Law&Crime Sidebar - 'Terrible Dark Chapter’: Victim of Ruby Franke’s Business Partner Tells All, Details Disturbing ‘Therapy’

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

A Utah man who was referred to Ruby Franke’s business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, for marriage counseling calls his dealings with her a “terrible dark chapter” that caused destruction in his life. Hildebrandt and Franke were recently charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse after Franke’s 12-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt’s home covered in wounds. Adam Steed tells the Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy how Hildebrandt “tried to punish” him and details how “dangerous this lady really is.”LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergScript Writing - Savannah WilliamsonVideo 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.

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and Frankie for weeks now for you as they stand accused of abusing Frankie's children. Hildebrandt owns Connections Classroom, a business that offers counseling for couples and individuals, along with coaching for businesses. Frankie worked with Hildebrandt at Connections. Prior to connections, Hildebrandt worked as a therapist treating people who struggled with addiction to drugs and alcohol. One of her former clients is a man named Adam Steed. Steed says he was sexually abused by someone with the Boy Scouts of America when he lived in Idaho as a child. He then moved to Utah. He became married and that's when he met Jody Hildebrandt. When did you first encounter Jody Hildebrandt.

So my Mormon bishop asked me to go, me and my wife to go to her. I had just finished passing the statute of limitations in Idaho for criminal and civil

sexual child abuse. They had this bizarre statute for five years and I had changed that with my dad and and a lot of people that we had done a grassroots movement together. And I moved down to Utah, and I had just finished a settlement case with Boy Scouts of America. And then, like, immediately afterwards, my bishop asked me to go to Jody Hildebrandt with my wife for therapy. Adam Steed says he and his wife were seeking counseling for ordinary issues that come up in any marriage.

Yeah, just normal marriage issues outside the fact there was a lot of stress on our marriage. because we had done a settlement for child abuse with Boy Scouts of America, you know, and we were having, you know, my, we had a one-year-old baby, and we had a newborn coming along, and we were both in school at Brigham Young University trying to do all of our credits. And, you know, my ex-wife had some issues as well that were kind of difficult. And I had trauma from what happened to me. the past and and you know we were just trying to be normal people and live a normal life and and start and have a beautiful life after some of the things we've been gone we've gone through

you know i it's it's hard for me to talk about this stuff because it's so traumatic what year was this that you were being counseled by jody hilda brand 2008 we we just finished the scouting settlement I think I had the psych evaluation for the damage it had done to me somewhere in like the late fall. And then I think around Christmas or winter or something, we had settled this case or somewhere in the early January or February. And I think it was in April that I had started therapy with Jody Hildebray, a group therapy with Jody Hildebrandt with me and my wife. How did the counseling start? Did it seem to go well at first or were there red flags right away? You know, I will tell you a story that Jody Hildebrandt's more sophisticated than a normal person in a lot of ways.

She evolved into what she became. You know, she works that she put us in a phase one. There's phase two and phase three of the particular group. was in at the point. And phase one, she didn't, it wasn't very intense. It was lighthearted and fun. And, you know, think of like a PG movie or something and a lady that's just charismatic and fun and teaching these principles about delusion, denial and all this kind of stuff, codependency, using small examples in people's lives where they didn't realize they were in the state and the whole room laughing about it. That was phase one. And it was, you know,

Couples, all happy couples thinking there with this incredible lady. You know, when she separated the couples into all women and all men groups, then after she gained everyone's trust, then really bad things began to happen. And what's different in my case is that when I chose to leave this cult-like group, Uh, there, uh, Jody tried to punish me. And she worked through YU on our code office, uh, and legal measures to, to try to hurt me. And I, I, I, I have, um, the emails between my ex-wife and her planning out all this stuff, talking about what the real issues in our marriage were. And then them evolving that into something drastically different with elegantly different with elegant.

so it would totally destroy your life. And how that evolution happened from what they originally were like is just astounding. I had to come forward because when I heard that they were doing the same thing to those little kids that they did to me to hide their crimes, it was totally predictable. And I knew my records would just completely show the world the truth of how dangerous this lady really is. and clients that are close to her, that are probably not really good people in the first place, but that she enhances their abilities under her, under her guidance to do incredibly criminal things. Adam claims that Jody Hildebrandt conspired with his then wife to accuse him of sexually abusing their child. I never had the courage to talk about this openly because the damage was so bad.

After Jody and my ex-wife got done trying to make me look like a child abuser and a sexual addict and a rapist and everything else, having been a victim that came forward to change the laws to protect children, and having the insecurities that victims have, the stigma and all that stuff, and Jody working on me to try to make me look like I was a predator in her final stage when I refused to pay. the money and refused to stay in the group and was so uncomfortable with it. What they did, to me, the coordinated attack to create the solution and all the stuff, I have all the documentation and these fine, I mean, I'm Yody coaching my ex-wife and fine. I'll share that in this other interview, the exact words as she coaches her through how to make people think that they're coming up with the idea of themselves, when she's trying to contort people's minds into thinking that there had been abuse and violence. And when you start to see this evidence of what the real issues were, what Jody's agenda was, how she went about it, and the documentation for

it, these people will be hung. I mean, the game's over. And these little kids, that, you know, that they're accusing of abuse, sexual abuse right now, to hide their crimes. That's just an old MO. And I'll be able to prove. So what Ruby said in court that day about one of her children, sexually abusing other children, and then people in the neighborhood, you're saying that's the same thing that Jody tried to do to you? Well, not just to me, to probably hundreds of people. And there's going to be so many victims coming forward with the same story.

A story that if you told it on your own by yourself, everyone would think you're weird and creepy. But when 100 people come forward and tell the exact same story. And that's why Jody's trying to, they're trying to act sick and speed up the hearing is they don't want this complicated thing to materialize and then show this incredible crime. Adam Steed said he went to counseling sessions with Jody Hildebrandt for six months, and then he stopped. He described a rigidity in Hildebrandt's counseling style. For example, Stede claims Hildebrandt became upset. If men looked at something like the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated, likening it to pornography. Once he tried to leave her counseling sessions, Steed said things got ugly.

She was just contacting, like she didn't want me to leave her therapy. group and she had my wife send an email message to me of the terms so that the marriage wouldn't end and included that I had to go back to Jody. I had to pay for, it was thousands of dollars a month. I couldn't go to any other therapists. I was trying to go to other therapists because they were saying I was an addict in denial and, you know, it was just crazy. Jody in her group, she said that if you had to spend time not thinking about something, just the fact that you had to not think about it meant you were an addict. I mean, she brought everybody in. And now she was saying I was mentally unhealthy and I couldn't choose for myself because of how unhealthy

I was. I couldn't choose to go to another therapist. This was my addiction working to not receive the confrontation that she had. And, you know, she just helped y'all. This is just so hard to talk about. Like, I'm trying to give a condensed quick version without sharing all these traumatic files that are the complete evidence of who this lady is and what she is. And, but the short version, she wouldn't let me leave therapy. Adam Steed says Jody Hildebrandt violated his trust when she shared information about his counseling sessions without his permission. Documents we obtained from the state of Utah show Hildebrandt's license was suspended

for a time in 2012 and that she admitted to discussing a John Doe's clinical diagnosis without his permission with clergy and two other mental health therapists. The documents also say that Hildebrandt admitted to doing this and that she also shared information with administrators at the John Doe's University. Steed says he is the John Doe listed in these documents. Currently, Jody Hildebrandt's counseling license is listed as active. Adam Steed says he believes more people will come forward with stories about Jody Hilda Brant. I just want to say that to any victims out there that have had their lives destroyed by Jody Hilderbrandt or, you know, any kind of any of this kind of stuff,

I just want you to know that you need to have courage and come forward. and talk about it. You're not alone and it's super traumatic, but if you talk about it, after a while, the trauma will go away and you will live in a much more beautiful life for you and your family and your children and for everybody in the future. And I'm now actually pretty happy other than just sharing this like retramatized, terrible dark chapter of, of life that happen and the world needs to know it because they are doing Jody Hildebrands doing the same thing right now with these kids that she did to me. That's it for this edition of Law and Crime's Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get

your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. Just remember to hit the subscribe button. I'm Anjanet Levy and we will see 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.