Law&Crime Sidebar - Top 5 Defense Strategies for Ruby Franke's Business Partner Jodi Hildebrandt

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

The ex-therapist accused of abusing Ruby Franke’s two youngest children inside her Utah home will be back in court just after Christmas. Franke entered a guilty plea this week to four counts of aggravated child abuse. Her sentencing is scheduled for February. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber analyzes Jodi Hildebrandt’s legal options with Utah defense attorney Skye Lazaro.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Use code HOLIDAYS23 for an exclusive holiday discount for the Whiskey Raiders Bottle of the Month Club! Join here: whiskeyraiders.com/bottle-of-the-month-club/LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&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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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. I've shared with Ruby numerous times that anger is actually one of my most favorite emotion. When I first started getting to know you, she's like, anger is my favorite emotion. I'm like, I don't know what I'm dealing with here. Ex-counselor and accused child abuser Jody Hildebrandt is behind bars in Utah awaiting trial on felony charges. But with a court hearing scheduled for right before the new year and her co-defendant Ruby Frankie agreeing to testify against her, what exactly are

her options and how can she defend herself? Utah criminal defense attorney Skyla Zaro comes on to discuss. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. let's talk about former mental health counselor jody hildebrand can we do that because her defense appears to have taken a major hit after her co-defendant and business partner ruby frankie entered a guilty plea and agreed to testify against hildebrandt now ruby frankie's arrest it made headlines all over the world because of her youtube channel eight passengers now that channel has been offline for a while now but for years frankie documented her life with her husband kevin and their six kids on this channel called eight passengers, giving parenting and child care advice along the way.

And my kids are literally starving. I hesitate to say this because it's going to sound like I'm like a mean barbarian, but I told the kids, I said, I'm not even going to let you eat breakfast until you get your chores done. Now, the channel went dark after allegations that some of Frankie's parenting tactics might actually be harming the children. Child Protective Services were reportedly called, but nothing really came of it. Frankie then started to appearing in videos alongside Jody Hildebrand as part of an organization known as Connections. Now, Hildebrandt, who has since given up her license, had offered life advice as her role as a therapist and mental counselor.

Now, Frankie was listed on the Connections website as a certified mental fitness trainer. I'm hoping that as you watch this, that you will give yourself permission to start using, in truth, anger to have those beautiful outcomes. Well, anger is just simply a tool, just like any other emotion. Then both women were each charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse. After two of Frankie's youngest children were found in August at Hildebrand's Utah home with clear signs of abuse. For 12-year-old son, escaped and ran to a neighbor's home. The neighbor called 911.

And while we knew from initial police documents that the children were emaciated and they were treated horribly, what we learned, and I'm going to explain this on a little bit, what we learned about how these two young children were treated, I know for me it was worse than I could imagine. Frankie's other two minor-age children, they were located, they were taken into state custody, the eldest two children are now adults. But both Hildebrandt and Frankie,

they've been locked up since they were arrested at the end of August. And last week, we learned they both had December court dates when it was possible they could take plea deals. Well, Frankie's hearing was first on Monday, and she did just that. She agreed to plead guilty to four counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse. Ms. Frankie, how do you plead to count one aggravated child abuse, a second-degree felony? Guilty.

To count three, aggravated child abuse, a second-degree felony. Guilty. To count five, aggravated child abuse, a second-degree felony. Guilty. And to count six, aggravated child abuse, a second-degree felony. with my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children guilty court documents lay out what Frankie admitted to doing to her own children including denying her two youngest kids food and water kicking her son while wearing boots tying him up with handcuffs and rope holding his head

under water and forcing these children to stand or run in the hot sun for hours blisters sunburns Horific. Just absolutely horrific. And that's just the physical abuse. This is all on top of the mental abuse, too. Apparently, these kids were indoctrinated to believe that they were evil and all of this was necessary. But the plea agreement describing all of this says that Frankie and, quote, another adult, complicating Hildebrand, did this. Now, as part of the plea deal, Frankie agrees to serve prison time, but exactly how much hasn't been announced.

It's going to be up to the judge. She's due back in court in February for sentencing. Frankie also agreed to testify against Jody Hildebrand if her case proceeds to trial, but we'll even get that far. The main question is, how does Jody Hildebrand defend this? Before that, let me bring in Sky Lazzaro, an experienced state and federal criminal defense attorney out in Utah and legal analysts for KUTV2 News and KUTV2.com. Sky, thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks for having me. now before we get into these potential defenses not sure they're going to work but we'll get into them do you think that jody is going to strike a deal with prosecutors and plead guilty because at the time of this recording she has a date scheduled for December 27 i think she has to i don't see any way around where you have a co-defendant who's taken a plea deal that involves prison and agreeing to testify against you and and lays out the facts as succinctly as she did and that you really have any other option. I agree with you, right?

You have such a major witness. You have your co-defendant who seemingly was right there during all this to testify against you, but I have to imagine that not only would we see the similar kind of deal where there's no agreed upon sentence. When the judge sentences Jody, she would get a far worse sentence than Ruby.

Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. You tell me. Well, Utah has what's called indeterminate sentencing. So all a judge can do is sentence an individual to prison for concurrent or consecutive sentences. The amount of time each person does is dependent or is determined by the parole board. And so, you know, they're kind of in a situation. Now, I don't think she's going to get a better deal.

Ruby's deal was for the six counts. They're not going to give Hildebrand, you know, a screaming deal where they have someone who's willing to testify against her. But as far as time goes, or the amount of time that they're going to serve, that's not something the judge even has any control over. So let me get this straight just to understand. You're saying that because each charge is between one and 15 years in prison. The judge, I mean, theoretically, Ruby Frankie, she pled guilty to four charges. She could face 60 years in prison for this. She could because they're run consecutive.

Now, the way the sentencing matrix works in Utah is on consecutive sentences, which this will be. on the four counts she'll serve whatever the matrix time is that the board gives her on the lead charge now in this case they're all the same count so it doesn't make any difference but then she'd do 40% of that time on each consecutive count so she's not gonna do 60 years she's you know probably I'm just kind of guessing it's gonna be in the maybe the board of six year range ish maybe seven and and that's me guessing i mean i don't know yeah so wait so that's so so you're saying when the sentencing happens it's not like the judge says for count one two years count one uh five years count one 10 years it's it's going to be just this is what the sentence is and they run consecutively and we we won't know so we won't know how long she'll be in prison when the sentencing happens we will not so all the judge will say i sentence you on count one to one to 15 years in the Utah State Prison,

count two, one to 15 years, you know, on and on, and those counts to run consecutive to each other, and that's all the judge will say. And then she'll be transferred to the prison. After she's transferred to the prison, the parole board will get her file, we'll go through everything, and they'll give her what's called an original hearing date.

And so that'll be the first time that she's actually going to learn probably at least the minimum amount of time she's going to do out there. subject to whatever programming they want her to do while she's there. By the way, just real quick, any chance the judge would not give her prison time, or is she definitely going to prison? She's going to prison. And based on what we know so far in this case, and clearly there's more details we don't know,

and we're going to get into Jody Hildebrin's potential defenses in a second, would you say that it would be easier for Ruby Frankie to get parole than Jody, assuming Jody doesn't take a deal or ends up getting convicted or even if she does take a deal. I mean, do you see one of these parties more legally responsible than the other? I think it's less being legally responsible when you get to the parole board stage of things and more about the parole board wants to see people be reformed. Right. That's sort of in the big push in Utah is this justice reinitiative, you know,

reform act and treatment and rehabilitating people along with the punitive part of it. So she's going to get credit for the fact that she pleaded guilty and took responsibility off the top. And then if she does well and her programming and her treatment at the prison and continues to take responsibility and show to make an effort to make things. get better, make things better, she's going to get a far earlier parole date than someone who goes out to the prison on the same charges, who denies any culpability in it or any wrongdoing. All right. Let's get into some Jody Hildebrand defenses. Okay. So the first way that I looked at it was, what do we have right now at this time? Ruby has just admitted to all of it. Jody hasn't. So is that a defense? You have Ruby who admitted,

what she did, Jody didn't. What do you think? It's tough because what the statute says is the actor commits aggravated child abuse if they inflict the serious bodily injury themselves, which Ruby Franklin has agreed to, or having care or custody of a child causes or permits another to do so. So that's a tough one. I don't know that she gets past the subsection 2B just by saying Ruby did it. I was just there. You know, I didn't have anything to do with it. You know, it was all her.

The fact that she was present and allowed it to happen makes her guilty under the statute. If it's potentially guilty under the statute. And assuming this all happened at Jody's place, at her residence, but I don't know, she left for the day. She wasn't there when the abuse happened. She didn't really pay attention. That wouldn't be enough, right? like she can't like feign ignorance to what's happening because let's say she didn't direct

Ruby to abuse the children but she allowed Ruby to stay there and kind of turned a blind eye that wouldn't be a defense possibly if she didn't know turning a blind eye would not be a defense not knowing is a potential defense because the mental state required under this statute or for aggravated child abuse is intentionally or knowing inflicting the injury or allowing or permitting someone else to do so. So if she had no clue that any of these things were happening, it was done out of her presence. It's a tough argument if it's happening in your home versus if you're just in and out

or, you know, tangentially around. I think that gets harder. But, you know, she could say I didn't know. How do you... That's a potential defense. How do you cross-examine Ruby Frankie if she testifies again? against Jody. So again, she'll be the star witness. I personally believe that if this does go to trial, one of the reasons they wanted Ruby Frankie to plead guilty was so that the children wouldn't

have to testify. Ruby will explain everything that happened. How do you cross-examine her? You know, cross-examining a snitch or someone who turns on their co-defendant is always fun for a defense attorney, right? Because you get to beat up on them for, you know, you're just doing this because you got a deal. Now, in this case, it's not a good deal. You know, she were getting a deal not to go to prison to testify, that starts to look a lot more promising and carry a little bit more weight. I think when you say those things to a jury, in this case where she's agreed to prison, it makes it a little tougher. But I think really what the cross-examination is, is part of it is you always get into why you're pointing the finger, the state made you do it,

you did it for a deal. And actually, you're the person who did this. I mean, you get to beat them up on the stand for everything they did that they're now saying, well, that other person stood there and watched or helped or, you know, so I think that's probably, you know, the most effective way to cross-examine her in this case. Hey there, everybody. Give the gift of whiskey this holiday season with the Whiskey Raiders bottle of the month club. You see, each month the experts at Whiskey Raiders, they send a full-sized bottle of delicious rare whiskey to everyone in the club.

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Because these charges are very, very specific. They're specific in terms of what the prosecution has to prove. For example, you just mentioned either you commit the abuse or you directed someone to commit the abuse or watched it happen. But then there's the part of it has to be a physical injury that would constitute torture, physical injury that constitutes, you know, a starvation, a physical injury that constitutes creating some sort of developmental delay. It's very specific in terms of that.

Are there ways that the Jody Hilderant's defense team could strike at the prosecution's ability to prove these charges? I think that's always a possibility. In this case, I haven't seen the discovery none of us have, which is probably why Ruby Frankie took a deal to keep the judge from hearing all the bad facts or, you know, kind of temper some of that perhaps. But they have to prove, you have to prove serious bodily injury, which is defined under Utah law. And to do so, it is going to, you know, a lot of times that requires medical records or a medical expert to come in and testify what that would look like.

In this case, I don't know if there's medical records. I doubt they were taking these kids to the doctor because I think if kids presented to a treating physician, with these types of injuries under the mandatory reporting requirements, it's probably going to be at the minimum a DCFS referral to go investigate and see if there's anything going on in this home. But let's be clear, they were treated after the kids were recovered. So in other words, I guess, and this is another defense, I would imagine, is that if you can see what happened to the kids at that moment in time, what their injuries were at that moment

of time, you might, it was a three-month period of abuse. you might not have the injuries to detect from a medical professional two months ago, right? The kids are saying that they had blisters or Ruby Frankie saying they had blisters, but maybe the medical records don't show up because, hey, those wounds went away. Yeah, I mean, and you have to show that these injuries were caused by whatever Ruby and Jody did. So it's not just that they had injuries. I mean, there is stuff documented, at least what we look at in the, in the statement of the defendant's part of her guilty plea that she says that these are you know is agreeing that these things happen and the kids had had to stay on the sun and all these things and some of them it looks like are supported by after medical care but you also have to show that they were caused by these individuals you know by one of these individuals and Jody watched by Ruby or by both of them and so I think these cases are actually

actually harder to get convictions on sometimes than people might think I know these are the types of things that bring up a lot of emotion with people you know people think that there's no amount of prison time for either one of these women that is going to be sufficient for what they did to these kids so you know from that standpoint but when you start getting into it in some of these cases and you start cross-examining people and and doing all these things it Things don't always come out the way in police reports, right? Witnesses don't see the things they think. And sometimes you get to stand up at closing to a jury and say,

look, I feel bad about the way this sounds too, but the state hasn't proven that these are the injuries happened or were caused by these means or by these people. Look, we've covered a number of cases, abuse cases, where the defense is, well, the kids cause them themselves. They're running around, they're outside. They get scraped. They fall down.

It's not that we push them. You know, you could say, look, they were out in the sun. We tried to give them sunten lotion. They didn't, you know, look, I don't think this is going to work. This is what I'm just suggesting it could possibly happen. It's really bad. That's what we do, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm just speculating here. I think it's really, it's going to be almost impossible based on what we know so far. But this is something that we think about. How do we keep the prosecution to try to prove it? Now, the final defense would be mental health, right? And my understanding is in Utah, there's insanity, there's diminishmental capacity. How could either of those play into here, if possible? Those only go towards the mental state.

And so it would reduce it. It's not an entire dismissal or acquittal of the case if you bring up the defense of diminishmental capacity. And you can't use it in all charges. But in the ones that you can, diminish mental capacity only reduces the level of the crime. So, you know,

it would bring it from a second-degree felony to a third-degree felony. So she, you know, could be facing zero to five years on each count instead of one to 15 years on each count. So it's not a complete defense. Right. You know,

it helps in cases, but it's not going to walk you all the door unless you're adjudicated to being competent and then you're going to the state hospital. So I'm not sure I'd opt for that either. Let's just assume for argument. If she can prove that she was insane, again, you know, really had no concept of what she was doing, that it was wrong. She couldn't conform her behavior to the law. Would that be a defense to aggravate a child abuse? And have you ever seen anything like that? So there's, if you're talking about a complete incompetency.

Yeah. Okay. We're in, not, well, incompetency, right. I mean, competency, right? Well, so let me phrase, we both know competency would be her ability to actually stay in trial. If I'm talking insanity, is that a possibility of a defense? Insanity would be the diminishmental capacity.

Okay. So that would reduce the level. The other option would be competency, and that's the one, you know, she's, she's not that crazy, you know, I've had clients in the past that we've run competency on, and some of them were deemed to be incompetent, and you have to, you have to not know what planet you're on for that to be the case. So it's not just that she felt, you know, I'm doing the right thing. I did nothing wrong.

I did the right thing by these kids. I mean, she can say that. think that's going to help her. No, I don't think so either, but I mean, that's, I don't, I, you know, I, we see this a lot. This came up, um, in the, in the day bell case, too. And it's, it just doesn't, doesn't carry the day, say, you know, I, I think the statutes, the way the statutes are worded. Well, I tell you for the day bell case, that was in Idaho. There was no insanity defense. I have still been of the opinion. If that was presented to a jury, I think there was an argument to be made that they could have found Lori Valo-Dabell guilty. But at the same, excuse me,

Lori Valo-Dabelle, not guilty by reason of insanity, but I will tell you she also, she was caught on tape, not admitting what she did, very careful in her word selection. So it seems to know, seems to me that she knew she was doing something illegal. Yeah, that was, that was another interesting one. Yeah. Listen, this is a horrible case. I think it's really interesting to see what happens. Oh, I guess I'll ask you one more question before I let you go. So right now, at the time of this recording, December 27th is the date set for this waiver hearing, right, a waiving of the preliminary hearing. We could see a plea deal. Chances that gets pushed back. Chances after what Ruby just did. Jody will try to delay that hearing until the new year.

I would. If I were her attorney, I'd be filing motions to continue and saying I'm on vacation or something. I don't know. All right. Fair enough. But we'll see. And I don't know, you know, even if she's going to take a plea deal, I don't know if she would enter it that day or if they would set it over. You know, I guess we'll see what happens. Got some time. Sky Lozaro, thank you so much.

Really appreciate it. Thank you. Great to be on. Thanks for having me. Thank you. All right, everybody. That is all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us.

Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time.