Sound of Freedom is what some close to Tim Ballard describe as “a highly fictionalized account of his founding of Operation Underground Railroad”. Nearly four years after completion, the film is not only in dire straits, but may expose Tim Ballard to additional misconduct, criminal figures and liabilities. Allegations of financial fraud, the involvement of anti-American QAnon patriots in fundraising and newly surfaced allegations of child sex abuse by the movie’s main producer Eduardo Verástegui, who also stars in the film have begun to surface.
For additional articles covering OUR, please go to ACJ Investigates- Derailed: Operation Underground Railroad
Editor’s Note: Lynn Packer is an award-winning investigative reporter, legal consultant and author of “Lying for the Lord: The Paul H. Dunn Stories“. Lynn graduated from Utah State University with a degree in broadcast journalism. He served in the United States Army from ’68 through ’70 in Vietnam, as a television news anchor and producer for the Armed Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN) Quang Tri detachment. He was awarded the Bronze Star. For 15 years Mr. Packer reported for KSL Television News in Salt Lake City. For ten years Lynn was an adjunct professor teaching journalism at Brigham Young University and the University of Dortmund.
We’d like to thank Mr. Packer for his service, dedication and contributions to journalism and ongoing quest for the truth.
The motion picture The Sound of Freedom— about the Utah-based child sex slave rescue organization is stuck in limbo. OUR’s highly anticipated cinematic story has come and gone, but with no distribution to theaters yet in sight. Despite starring Jim Caviezel, the man who played “Jesus Christ” in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, whom Ballard begged and lobbied for to portray him (reports very that Tim Ballard didn’t even know Jim Caviezel’s name to he didn’t know how to pronounce it), and Mira Sorvino, it failed to pick up steam.
Lynn Packer’s video explores the possible reasons why the movie’s producers have failed to market what they claim is “the true story of OUR founder Tim Ballard”.
Typical Ballard Film Scam is Exposed
Nothing as changed. This new film, Sound of Freedom since day one has been embroiled in alleged financial fraud.
The possibilities as to why distributors, even the ever so-popular Evangelical Christian film distributors and mainstream LDS owned and backed ones -refuse to pick up Tim’s story seem endless.
But this time it’s different.
Academy award winning Hollywood producer Jerry Molen who has dozens of blockbuster films under his belt and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints who recently turned staunch Trumpist has been burned by Ballard’s bullshit before.
Molen was the real like “Triple Take” in his own right. Tim Ballard at the time was a nobody. Just a fringe pseudo historian who wrote LDS biblical fan fiction as history. It was so bad he was asked to strip all the LDS propaganda from it so Deseret could market the nonsense to the Evangelical community.
Ballard was given a golden ticket and opportunity of his lifetime. Instead, Ballard is a con-artist and saw Molen and Beck as marks. When the idea of a TV show with macho former Navy SEALs going into black and brown countries, snatching up children from traffickers under machine gunfire was conceived by conservative radio host Glenn Beck, Molen’s proteges, Darrin Fletcher and Chet Thomas were brought in and formed FletChet Entertainment. Ballard who had previously made an impression on Beck with his Mormon biblical fanfiction and who had happened to once work for the Department of Homeland Security; was brought in as a consultant.
In the midst of production, Ballard demanded to be made partner and co-producer of not just The Abolitionists film, but be made an equal partner of FletChet Entertainment. He threatened to withhold rescue footage. It was more than a shakedown. A shakedown doesn’t require getting bed with your mark. In Chicago, this is essentially a roll. After getting in the proverbial “bed with everyone”, Ballard basically woke up early one morning, went through their pants and stole their wallets. Ballard suddenly wanted to have this messiah, Christlike image, an ego unchecked and was impossible to deal with. So much so, that when the sexual assault of two purported sex slaves occurred, he went ballistic and demanded the footage be destroyed and imposed Non-Disclosure Agreements.
Those very NDAs would expose the sexual assaults in court. Worse, this proves that not only was Operation Underground Railroad Beck’s idea, but this was also was a Ballard vanity project. As the very men that made things happen during The Abolitionists were getting drunk and coked up, by their owned admissions (I have their statements essentially signed and dated), Ballard was accumulating his wealth and managing his portfolio. Despite getting a million dollars in seed money from Beck for Operation Underground Railroad, it just wasn’t enough Ballard was lining his own pockets and wasn’t even slick about it.
The kids were props to make money, their rescue and well being were not even secondary, they were irrelevant to Ballard. As he has proven time and time again.
The Abolitionists flopped and Ballard couldn’t care less about the financial losses, because he pocketed investor money as if it were profit.
Ballard then ran the same scam with Operation Toussaint, except this time he got in bed with corrupt Haitian officials, some who have been implicated in the assassination of their president.
The Mainstream and law enforcement saw through the cheap veneer, as did the LDS Community, who has seen this grift a thousand times before.
Not only has bizarre myths and the hysteria of human trafficking come to light in the past few years, but much of it has come directly from Ballard himself- who portrays himself as “the world’s leading expert” of human trafficking. From the silly, medically impossible and debunked QAnon belief of “adrenochroming” which Jim Caviezel claimed he was shown evidence by Tim Ballard, to outrageous statistics and figures used by Ballard that has drawn criticism from law enforcement, criminologists and legitimate human trafficking experts.
He’s a criminal under criminal investigations… duh
Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad has since been under criminal investigations for years, that seem to expand and have stripped that cheap LDS veneer from the organization’s image. The criminal investigations resulted in the rapid and mysterious departure of President Jon Lines, Chief Financial Officer Tevya Ware, who is also Ballard’s sister in law and Carlos Rodriguez, who was the head of Washington State Patrol’s Missing and Exploited Children’s Task Force. The trio formed their own anti-human trafficking nonprofit which was quick to point out transparency, ethics and legitimacy. ACJ also interviewed Carlos Rodriguez before and after he met with investigators. Since then, OUR has lost support of Utah’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC), a national Task Force Program, as well as over two dozen additional law enforcement agencies.
From accepting funds from self-proclaimed billionaire Andrew McCubbins who was involved in a Medicare Fraud scheme and was convicted of conspiring to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, and conspiring to defraud the United States in connection with a scheme to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute.
Welcome to the Fringe
As Ballard began to lose mainstream support from both the public and law enforcement agencies, they turned to fringe QAnon so-called patriots and far-right anti-American groups in fundraising.
These pesky sex abuse allegations…. once again
Recently, allegations of child sex abuse by the movie’s main producer, Eduardo Verastegui has surfaced who also stars in the film.
Spokespersons for OUR and the film’s production company decline comment.
Further Reading and Sources
Haiti president’s assassination: What we know so far – BBC News
Eduardo Verástegui is questioned about his friendship with Toño Berumen for years – Pledge Times
Operation Underground Railroad’s Roots – American Crime Journal |
LÍBRANOS DEL MAL! LA HISTORIA OSCURA DE EDUARDO VERÁSTEGUI descubierta por CHISME NO LIKE – YouTube
Jim Caviezel Decries “The Adrenochroming of Children,” As If That’s a Thing | Vanity Fair
Operation Underground Railroad | Charity Ratings | Donating Tips | Best Charities | CharityWatch
For more information on this and other cases visit Your True Crime Source at https://americancrimejournal.com
Become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/americancrimejournal
Follow Us!!!
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/AmericanCrimeJournal/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/ACrimeJournal
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/americancrimejournal/
