Tim Ballard, the anti-trafficking activist who made his name with wildly exaggerated “rescues” of victims abroad, has faced a mountain of legal woes since he was forced out of Operation Underground Railroad, the organization he founded, over allegations of misconduct. But a recent ruling gives him one less sexual assault lawsuit to contend with.
Judge Todd Shaughnessy of Utah’s Third District Court dismissed the action from Celeste Borys, Ballard’s former assistant at OUR — since rebranded as OUR Rescue — on the grounds that Borys had improperly accessed Ballard’s private documents after she left the job, and at least once after filing her suit. “Practically speaking, what Ms. Borys did is no different than if she had used a key to access Mr. Ballard’s office in the dark of night to secretly photocopy documents from locked file drawers, including documents that were marked as privileged,” Shaughnessy wrote in his ruling, as The Salt Lake Tribune reports, further admonishing Borys’ attorneys for their use of stolen documents in the case. He also dropped Borys’ suit against OUR. The decision did not reflect any conclusions regarding Borys’ accusations against Ballard, including the claim that he had raped her multiple times.
Reps for Ballard and Borys did not immediately return Rolling Stone‘s requests for comment.
“Shortly after Mr. Ballard was given notice of this lawsuit, we became suspicious that someone had hacked into his private email and his Google Drive and stolen his documents and his private email communications,” Alexis Federico, one of Ballard’s attorneys, said at a Tuesday press conference after the ruling came down.
“Ms. Borys remains resolute,” read a statement from Borys’ lawyers, who said they were “disappointed” by the ruling. “She will press forward with her federal anti-trafficking lawsuit to show that Tim Ballard repeatedly and systematically sexually assaulted her under the guise of the so-called ‘Couples Ruse.’” That suit, filed by Borys and five other women in October, alleges that after they were recruited by Ballard and OUR to work for the group, he coerced each of them into posing as his romantic partner while abroad on rescue operations, supposedly in order to deceive sex traffickers they were tracking. It claims the women were “groomed” into “performing sex, labor, and services for [Ballard’s] personal benefit and the benefit of OUR,” and were sometimes victims of violent sexual assault, with the married Ballard assuring them that it all of it was “necessary to rescue children.” The complaint alleges that Ballard was in fact engaged in human trafficking himself. He continues to deny these allegations and has sued the six accusers for defamation, meanwhile crowdfunding to cover his legal expenses.
The collapse of Borys’ case makes it the third suit against Ballard to be completely or partially dismissed. Five more lawsuits, including the federal trafficking case, remain active.
Ballard’s dubious stories about his missions with OUR made him a celebrity in the conservative world and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as an adviser to the Trump administration on the trafficking issue, eventually becoming the basis for the hit 2023 film, Sound of Freedom. But shortly after the film’s release, Ballard’s exit from the organization due to internal complaints became public, women began to come forward with disturbing allegations about his behavior as its CEO, and the LDS Church issued a rare condemnation of Ballard for “morally unacceptable” actions — in this case, implying that a church elder who is not related but shares the same last name was a key supporter of OUR as well as his for-profit business ventures. It’s unclear whether Ballard remains a member of the church.
Ballard now claims to be working on pre-production for two sequels to Sound of Freedom, though because of the unusual way the original was made and distributed, the question of who owns the rights to pursue a franchise is somewhat complicated. Another Ballard attorney, Whitney Bernstein, on Tuesday said, “It’s high time for Tim to reclaim his hard-earned reputation as leader in the fight protecting women and children from trafficking.” While his political aspirations may have faded — he was once considering a Senate run to fill the seat vacated by Mitt Romney’s retirement — it does seem he is slowly rebuilding the public profile that made him a possible contender in the first place.
