Adam Herbets, FOX 13 🏔️ Profile picture
➤ The First Amendment is first for a reason ➤ Investigative Reporter, @FOX13 ➤ Edward R. Murrow Award winner ➤ 9x Emmy winner ➤ iteam@fox13now.com
Sue Strong @strong_sue@mastodon.sdf.org 🇺🇦 Profile picture Kim Profile picture Bmore girl Profile picture Frodrick Williams Profile picture 4 subscribed
Apr 26 9 tweets 4 min read
NEW - The State Records Committee is "disgusted" after learning @UCSO spent five months withholding public records related to a criminal investigation into Tim Ballard.

fox13now.com/news/fox-13-in… 2 - I filed the request on November 30, 2023.

At the time, @UCSO falsely stated it "does not maintain responsive documents."

I appealed, but UCSO stuck with that story until a few days prior to our hearing in April 2024. Then they released the records.
Feb 23 58 tweets 28 min read
BREAKING - A fifth lawsuit has been filed against Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad.

For the first time, Angel Studios and the Harmon Brothers are also being sued. That's the company behind Sound of Freedom.

Here comes another long thread. Image 2. The plaintiffs are Kely Johana Suarez Moya and Luz Miriam Moya Solano.

They are represented by the same attorneys who filed the previous four cases.

Other defendants include Tim Ballard's wife (Katherine Ballard) and Tim Ballard's psychic (Janet Russon). Image
Feb 22 10 tweets 5 min read
THREAD 🧵- After an extremely graphic and emotional night of testimony, Utah is now moving forward with a bill that would criminalize “ritualistic” abuse of children.

@KenIvoryUT (2) Rep. Ken Ivory (R-West Jordan) is sponsoring the bill.

"I had a survivor tell me that, as a child, she was told that they had planted a bomb inside of her and that if she told anyone? They could detonate the bomb."
Feb 20 33 tweets 14 min read
Get ready. Here's another long thread as I catch up on court documents in the Tim Ballard/ Katherine Ballard/ OUR civil cases.

As always, I will post documents + my takeaways in this thread. Here's my previous thread.


Image (2) Before we get started, I should mention that attorneys for Ballard, OUR, and the plaintiffs were in court today. It was a virtual hearing.

The judge and I were the only ones in the courtroom, so I got to watch him talk to everyone on his computer. Ballard did not appear. Image
Feb 13 7 tweets 3 min read
TONIGHT - New audio recordings with OUR employees show why Suzanne Whitehead believes the nonprofit lied to the public about saving children.

She is one of nine plaintiffs. Watch @FOX13 at 9pm. My previous reporting on this lawsuit

Feb 7 39 tweets 16 min read
I'm currently catching up on some reading related to the four civil lawsuits against Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad.

I will post documents + my takeaways in this thread. Image 1. 𝐋𝐚𝐰𝐬𝐮𝐢𝐭 #𝟏 (Plaintiffs: Sasha Hightower, Mary Hall, Kira Lynch, "MK," and "DS")

Motion to dismiss filed by THE SPEAR FUND, aka LIBERTY AND LIGHT - Tim Ballard's new nonprofit.

SPEAR says it wasn't founded until after the alleged sexual misconduct took place, therefore it cannot be held liable.Image
Image
Jan 27 19 tweets 8 min read
This article includes a link to 37 pages of explicit text messages. Attorneys say they were sent by Tim Ballard to one of his female accusers.

Sometimes the messages are sexual. Sometimes they philosophize about untraditional views of the @LDSChurch.

“I like to throw some fucks in there while talking about the gospel.” "I can't believe I'm sending you this 😂🤦‍♀️"
"Gonna be fun 😍"
Image
Image
Jan 27 21 tweets 10 min read
NEW THREAD 🧵 - Court documents filed by attorneys for Celeste Borys state Tim Ballard raped her, or attempted to rape her, in...

1 - California
2 - Ecuador
3 - Mexico
4 - Florida
5 - London
6 - Utah
7 - Dominican Republic
8 - Nashville
9 - Washington DC
10 - OhioImage
Image
(2) Earlier this month, we showed how women have reported there are at least seven criminal investigations into Tim Ballard.



- Utah AG's Office
- San Diego PD
- LAX PD
- Campbell PD
- Lindon PD
- Orange County SO
- Utah County SO

This court filing says "others will be opened in Washington DC, Ohio, and Florida."fox13now.com/news/local-new…
Dec 6, 2023 17 tweets 8 min read
UPDATE: Court documents list Katherine Ballard and Radd Berrett as new defendants in October 10th lawsuit filed by Celeste Borys and Mike Borys. Image (2) Amended lawsuit states the "horrible irony" of OUR is that it claims to lead the fight against sexual exploitation worldwide, yet the nonprofit enabled "a serial predator (Timothy Ballard) to operate with impunity... attempting to pit sexual assault victims against other(s)." Image
Nov 29, 2023 10 tweets 4 min read
𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝:

Last night I reread each of the victim statements filed in the original lawsuit against Tim Ballard and OUR, now that 4 of 6 plaintiffs have decided to publicly reveal their names and stories.

These are the key points, below.👇 Image Celeste Borys:

She was Tim Ballard's executive assistant. She accuses him of sexual assault, trafficking her to create demand for more victims rather than saving children.

She says some of the hotel rooms booked while they were "undercover" used her real name.

𝙶𝚁𝙰𝙿𝙷𝙸𝙲⬇️ Image
Nov 27, 2023 44 tweets 17 min read
BREAKING - New lawsuit filed against Tim Ballard and Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes.

It states Sound of Freedom had a sequel in the works called Cry of Freedom.

And it was partially written by Reyes.
Image
Image
(2) The plaintiff is Suzanne Whitehead.

"This cause of action arises out of Defendant Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes’ unconstitutional suppression of Plaintiff’s right of free speech." Image
Nov 21, 2023 31 tweets 7 min read
BREAKING - Six plaintiffs filing suit against Operation Underground Railroad are speaking now at a press conference in Salt Lake City.

Five are revealing their names for the first time

- Celeste Borys
- Mike Borys
- Sasha Hightower
- Mary Hall
- Kira Lynch
- Bree Righter Image Mike Borys says Tim Ballard and OUR twisted a noble cause to fulfill his fantasies.

"We are not pedophile enablers. We are not the deep state or the Godless left."
Nov 21, 2023 9 tweets 4 min read
BREAKING 🧵 - A third lawsuit has been filed against Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad.

The plaintiff is Jordana Bree Righter from Virginia. She's a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who served as a Corporal in the United States Marine Corps. Image (2) She says she was hired by OUR as an independent contractor and suffered a traumatic head injury while training at the OUR gym.

According to the lawsuit, she was hit in the face, resulting in severe double vision and shattered pieces of bone adhering to her facial nerve. Image
Oct 11, 2023 20 tweets 8 min read
Attorney Alan Mortensen says @UtahAG's Office should be criminally investigated, but @SeanReyesUT is not named as a defendant in this civil suit.

Attorney Mike Green says they do anticipate naming additional defendants, but he would not say who. BREAKING: New court documents in this case raise additional "factual allegations" against @SeanReyesUT and his relationship with @OURRescue and @TimBallard.

As far as we know, he is still not named as a defendant.

I will be adding to this thread, below. Image
Sep 28, 2023 28 tweets 11 min read
FULL DOCUMENTS - Tim Ballard lied to donors, according to former @OURRescue employees

We are uploading 75 pages of records, which makes up less than 0.01% of the full criminal case file.

Marked as "CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION – UNDER SEAL" by Davis County, released by @UtahAG.
Image
Image
(2) The full documents can be found at this link.



I'm also posting notable excerpts of documents in this thread.fox13now.com/news/fox-13-in…
Sep 28, 2022 8 tweets 4 min read
BREAKING - @UCSO just arrested a suspect in ritualistic sex abuse case.

This is David Hamblin's previous mugshot. He's a former therapist who lost his license. He previously confessed to rape but had all charges dropped.

THREAD BELOW ⬇️ Image The arrest happened ~45 to 60 minutes ago.

Victims were the first to be notified.

Booking + probable cause documents have not yet been made public. Hamblin previously had 18 felony charges, see below. ImageImageImage
Sep 14, 2022 18 tweets 7 min read
This article by @BrandyZadrozny identifies Utah County Attorney David Leavitt @Leavitt_RJI as a victim of “baseless” accusations.

Yes, the article mentions me.

🧵 I’ll be posting a few of my thoughts in this thread below.

nbcnews.com/tech/internet/… Image 1 - David Leavitt is innocent until proven guilty. He is also one of the suspects in a still-active ritualistic child sex abuse case.

Nobody wrote an article about his involvement until he held a press conference announcing himself as a suspect. Image
May 31, 2022 15 tweets 6 min read
BREAKING - Utah County Sheriff's Office seeks information on "ritualistic child sexual abuse" and child sex trafficking.

I've been investigating the case for months. I can confirm some subjects of the investigation are high-profile individuals. Image One of the targets of the investigation was a therapist previously charged with a series of sex crimes against young female family members.

The Utah County Attorney's Office dropped charges, and the man was not convicted.

Police reports indicate they had a taped confession. Image
Feb 25, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
BREAKING - The Iron County School District has confirmed they are investigating this tweet sent by the account of teacher Brian Townsend (@cashsavior).

"I only hope that the next time a president incites a riot at the Capitol, more Republican senators are killed." (1/2) ImageImage "We’ve only recently become aware of these tweets. In light of the impact on the educational process and on Iron County School District, we are reviewing with legal counsel our appropriate response and we are investigating the matter..." (2/4)