Biggest Bombshells From 'Sound of Freedom' Activist Grooming Lawsuit

The anti-sex trafficking activist who provided his story to the summer blockbuster "Sound of Freedom" is being sued by five women who accused him of coercing them into sexual contact when they worked with him on child rescue operations.

A new lawsuit was filed against Tim Ballard in Salt Lake City on Monday, accusing the Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) founder of sexual assault. The suit named Ballard, OUR and the SPEAR Fund, where Ballard currently serves as a senior adviser, as defendants in the case.

Ballard, who founded OUR in 2014, left the nonprofit earlier this year amid reports of internal investigations into sexual assault claims made against him by multiple employees. Around that time, Sound of Freedom, which starred actor Jim Caviezel as Ballard, was released in theaters and became a sleeper hit, grossing a total of $235 million, but also was mired in controversy over links to QAnon conspiracy theories and its depiction of human trafficking.

When the anonymous letter that led Ballard to depart from OUR was made public last month, he was denounced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), of which he was an active member. Ballard has previously denied any sexual misconduct and dismissed the claims as "baseless inventions designed to destroy me and the movement we have built to end the trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable children."

Newsweek reached out to OUR via email for comment.

Operation Underground Railroad Lawsuit

The new lawsuit marks an escalation in the allegations being lobbied against Ballard. The claims made in the suit allege that Ballard not only "engaged in coerced sexual contact" in the name of rescuing trafficked children, but exploited his victims' religious beliefs by telling him he was to become the future LDS president.

"OUR remained silent, using [Ballard's] face and the world-wide opening tour of Sound of Freedom to raise money, and allowing Ballard to continue his grooming, drinking and sexual deviancy; all on the donors' dime," the lawsuit reads.

Here are the biggest bombshells from the lawsuit:

Couple's Ruse

Ballard has previously discussed using a "couple's ruse" in his undercover missions to save children, during which one of the women who worked for OUR would pose as his wife or girlfriend.

The lawsuit described it as "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 or massage parlors around the world."

However, the five women, who filed the lawsuit using pseudonyms to protect their identity, claimed that Ballard soon began abusing the rules that he implemented for the couple's ruse—which included no kissing, touching or exposing private parts—and "eventually used the ruse as a tool for sexual grooming."

It also claimed that Ballard would insist that the women who participated in the ruses had to have "physical 'chemistry'" and would do so by encouraging them to engage in "tantric massages" before and during the ruse.

"Ballard claimed to be so concerned about the believability of the COUPLES RUSE that he frequently asked women to 'practice' their COUPLES RUSE long before a mission ever took place," the lawsuit read. "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."

Misusing Donations for Strip Clubs and Drugs

Ballard allegedly frequented strip clubs with the women working in the ruse, as well as his son, which was not disclosed to his wife, according to the lawsuit. The women claimed that it was during these trips that Ballard would misuse donations made to the anti-sex trafficking organization for his own leisure.

"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 states.

It also claimed that Ballard would advise the women he was with to not drink the alcohol being offered to them, because drinking is forbidden by the Mormon church, and instead spit it into his mouth so that he could spit it out when no one was looking. But, the women in the suit claimed that he never did and was "consuming excessive amounts of alcohol (tequila) of his own volition... to the point of passing out."

Grooming and Use of the Mormon Church Against Victims

The lawsuit alleges that Ballard requested the women involved in the ruses to get Brazilian waxes, asked them, "Is there anything you wouldn't do to save a child?" and told them "mythical stories" about previous female partners to motivate the women into "trying to outdo their supposed predecessors."

Ballard also allegedly told the women that engaging in sex play with him would improve their marriages and instructed them not to tell their husbands what they were doing as to not compromise the organization's mission. He warned them that if they failed the couple's ruse missions, they could be caught or killed by the cartel and threatened to track them through the burner phones he forced them to use. He also threatened to sue.

The suit claims that Ballard used the Mormon church against the women, claiming that the church president had given him permission to do the ruses and that those missions followed the teachings of the church. The women also alleged that he told them he would be the future President of the United States as well as the president of the Mormon church.

"When these women found themselves questioning the legitimacy of tactics involving sexual contact, they often doubted their own instincts, relying on Ballards' breadth of knowledge about rescue missions