Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘Makes My Blood Boil’: Johnny Depp’s Lawyer Reacts to YouTube Mom Ruby Franke’s Child Abuse Case

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Forty-one-year-old YouTube mom Ruby Franke and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, were arrested on August 30 after Franke’s 12-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt’s home “covered in wounds.” The duo was charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse after it was discovered Franke allegedly tied up two of her children with duct tape and starved them in the Utah home. Famed Johnny Depp attorney Ben Chew said this “heartbreaking” case makes his “blood boil.” The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber discusses the disturbing case with Chew, a partner at Brown Rudnick law firm.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Here's the problem. What do you do when you're disabling your kids and they make you laugh? It's frustrating. There are many outstanding legal questions for alleged child abuser Ruby Frankie out of Utah. Why didn't she sue anyone accusing her of child? child abuse? What should we look out for with her husband? Is the Department of Child and Family

Services to Blaine? We get into it all with acclaimed attorney Ben Chu, the man who famously represented Johnny Depp. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. So we are continuing our analysis of this very disturbing Ruby Frankie case out of Utah, the 41-year-old wife and mother of six, who has now been charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse alongside her co-defendant and business partner Jody Hildebrand. And one of the reasons this story is being followed by so many people is because Frankie was a popular YouTuber. Yeah, she and her husband, Kevin Frankie, they launched this YouTube channel called eight passengers back in 2015. It was all about them as a couple, their children. Very popular. It had over two million

subscribers and it focused on parenting and homeschooling. It was interesting because Frankie and her husband are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And she appeared also on these videos with Jody Hildebrand, who founded a life counseling organization known as Connections, previously known as Moms of Truth. Let's talk about trust. What is trust? Where does trust come in? The principle is, I am responsible to be worthy of trust. So I am the one that generate trust. I am the one that generates safety. It comes from me. So if Ruby comes and she interacts with me, I don't look at Ruby and say, oh, is she trustworthy? I'm not looking at her. I'm looking at me and saying, am I honest, responsible and humble? Am I a safe person? And then she is the

beneficiary of me being safe and me being full of trust. And all of this came to a head when when police were alerted through a 911 phone call about that something was happening at Hildebrandt's residence. 911 on the address of your emergency. Tell me exactly what's happened. I just had a 12-year-old boy show up here at my front door asking for help. We know there's been problems at this neighbor's house. He's emaciated.

He's got tape around his legs. He's hungry and he's thirsty. And he asked us to call the police. So he's very afraid. This kid has obviously been, I think he's been, he's been detained, he's been, he's obviously covered in wounds. We need the cops here as soon as possible. Now, according to a probable cause affidavit, Frankie's 12-year-old son climbed out of a window at Hildebrandt's residence, ran to a neighbor asking for food and water. He was reportedly malnourished, emaciated.

He had duct tape on his ankles and his wrists. These deep lacerations from being tied up. Just horrific to think about. And when police arrived, they found Frankie's 10-year-old daughter in very similar conditions. So Frankie, Hildebrandt, they were arrested. They were each charged, as I said, with six counts of child abuse. Each count goes up to 15 years in prison. That's the maximum.

And there is a lot to digest in this case, including a recent court hearing that was absolutely derailed when the Zoom link was shared online and hundreds of people tried to sign on. We're going to get into that. But I want to bring in right now a very special guest to talk about this case. I'm joined by acclaimed attorney Ben Shue, who famously represented Johnny Depp in his lawsuit against Amber Hurd, a case dominated by abuse allegations and what is abuse at the center of it. Ben, it is so good to see you. Now, I would say I haven't seen you in a while, but that would mean that I haven't seen you in person, which is true. I have seen you a lot because I was just binging the Netflix documentary where you are featured prominently. I have to imagine, Ben,

that you have been inundated with people writing you and telling you that they saw you. Am I wrong? Jesse, you're right. Thank you very much for having me. It's good to see you again. Yes, I wasn't aware that was coming out until recently, but yes, it seems to have been gotten a lot of a lot of eyes on it. I share that because I didn't realize when it was coming out. And then I just get a million texts, messages, all these things. Were you just in the documentary? Were you just in it?

And apparently I was in it. I didn't even, I wasn't totally aware. You definitely are in it. I am in it. I am in it. So, Ben, good to see you. Let's talk about this case. I just want to start.

We haven't spoken about it. What are your initial thoughts when you heard about this case? as a father of two kids 11 and 12 years old it really makes my blood boil it's just it's uh i just did a trip a service trip with 23 12 year old boys and girls so i've had a firsthand look at how innocent they still are and the thought of this boy and then his sister being emaciated and mistreated, it really, it shocks the conscience. It really does. And they think there's such an incredible interest in this case.

A, if it was just an abuse case, even in it of itself, you know, a mom of six doing this, what she's accused of. But the fact that she was this YouTuber and people were suspecting it for a while and were invested in the case, you know a thing or two about high profile cases. And I'm going to give you an example here. So as of right now, Frankie and Hildebrand, they're. continue to be held without bail following a hearing from last week, that hearing was delayed when the Zoom link was circulated, I believe on TikTok, and over a thousand people tried to

join this hearing, caused absolute chaos, huge technical problem. It delayed it. The live stream was shut off. Just walk me through why you think there's so much interest in this kind of case. well i think you have a person who is obviously very popular on social media she's very physically attractive you can see you know how this would generate interest you also have the sensational allegations and you know sick children being abused so i think it's it's natural that there would be a lot of attention to this and frankly i would think there'd be a lot of outrage as well Is that a good thing or a bad thing for the prosecution of Frankie and Hildebrandt that the public is so invested in this? Hopefully it won't impact the prosecution at all.

I mean, I think they really should play it by the book. In other words, just treat her the way they would treat any other mother who was accused of abusing six children. And hopefully they will do that. I know as a practical matter, it's impossible to just close your eyes and pretend the cameras aren't there. But as much as you can do that, I think the better off you are, because if you start playing to the cameras to start thinking too much about the media, I think you're going to take your eye off the ball. I mean, Novak Djokovic said yesterday after he won his 24th Grand Slam, that in the last 24 hours before the match, he asked his wife and his family, as supporters not to talk about how much attention there would be to this. And I think the prosecutors should take a leave from that book. That's a good point. That's a really good point.

You know, on another point, they might be saying the more people know about this, maybe they can bring out further evidence that they didn't have, you know, allegations, things like that. And I think that's important. Yeah, right? I think that's going to be important as well, the fact that, oh, my goodness, look what came to light. Now I someone might feel comfortable coming forward and say, let me tell you what I saw or heard. That's a great point, Jesse. We have a case right now where the plaintiff had filed as John Doe. And the first thing we did was move the court to identify him. And the moment the court identified him and made him disclose his name, we were inundated with information about this plaintiff, which was very helpful. Now, that's a civil case. Obviously, it's very different. But I think it would apply even more so, as you said, to a criminal. case. I have to ask you about what happened at this hearing. Again, because it completely broke down, I don't think we have video of this, but let me, what the reporting indicates

from multiple outlets, apparently Ruby Frankie was crying in court, and she made these claims that one of her minor children was sexually abusing their sibling and molested several family members, children in the neighborhood, at least I think 20 people. She claimed that this child abused 20 people. She claimed that two of her children were playing some sort of padding game, didn't go into further detail. Talked about how one of the children was watching pornography at a young age. It's so shocking. And I'm not sure what that means to her defense or what that means to her case for her to make this kind of claim. I think it's tremendously detrimental to her case. First of all, I mean, she should have, if any of this were true, she should have reported it at the time rather than waiting to be arrested in a rain.

So that's number one, because if that abuse was going on, that's on her and her husband, to the extent that the husband was there, which I understand he may not have been. So we shouldn't impugn him at all right now. But that all points the finger at her. and also the fact that she would make those allegations against her own children in a public forum. Now, I don't know whether she identified the child, but it wouldn't be hard to figure out since it's a finite universe of six. I think it's terrible for her defense. I think it also shows it doesn't shine a very good light on her character that she would say these things in public, even if true. So the judge said that this child will then need to be placed in a home with no other children in light of these allegations.

Again, this is based on the reporting of what happened in that hearing. I'm glad I have you, because I wanted to ask you first about that. If this is totally false and this is just a wild outlandish claim, could a minor child have a legal action against a parent like this? Yes, I think so. And I think that the cause of action would be stayed until that child hits adulthood. So I don't think not to be too technical about this, but I think the child does not have to move with the alacrity than anybody else that an adult would have to move. I think there's a legal presumption that allows him to go to adulthood before the statute of limitations clock begins to run. But yes, I absolutely do think the child has a cause of action against the mother for defamation and for could be physical battery and all kinds of other civil versions of the criminal charges that have been filed.

Yeah, before I even get to my next point, I guess in terms of the victims in this case, there's the criminal aspect, but we always know that there's also a civil aspect. do you anticipate that is something we should be on the lookout children suing ruby frankie uh for this alleged abuse absolutely and again i think they have the luxury although luxury may not be the right word but they have the luxury of waiting um i mean oftentimes as you know people wait until the the criminal case has been fully adjudicated before filing the civil action or they try to stay the statute of limitations here they won't have that issue but Yeah, absolutely. I would anticipate a civil action by the children. But then you get into the issue of, you know, what type of recovery is possible and what kind of assets is she, is Frankie going to have at the end of the day? I know she's a YouTube celebrity, but I think the cost of her criminal defense is going to be such. I don't know what kind of assets she's going to have to satisfy a judgment. And remember, I said alleged because I'm very curious to see what can be proven.

And this is one of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you, Ben, because I am bothered by something. I'm bothered by the fact that people for a while suspected that Frankie was up to no good. There was a change.org petition set up where people signed to have Frankie investigated for allegations of child abuse. They wanted child protective services to get involved. There was criticism of her online. People were making comments about her. she responded to those comments, police were called to the home last year after they received

reports over the well-being of the kids. In fact, Sherry Frankie, Ruby's daughter, called police to alert them that the kids have been left home alone for, I think it was five days. It's happened back in September of 2022. So you have all these people saying these things about Ruby Frankie and doing all these things in light of Ruby Frankie. Here's the part I don't understand I'm bothered by. If all of this was fake, if all of this was lies spread about her, why didn't Ruby Frankie ever file a lawsuit for defamation against anybody, right? And I never saw that she did. Is that not revealing to you? It is. It is because you can imagine, Jesse, if you were accused as such a monstrous thing,

or if I were, that would be my first inclination. Now, she would probably have to prove actual malice, which, as you know, is knowledge or reckless, extremely. recklessness as to the truth. But I think you would take that on, you know, if you had been accused of this. So I think it is very telling. In the case of Johnny Depp, I mean, he certainly took it on despite all the inherent risks of a defamation case because he needed to clear his name. Yeah. And it's one of those things where you could say, well, maybe she felt that nobody was believing her. I don't know. The YouTube channel, she stopped posting videos. She was responding to the criticism so it seemed like people were believing what was being said

about her, which again, raised the question why she didn't take legal action if all this was fake. And also I'll mention Ben, when she was arrested, when she was taken into custody, she requested a lawyer and did not speak to police. Now, do you find that to be, hey, that was just a smart legal strategy? She shouldn't say anything. Or is it suspicious? Because again, if she really had nothing to do with this and she's arrested, she could have easily said, wait a second wait a second my kids are abused what are you talking about what are they okay she chose not to say anything and lawyered up your thoughts i think it's both i mean i think it's both smart legally but it's also suspect especially as as a mother or a parent i think you would your first

concern would be the well-being of the child and once you were satisfied that your 12-year-old you know was in safe hands your concern would be to you know to clear your name and to find out what happens. So yes, I do find it suspicious, so it's not something that the jury will hear. I wanted to talk to you about something that I was talking about how things didn't happen earlier. You know, could she have been arrested earlier? Could this have been stopped earlier? And I wanted to ask you about whether the Department of Child and Family Services could be in legal trouble. I mentioned how police were contacted to check in on the Frankie's police lieutenant Warren Foster told NBC News that police made several attempts to follow up what was going on. He said

that there were inquiries from the DCFS. DCFS yielded no results. Apparently they were called to the house in 2020. You have Representative Christine Watkins, who is a chair of a panel that reviews the DCFS. And they said, and she said, quote, I had concerns when I heard about the case. Not only were neighbors calling, but older siblings were calling too. It sounds like those kids were pretty bad shape, and it's certainly something we have the right to call DCFS out on to know what might have gone wrong. We always have this conversation in child abuse cases. Why did not, you know, the Department of Family of Child Services do more? Could they be held liable in any way? What do you think? Yes, I believe they could be. DCFS will enjoy, and I don't know the particular

Utah statute, but they will enjoy some measure of sovereign immunity. But, It should not be impossible to sue them. I've had cases where we've sued a government entity, state government entities, and you have to navigate around the immunity issues, but absolutely they can be sued, and it sounds like they have a lot to answer for in this case. I mean, just one of the clips showed her on her program saying that she wouldn't feed the children until they completed their chores.

Now, again, as a parent, you do want your kids to do their chores, but I don't, I think it is wildly inappropriate, if not abusive, to withhold breakfast until they've done their chores. I mean, I think there are other inducements you can give to your children, but that, it certainly dovetails with the allegation that two of the children at least were emaciated. Yeah, just to follow up on that, I think there was one video where she's telling her son, that they would lose the privilege to eat dinner if a child continued play fighting. There's another video where she said that her six-year-old needed to go hungry after forgetting to take her lunch to school.

I imagine it's videos like that that could be a key piece of evidence and a future prosecution against her. We talked about her husband, Kevin Frankie. He hasn't been arrested. He hasn't been arrested. He has a lawyer. And his lawyer appeared on Good Morning America and claim that Kevin. had no role in the alleged abuse of these children, that Kevin and Ruby have been living

separately for 13 months. I'm curious in his position what he might be looking out for in terms of comments that are made about him if people are falsely accusing him of abuse. But at the same time, I wonder if people are thinking, well, if this is a pattern of abuse of these kids that was going on for quite some time. A, would he be a witness, or B, could he potentially be criminally charged? And so his position right now, I'm very curious legally, where do you think it stands? Yeah, he is in a tricky position. And a lot of it, as you suggested, Jesse's going to go to the physical evidence. I believe with the 12-year-old who escaped through the window and got to the neighbors, that there was evidence of, there were a lot of. There were a lot of

sores and it would be interesting to get the medical reports from the doctors to see whether there are any scars and how they can date back the injuries because if there was evidence of physical injuries before the 13 months beyond the last 13 months then he's got a lot of explaining to do you can't let your spouse abuse your children so again as you said we have to be careful we don't know that that happened. We don't know that the abuse went back further, but that's, that's going to be a crucial issue for the police and will be a crucial, uh, issue for him. But no matter what, at a minimum, he is going to be a material witness. It's also hard just from a matter of common sense, although I guess it's not impossible that the abuse suddenly started 13 months

ago. I mean, and I mean, I'm sure he's seen the children in that time and spoken to Ruby Frankie. And so if he knew something, that's where, that's where the questions begin. But again, he has not been criminally charged with anything. He is an innocent party at this point. And people, I mean, I guess they're free to speculate, but they have to be careful with what they say about Kevin Frankie. They should. And it goes back to a larger point you have made is that they're not only do you have a presumption of innocence, but we also have a belief in due process in the country. And that even, of course, applies to Frankie herself, although, you know, the outburst of the arraignment really, you know, suggest a lot of things that aren't good for her.

But definitely, I think, let it play out. I don't know why people have to necessarily leap to conclusions. Let's, you know, we all saw, you know, the Duke lacrosse case. You know, we've seen a number of instances where allegations are not proven. So I think people should take a deep breath and let it play out. Let the system play out. And there may be other reasons why, you know, the police have not indicted the husband yet. Yeah. No, that's a very, very fair point. And I think it's important for people to remember that. Look, when we followed your case, the Johnny Depp-Bamber case, a central theme is, well, what is abuse? It's obviously, we know the classic definition of physical abuse, but, you know, is there emotional abuse? Is there psychological abuse? And it

really became a study in that. So because you are an expert on what this means, I was very curious to your thoughts on the charges here. I did it in a past sidebar. So they're each facing six counts. And the way to summarize is basically when we talk about aggravated child abuse under Utah law. It's a physical injury that could be torture. That's one charge. Another charge could be any physical injury that results in starvation or malnutrition. There's another one physical injury that creates a severe emotional harm, a developmental delay, intellectual disability. There's another one where it's physical injury and includes a combination of two or more physical injuries inflicted by the same person, whether at the same time or at a different

time, seems so broad and includes so many different potential acts that they charged Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrand under. What are your thoughts on those? Well, I think you have to admit, I think there's a sharp distinction to be made between adults and children. So it's one thing, if you were to berate me or make horrible, statements about me, which I hope you wouldn't. I would never. I would never. I have the highest respect for you, but that would have one impact. But it's quite another if it's an adult to a child.

I mean, so a physical abuse, everybody would agree whether it's an adult or a child. That is abuse. That is, and it can be civil and criminal. When you're talking about a child, berating in a sharp manner, strikes me as far more abusive than an argument between spouses or an argument between partners in a law firm. You know, things can get heated without being abusive. And then you multiply that by several factors when you're talking about a parent. Something that a parent can say to a child has enormous impact. I mean, we've all read stories, you know, people, and I remember things might

parents said to me when I was a child that not abusive, but you remember the good and the bad. So I think there's a real scale. And I think all of what has been alleged here would certainly fall into the category of abuse because you're talking about really minor children. Twelve is really young. Those kids are not mature emotionally. Ten and twelve, the two victims. It's just, it's beyond belief. And again, you know, going back to the presumption of innocence, he has that, but the allegations here all would seem to justify the six indictments. Yeah, I mean, and when you think about it and you said it, you're dealing with such a defenseless

victim, a vulnerable victim who's in the care and the custody of another, and it becomes very tough to defend, which is what I want to end our conversation on, potential defenses for Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrand. considering that not only the charges that I mentioned they would be found guilty of if they themselves inflicted this injury, but the statutes also read that if they permitted another to do it, they could be found guilty. So I'm not sure what the defense is. Do they blame each other? Do they say they had no idea what was happening, even though it was in their children were found in Jody's residence? The fact that I believe they published a video two days earlier

when they were both there and the children were there. I don't know what a potential defense could be for either Frankie or Hildebrandt. What are your thoughts? I totally agree. And to the extent that one of them tries to go down the road, especially Frankie, that, oh, gee, I don't know what was happening at Hildebrand's house. Well, then there's a negligence and abuse right there. I mean, we make very careful if someone. looking after our kids or they're going to somebody else's house, we know who they are and we

know what's going on and we know their background. So I think you're right. I think she's in a real I think Frankie is in a real trick box in terms of defenses. And Hildebrand certainly is as well. I think she may go down the route or they may consider going down the root of some kind of mental defect. Maybe arguing something about the breakup of her marriage or the separation. But that goes back to the point of when the abuse began. I don't think most people began abusing their children just because they get separated or divorced. I mean, that wouldn't be an excuse anyway. But they have to look for something like that because otherwise, I think these are just, I think all jurors would really empathize with kids at these age. And what really

struck me, and I'm sorry for going on too long, is the 12-year-old saying, it was my fault. I mean, that almost made me cry when I saw that. I mean, that really shows as much as the injuries, the extent of abuse that this kid had, is that somehow he believed that not being fed and, you know, being tied by his ankles and his wrist was somehow his fault. And that's just heartbreaking. The whole case is incredibly heartbreaking to think about. And we're going to probably learn a lot more as it continues through the system. Ben Shue, always great to have you on. Great to see you. And of course, I would never say anything bad about you to repugn your character in any which way, sir. So good to have you on.

Thank you very much. In the unlikely event that you did, I would never bring an action against you. Good to know. Good to know. Good to know. But it will never happen. Ben, thanks so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Jesse. And that's all we have for you here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.