknown, nefarious strangers. It makes people uncomfortable to think that some of these things happen in their own communities and their own schools with people they might run into at the grocery store. which by the way, this was, this was exactly the same problem. So Sigmund Freud, who's the founder of our field,

Sigmund Freud ran into this exact same problem that he, Freud started off with this thing called the seduction hypothesis, which was he believed that there was rampant sexual abuse in Victorian Austria at the time 150 years ago. And people went crazy. They rejected that. They were, they thought he was out of his mind. and they couldn't conceive of the fact that families were capable of harming their own kids.

And Freud actually amended his, after kind of a lot of pushback, he actually amended his fundamental premise and said that, well, they weren't being sexually abused. They were having dreams or fantasies of being abused, so it didn't actually occur. But that's not what he meant originally. And I think you have something, you know, it's hard for people to imagine that so one, So here's a, here's a scenario that I've seen in terms of when I've worked with victims myself. We've had children in the agency I've worked for show up that were essentially trafficked because their parents were drug addicts and they needed money.

That's a horrendous scenario, but it's real. Those aren't kids, those aren't kids that are in Columbia that are being held hostage by unknown strangers. Those are real kids in our community. And it happens more than you'd think. And it's horrible. But, you know, I mean, that's the world we live in. Yes. Did we?

Thank you. Thank you. What you're saying resonates with me so much. And I love you and I'm so grateful I'm married you. Amen. Do we lose half our listeners yet? Did we play the first? Did we play the first clip?

It was one of the most important ones. I think we probably did. It looks like it might be crossed up at where Jimmy Rex explains that they couldn't even find children. Yeah. No, we haven't played it yet. Should I play that now? Yeah, play it. Please.

When you say there really don't think the problems as big as people say, I think that there is a huge issue. But I think that you can get people really emotional when you say there's eight million kids being trafficked. I do not know where eight million kids are being trafficked. We couldn't find any in half the cities we went to. And that's something I've never really taken. talked about either. And so I don't know. I don't want to minimize the problem. It's huge. I think that because of the internet, because of the ability, like think about it, I think the most important thing is how do you protect your kids? I think you have to understand that number one is most kids are

trafficked from their houses. And I think if you understand what's really going on, you can approach it much differently. If your kids starts acting differently, if your kids starts being shy or starts acting out, something has probably happened, whether they've been abused or whether they're being trafficked. You want to be able to monitor who's talking to your children. You want to be able to see who's actually communicating with them. Did that play the cities? Did that play that part? No, that didn't play the city's part. Let's see. I think it might have, but we missed it. Let's play it one more time. People are really emotional when you say there really don't think the problems as big as people say. I think that there is a huge issue. But I think that you can get people really emotional when you say

there's eight million kids being trafficked. I do not know where eight million kids are being trafficked. We couldn't find any in half the cities we went to. We couldn't find any in half the cities we went to. Right. And so actually, I looked up some of the statistics. The numbers are, so I don't know if I think the numbers OUR gives out are two to eight million kids are being trafficked. The actual numbers are roughly 600 to 800,000 victims of trafficking every year. It's awful. across international borders, 50% of those are children. So Jimmy Rex is right in the sense that the numbers are not. But it doesn't matter because I'm not going to definitely the importance of this.

Yeah. If there's one child that's trafficked, that's horrendous. And that matters and that matters and we need to help them. Right, exactly. But the inflating is just odd. And as he also pointed out in an earlier clip, things are getting better. since oh you are you know but we have to do a lot it is complex and again we're all here we all want and we all need to have knowledge we all want to stop and let me as long as we're talking about this

i want to read a quote from jean brugman she this is from an article in the rolling stone about the movie the sound of freedom she jean i might be pronounced june brueggeman She's the executive director of the Freedom Network USA, which is an organization that deals with human trafficking. There's what she says. This is probably one of the best summaries I've seen, so I'm going to read this. Generally, young people end up in trafficking situations because their family is an incredible poverty because of political unrest, because the child is being rejected by their family for their sexual orientation or gender identity or any number of things. They are likely to be trafficked again unless you address the,

underlying issue, what made them vulnerable in the first place, question mark. Why was their family not able to keep them safe? Question mark. Those are the questions that are ignored in the narrative of, oh, they're in a bad place. All we have to do is move them and leave. That was so profound. In order to stop trafficking, we have to also get it at its core. Why does it happen?

Right. Pulling a child out of it might rescue one child, but it could also be increasing and they could go find another child. Right. Until you decide to tackle it at its root, it will never stop. And one of the huge criticisms of OUR is, and I don't know maybe they've remedied this, but is their aftercare. The aftercare is, okay, you rescue a child, now what? So the organizations that deal with the best, they bring in lawyers, social workers, They have shelters, housing, medical, employment training, right?

They have all these components. And, you know, the education, right? They try to deal with some of those root causes. And it has been a criticism of OUR, in addition to the fact that they've provided trumped-up stories that were false of victims they've worked with, including a victim who, her anonymous name is Liliana. That's part of the origin story of OUR, by the way, that Tim Ballard had said that OUR rescued her. He didn't.

She escaped on her own. These are all in court records. He said that their organization saved her. They didn't provide aftercare. She only got to know them later or had some collaboration with the organization much later after she escaped. But putting that aside, this issue of aftercare is. critical because it gets to that question of why was the family not able to keep them safe in the first place, right? And then if you take a child, let's say you take a child from Columbia and you

bring them in the United States, which I don't know if that's possible, but let's assume that they can, they can get through immigration and attorneys help them with that, then they need a new family. Is that family going to be viable? Is that family going to keep them safe? I don't know. There's so many questions. This is complex. This is not just as simple as here's a victim of trafficking, here's an evildoer, and here's a savior that's going to rescue everyone or a hero. Yeah, I'll play one more Jimmy Rex clip. Again, a reminder to go visit Jimmy Rex in this video. The video that we

have used is in the description of this interview or this video. Go check him out. Thank him for him. his video and coming forward if you appreciate that he's done this. Yeah, their aftercare, I know consisted of Tom Harrison as heading it for quite a while. So that's interesting, you know, no longer. But Tom Harrison, again, of visions of glory. He also wrote some really interesting, she also had some really interesting visions himself of, well, I can't say those. Okay. We'll go ahead. So here it is. This is what Jimmy Rex has to say about the aftercare situation.

I wish I knew the outcome of some of the girls that we rescued. Of all the rescues we ever did, I never got a single update. I tried multiple times and updated what happened to them later. And so people have criticized what you are for their aftercare and all these things. I have no idea. Simply saying he didn't know. But this is a man. And you could say, let me just, let me play devil's advocate here.

You could say, well, once a victim is rescued, we have to keep all confidential, things confidential and you can't know. But, but this is a man that's very, that's been on, you know, probably over 10 OUR missions with Tim Ballard, who, who rescue girls. And very often, you would think that he'd be able to get some intel on how one or two of these girls that he rescues doing. Could you tell me? How's it going? And he's saying he tried. He tried. And he couldn't get any information. Right. And he heard not. He didn't know about a single victim that was receiving aftercare or at least receiving long-term aftercare.

So it raises questions. It does. And it does raise questions. It does. And I want you to know that as a journalist, I have been trying to research and get a list of therapists involved in OUR's aftercare. I think that's really important. I've reached out in multiple different ways, including reaching out to the OUR.

head of aftercare. I've had someone else reach out. I want you to know I've received no answers. I feel like it's something that should be fairly transparent. How do we care for victims after they're rescued? I want you to know I have been trying to find out because I don't know either. I would like a list of therapists or the help or the organizations that are standing by that they've partnered with to do with this. It would be nice, but nothing so far.

I'll let you know if I ever find anything. Okay. John, I love what resonates the most with me is to come full circle. It's so important to help children and victims of trafficking. And we're all here. We're all wanting to do that. And so the question is, what is the best way? And I think that quote you read nailed it.

We have to find out why it happens. And we have to start tackling that as a society. And I think if each one of us cares, as much as we say we care, to start researching yourself, find out best practices, find out why it happens. Research, learn. And let's start supporting the organizations and groups that we believe might be able to help. Yeah. I mean, I think those two questions are the critical questions. And let me repeat them. So the first question is what made them vulnerable in the first place?

Was it poverty? Was it economic circumstances? Right? Was it political unrest? There's so many reasons Why were these victims vulnerable? And then the next question is, what was it, why was their family not able to keep them safe? Was it drugs? Was it addiction, right? Was it what was going on in the family? And where were the vulnerabilities in the community or society. Those are the two questions that we need to really consider, I think. Lee Perry, speak for yourself. My husband has saved so many children. So that's not true. I'm sorry, I'm just really sick of the people saying no one else has gone to do this except for for Tim Ballard, the man we're talking about. And that's simply that's ridiculous. That's why we're here talking about this. To say that none of these people here in chat have saved children is ridiculous.

It's ridiculous. You know, I've saved families. I'm proud to say that. And children that are part of families that were on the verge of collapse, that's not going to Columbia with a gun and pretending to be a hero and to rescue people.

But I mean, Jimmy Rex, don't take my word for it. Jimmy Rex, who worked closely with Tim Bauer, he's basically saying, look, this whole thing, wasn't what it seemed to be, right? And I mean, you know, I'm sorry. I mean, you know, this, unfortunately, this issue has become politicized. Exactly. And it shouldn't be.

Can we stop politicizing this issue? If we're going to really dig deep into this conversation, then we'd have to talk about politics, and I really don't want to do that. But the reality is that human trafficking has become extremely politicized. Tim Ballard has contributed to that by talking about wave, He's made public statements about how wayfair the furniture company is trafficking children on their website, buying and selling kids on their website. Is politicizing human trafficking really doing more good than harm? What would be more effective and productive?

We need to stop politicizing this issue. And those that do politicize it, and if you notice they're politicizing it, that is a giant red flag. because I would say most people want to fight it. Right, exactly. And fighting it, like it or not, fighting it often begins at home. It doesn't happen in the wilds of Colombia. Doesn't happen in the wilds of Brazil or whatever. Take your choice of countries.

It happens here. Yes. Yes. And ask, why does it happen? And when you divide people and you decide that this is a political issue, nobody's getting any closer. When you decide that only people to go to Columbia with a gun are saving children, no one's getting closer.

It does create divide. And I will say, I will say, I feel like Tim Ballard has created a divide. There's a lot of gas lighting. Let's talk about that for a second. This is a problem with OUR, and I'll say it,

you, you know, you have a question or a concern about him. You are, you don't want to save children. You have a concern about the move, because you're afraid it might be creating a need for trafficking, you are part of the problem. With shame on you, you don't want to save children. That is gaslighting. That is another red flag.

When you question an organization or something or you have thoughts about it, that is okay. And if someone fights back to say, well, you just don't care about kids, that's gaslighting. And all of these things are red flags. Let's talk about the very basis of that. and this organization. It divides. It doesn't unite. It shames people. It doesn't bring people in to say, hey, let's hear from all sides.

Let's stop being an island. And let's care about this issue. Right. It goes back to something I said early on when we started this podcast, which is this was a risky topic, but we decided to do it. So we don't shy away from what we believe to be. an accurate analysis and if people don't disagree with us, that's fine too. We're not, you know, we're not here to, we're not here to pander to our listeners. So we're here to express what we think

is the most accurate interpretation of the situation. When you're afraid, yeah, I just want to say this, when you're afraid to do a YouTube live about somebody because you think you're going to be accused of promoting human trafficking, that's a red flag. The fact that that's a chilling effect. That's how you get people to shut up and not speak out. And that's why John and I are speaking out today too. I just want to say that when all of a sudden we feel like we can't speak out about someone because we'll be shamed and will be promoted as part of a political ploy

or trying to get him from not being able to run in a Senate race or that's a red flag. I mean, let's go back to the evidence. Jimmy Rex is one of his best friends. Jimmy Rex is telling us that Tim Bowerd abused women, victims, employees. Yes. I mean, I don't know. That's human trafficking. Right.

That's getting them into another country where you don't have to obey the same laws as in the United States, where you might be able to get away with something, where you convince them to come. to save children and then you take advantage of them, that's human trafficking. So anyway, where do you want to go with this? I don't know. I said what I've been wanting to say. Okay. Yeah, I think we've showed all the clips. Maybe we should start wrapping up. But I think for me, where Tim Bauer crosses the line is with the allegations of abuse.

and to me that doesn't make him very heroic. But that's my view. But I think that the problem here is that Tim Ballard created this fantasy of what human trafficking is like or should look like. And then he stepped into that fantasy and started living it. And he lost sight of the big picture. This all became about him and his organization. And there's now the famous whiteboard.

Yeah, the famous whiteboard. We know from the famous whiteboard. We haven't shown that. We don't know if we can, but the story is that Tim Bauer gave a talk and he had a whiteboard and he mapped out all his goals and visions for OUR and himself. And essentially the funnel led down to one area, which was all about Tim Bauer and his fame and his fortune. He wanted to get $50,000 to $100,000 per talk.

He wants to be a famous speaker. He wants to be a celebrity. he wants to be rich. It was all about him. And the way you get to that, the way you get to the bottom of the funnel where you're rich and famous if you're Tim Bauer is you create a fantasy about being an action adventure hero

who goes in and saves the world by rescuing kids from foreign countries. You don't care at all necessarily about the kids in your backyard, but you go elsewhere and you promote yourself endlessly and you accomplish your goals, right? And so this is all based on a fantasy that really obscures his ability to interpret the world. And that would be true of Chad Daybell,

that would be true of Jury Hildebrandt, that would be true of Rex Hewerman, that would be true of a lot of criminals. That fantasy, these perpetual fantasies that really divorce people from reality create a lot of problems. And if you don't mind, Lauren, I'm going to end with a quote

from an author I love Kurt Vonnegut. This is from Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Mother Knight. Kurt Vonnegut says, quote, we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. So don't pretend to be a Messiah and don't pretend to be an action-adventure hero that's going to save the world

and all the kids in the world because you're probably not. I'd rather pretend to be a real human being who can make a difference in my life. community and that has limitations and vulnerabilities and that understands those limitations and right and and has a realistic perception of himself. Thank you, Dr. Babe. I love you.

Thank you. I love you too. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for your patience while we had a few hiccups and had to take care of our family. Thank you for being here. please, if this matters to you and it resonated with you, share this with your family. Thank you. Thank you so much to AKA who suggested that we all listen with an open mind, aka the cat lady.

Encourage your family members to do that. And thank you. And may we all make this world a better place with the talents and skills and resources and brains that we have. Thank you, babe. I love you so much. All right. I love you too. Thank you guys for hanging in there.

For those of you who did hang in there tonight, we appreciate it. You know, sometimes we tackle controversial subjects, and this is one of them. And thank you for listening. And if you participated in the dialogue in a healthy manner, thank you for that too. Thank you. We'll see you. All right. Good night.

Hello, Hidden Jems. It's Lauren with Hidden a True Crime podcast. As a TV reporter, I learned the art of visual storytelling. So if you're like me, you enjoy listening, but also viewing. You can actually head to our YouTube channel, Hidden True Crime, to watch these interviews. Hit the subscribe button for surprise lives and breaking news. And for exclusive content, things Dr. John and I only dare say behind a paywall, become a Patreon member at patreon.com slash hidden true crime.

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