SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Oct. 9, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — Five women have filed a lawsuit accusing Operation Underground Railroad founder Tim Ballard of sexual assault, battery and fraud during alleged sting operations to rescue trafficked women and children.
Ballard, who founded OUR in 2013, is named as a defendant in the lawsuit filed Monday in 3rd District Court, along with six members of the nonprofit organization’s board and six of his other companies.
OUR raised funds to conduct “sting operations to purportedly rescue trafficked women and children” outside the U.S., according to five women who say they accompanied Ballard on these operations as part of a “couples ruse” where they posed as his romantic partner.
The “couples ruse,” according to the lawsuit, “was an undercover tool to prevent detection by pedophiles when Ballard would not engage in sexual touching of the trafficked women offered up to him in strip clubs and massage parlors across the world.”
Ballard would invite women employed by OUR or willing volunteers to be trained in the ruse, the lawsuit alleges.
“The women he chose had no formal training in paramilitary activities or operations, but he knew they were devoted to the OUR mission of saving women and children from traffickers,” the lawsuit says.
Ballard claims he implemented strict rules for the ruse, including “no kissing on the lips and no touching or exposing private parts,” the lawsuit says. “Ballard soon began abusing the [couples ruse] and eventually used the ruse as a tool for sexual grooming.”
During operations or while training for them, “Ballard would often share a bed with a woman posing as his girlfriend or invite her to shower in his bathroom, even though accommodations at designated ‘safe houses’ provided separate bedrooms and bathrooms,” the lawsuit alleges.
“Before they ever went undercover together, Ballard insisted that he first needed to ensure that he and his female counterparts in the [couples ruse] had physical ‘chemistry’ that would be obvious to those they would meet during an operation,” according to the lawsuit.
Ballard also encouraged the women operatives to participate in tantric massages before and during the operations, the lawsuit alleges.
“Ballard claimed to be so concerned about the believability of the [ruse] that he frequently asked women to ‘practice’ … long before a mission ever took place. To that end, Ballard flew women across the country, where they would ‘practice’ their sexual chemistry through tantric yoga, couples massages with escorts, and lap dancing on Ballard’s lap,” the lawsuit says.
The women also claim they frequented strip clubs in the Salt Lake Valley with Ballard to practice the couples ruse.
“At the strip clubs, Ballard would pay for and receive lap dances, and ingest alcohol and pills at these practice ‘Ruse Ruses’ on OUR’s dime with donor monies,” the lawsuit says.
During these “couples ruses” in the OUR offices and in the field, “Ballard eventually engaged in coerced sexual contact with several women and propositioned others,” the lawsuit says. “Ballard participated in several sexual acts with the exception of actual penetration, in various states of undress while on an [operation].”
Ballard also requested that the women he invited to act as his significant other get a Brazilian wax prior to the operation, the lawsuit alleges.
“Ballard would ask each woman, ‘Is there anything you wouldn’t do to save a child?'”
Many OUR operations “included wealthy men with no military training, who wanted an ‘experience vacation’ where they dropped into third-world countries to rescue trafficked children, with photo opportunities and stories in the local newspapers of their heroics,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges the operations also involved “going to strip clubs and massage parlors across the world,” while flying first class and staying in five-star hotels.
The lawsuit describes Ballard as a “character of mythical proportions with unquestioned legitimacy,” noting his appointment as special adviser to Ivanka Trump in October 2017 and his friendship with Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes.
Ballard also had been friends and business associates with M. Russell Ballard, acting president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints‘ Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Nearly all of Ballard’s accusers are or have been members of the LDS Church, the lawsuit says, and the women say he used their faith to manipulate and sexually assault them.
“Ballard would use spiritual manipulation to coerce them into sexual contact,” the lawsuit says.
When the women questioned the tactics involving sexual contact, other OUR employees would warn them “not to question Ballard or their lives would be put in danger,” the lawsuit alleges.
“Ballard would repeatedly warn these women that if they failed in their [couples ruse] mission, they would have wasted the hard-earned money that honest donors had entrusted to OUR or be caught or killed by the cartel,” the lawsuit says.
Ballard also claimed he had been given permission from President Ballard to conduct the couples ruse, “as long as there was no sexual intercourse or kissing on the lips, and had given him a special priesthood blessing as such.”
Ballard also relied on “psychic information” about where OUR rescue operations should occur, “while predicting the future situations the operatives would be in, so that they could plan the next [operation],” the lawsuit alleges.
Alleged psychic Janet Russon, who also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, says she spoke to the Mormon prophet Nephi, “who directed her about where to locate the trafficked children,” according to the lawsuit.
“Ballard used OUR and its [operations] to fund his personal fantasies of grandeur,” the lawsuits says.
The women also say Ballard would get “ketamine treatments and have a scribe come in with him while he would talk to the dead prophet Nephi and issue forth prophecies about Ballard’s greatness and future as a United States Senator, President of the United States, and ultimately the Mormon Prophet, to usher in the second coming of Jesus Christ,” according to the lawsuit.
A group of female OUR employees took their complaints to management earlier this year, resulting in an investigation and ultimately Ballard’s firing, the lawsuit says.
Ballard and his work with Operation Underground Railroad is featured in the 2023 film “Sound of Freedom,” produced by Provo-based Angel Studios.
He continues to raise funds for the same work with The SPEAR Fund, which also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
“Finally, some of the victims of Ballard’s sexual exploits are boldly coming forward and are filing this action for their damages, holding the defendants responsible for their outrageous behaviors, to punish the defendants for their actions, to try and prevent them from acting in this fashion again, and to bring light to who and what Tim Ballard is so that the humble, very well-intentioned donors across the world can decide with eyes open, whether to donate to Ballard and his organizations,” the lawsuit says.
