‘Weight Lifted’: Jodi Hildebrandt's Niece, Alleged Victim Reacts to Child Abuse Plea

then miss H hild de Brandt how do you plead to count one aggravated child abuse a second degree felony business partner and codefendant of M fluenc sir Ruby Frankie enters her own guilty plea in a Utah courtroom to heinous child abuse charges we're breaking down the rise and fall of Jody hilderbrand plus we sit down with hilderbrand's niece who has been open about the alleged abuse they suffered at their aunt's hand to get their reaction to Jody's plea agreement and Ed prison time welcome to sidebar presented by law on crime I'm Jesse Weber 54-year-old jod Nan hilderbrand is preparing to spend years in prison after she admitted to abusing two of her business partner's children inside of her home that business partner Ruby Frankie also entered into her own guilty plea agreement with sentencing now expected in February we've told you all about Ruby's past in previous sidebar episodes now let's do a deep dive into jod hilderbrand's past because it's important to understand where she came from how she ended up here so according to her LinkedIn page jod hildbrandt has a bachelor in arts in English language and literature from Brigham Young University and a master's degree in education Psychology from the University of Utah her LinkedIn page says that she served as a program director for Circ Lodge in the early 2000s Circ Lodge is build as a private luxury rehab for treatment of drug and alcohol addiction hilderbrandt was first licensed as a clinical mental health counselor in Utah in July of 2005 we believe in 2007 hilderbrandt wrote the curriculum for connections classroom a life coaching program that offered therapy through workbooks videos group sessions and more welcome to connections I'm Jody hilderbrand so glad you're with us on the connections website hild debrand stated quote overall I desire to help our generation and the generations to come dispose of distortions ugly lies in order to live in truth connection and freedom so when I think about the word hijacked I think about Distortion I think about the characteristics of distortion so control is a characteristic of distortion um engaging in any form of deception so manipulation secrecy hiding entitlement um aggression threatening bullying blaming all of those presentations are all distorted because they all are have the underpinning of deception now on the connections website Ruby Frankie she's listed as a quote certified mental fitness trainer although it's unclear what qualifications if any she had for that title now over the last few years Frankie and hilderbrand have appeared in connections videos together after Frankie stopped posting to her family's YouTube channel called eight passengers a very popular Channel posted over 2 million subscribers see she had gotten blowback from viewers and fellow vloggers for her parenting tactics I've shared with Ruby numerous times that anger is actually one of my most favorite emotions when I first started getting to know you she's like anger is my favorite emotion I'm like I don't know who I'm dealing with here but in 2012 the Department of commerce's Division of Occupational and professional life licensing put hildebrand's license on probation for 18 months for quote unprofessional conduct she was accused of discussing the private sensitive information of a patient with Mormon church leaders as well as Brigham Young University without patient's permission but after that probationary period her license was reinstated now at last check hilderbrand's clinical mental health license is still listed as limited active in September the Utah Division of Professional Licensing gave it that status so that hilderbrand couldn't practice as a counselor until her legal case had been resolved by the way since all of this happened people have spoken out about hilderbrand's counselling talking about manipulation coercion torture in fact the attorney for Kevin Frankie that's Ruby's husband he spoke to us about what effect hilderbrand had on the Frankie family but Ruby felt like there were differences in their marriage and at one point in conjunction with Jody hilderbrand it was sort of like uh we we have to separate to save our marriage you know we'll keep working on our marriage but for now you know if if you're going to se if we're going to repair our marriage and be back together as a family you have to be away I don't think he's made that parallel I don't think that he believes that is what led up to this but what I can say at least it's my observation that while the family may have had some struggles prior to jod coming into their life lives it just kind of seems like to me and this is my personal opinion that once she got involved in their lives it just destroyed his family the focus has been on Kevin where was he why was he absent how does that all happen so um R he was doing that at Ruby's Direction who I think was being directed by jod this is the way that you've got to repair your marriage and repair your family so they were all sort of kind of being manipulated in this is just my opinion by by jod and I think she knew what she was doing and it was causing significant damage and so when Kevin's critics are out there saying um you know where was he um he was acting at the direction of what he thought was a competent me mental health care provider and adviser and to me the better question is what kind of mental health care provider would advise a family and a husband and wife and a husband and CH or a father and children that this can repair your family if you just stay away from each other and I'm confident that she told that to Ruby I'm confident that that the the children were being told that and Kevin was certainly being told that that I know what I'm doing you need to stay away so now the question is how did Hilder come to the attention of law enforcement right well in August of 2023 a neighbor of hilderbrand called police called police saying that a young boy had shown up at his property looking for help this kid is obvious I think he's been he's been detained he's been he's obviously covered in wounds yeah Ruby Frankie's youngest son 12-year-old Russell had apparently escaped from jod hilderbrand's home you know there's been problems at this neighbor's house he's emaciated he's got tape around his legs he's hungry and he's thirsty yeah when First Responders got there they found Russell as well as his sister 9-year-old Eve they were emaciated and malnourished so they were rushed to a hospital it was also evidence that Russell was tied up and sustained injuries from his bindings Frankie's two middle daughters they were found at another home in American Fork Utah with another member of connections they along with the two youngest kids were taken into State custody by the way the oldest children Sher and Chad there were adults now but both Frankie and hilderbrandt they were arrested and held without bond they were each charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse in December we learned that both women had separate waiver hearings scheduled when we might expect flea agreements to be announced Frankie's hearing was first on December 18th and she agreed to plead guilty in open court to four of the child abuse charges Miss Frankie how do you plead to count one aggravated child abuse a second degree felony guilty to count three aggravated child abuse a second degree felony guilty to count five aggravated child abuse a second degree felony guilty and to count six aggravated child abuse a second degree felony with my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children guilty now the other two charges they were dropped these were the child abuse charges constituting starvation or malnutrition and as part of her deal Frankie agreed to testify against jod hilderbrand in fact before this hearing Ruby's Law Firm released a statement saying in part quote initially Miss Frankie believed that jod hilderbrandt had the insight to offer a path to continual Improvement Miss hilderbrandt took advantage of this Quest and twisted it into something heinous over an extended period Miss Hill debrandt systematically isolated Ruby Frankie from her extended family older children and her husband Kevin Frankie this prolonged isolation resulted in Miss Frankie being subjected to a distorted sense of morality shaped by Miss hild de Brand's influence which is maybe why it was not entirely that surprising that hild debrandt decided to plead guilty on December 27th hild debrandt appeared in a jail jumpsuit alongside her lawyer to officially enter her own plea then miss H Hilder Brandt how do you plead to count one aggravated child abuse a second degree felony guilty and to count three aggravated child abuse a second deegree felony guilty to count five aggravated child abuse a second deegree felony guilty and to count six also aggravated child abuse a second deegree felony guilty in the plea agreement documents hild debrandt admitted to multiple abusive acts in an almost identical list to Ruby Frankies which included forcing Russell and Eve to work outside and direct sunlight heat during the summer months denying them food and water however where you see a difference is that in hilderbrand's plea agreement it does say she either physically forced or coed Eve to jump into a cactus multiple times both children were told that they were evil or possessed that these acts were necessary and done out of love after the December 27th hearing hilderbrand's defense attorney explains some of the reasons she chose to take a pleate miss hilderbrand my client has played guilty today to four counts she has done so because she takes responsibility for her her conduct in this matter um her guilty pleas she decided to plead guilty before Miss Frankie entered into her plea agreement or agreed to cooperate with the state she has pled guilty because she wants she did not want these children to have to testify she takes responsib ability and it is her main concern at this point that these children can heal both physically and emotionally we look forward to sentencing that's all I have to say today also the two counts that I mentioned that were dropped in the Frankie case they were also dropped in the hilderbrand case and the prosecutor also spoke outside of court about why two of these counts of child abuse were dropped for Frankie and hilderbrand if our plea offer had been there is no plea offer plead straight up to all six then the defendant has no incentive to go to trial and and and we're not afraid of Trials we don't want to avoid trials trials carry some risk and that you don't know what the outcome is going to be but but more so when you have victims that that are having to go through the trial process that's difficult difficult so now with all of that hild debrandt and Frankie they will both be sentenced in February and they each face up to 15 years in prison for each count the sentences are also going to run consecutively meaning one after the other it's pretty chilling talking about jod hilderbrandt and Ruby Frankie and it makes you think about how unsafe the world can be at times well our partner and sponsor of this video Morgan and Morgan the largest injury law firm in America they can help tackle one of the scarious things in life that is when you get hurt because if that happens you may not know what to do you're going to have so much on your plate Morgan and Morgan will make it super easy for you they have completely modernized the process because you submit your claim you sign contracts you upload documents you talk to your whole legal Team all on your phone that's it an attorney is going to review your case in just eight clicks they also have 4,000 support staff that can help you through the process too which is just amazing to think about and in terms of price you only pay them if you win there's no upfront fee so if you're in injured and you want to join the over 3 million people that call them every year you can submit a claim at forthepeople.com LC sidebar or by dialing pound law that's pound 529 on your phone all right let's get back into the latest on jod hilderbrand we're getting Insight from someone who experienced alleged abuse inside of hildebrandt's home her niece Jesse hild debrandt now we have spoken with Jessie before here on sidebar talking about previous allegations that have a striking similar to what happened to Frankie's children inside of that Ivan's Utah home well Jesse joins us again to discuss the latest developments in this case Jesse thank you so much for taking the time I I can't tell you how much I always appreciate you being very open with uh how you're feeling and what you experienced and since we've spoken so much has happened I I'm just going to ask you straight up your reaction to jod hilderbrand pleading guilty yeah um it's been it's been quite a journey on my end of processing and reprocessing everything that's been going on the day that it happened I was um surprisingly really angry I didn't expect to feel so much anger um kind of come up in in that experience um I think part of it was when her lawyer came out and gave just the the most ridiculous comment to the Press about how jod is just she plad guilty because she's just trying to you know take accountability for her actions and she just really cares about the kids healing and all of this garbage just complete trash um that was pretty enraging um I mean I can't imagine it actually changing anyone's mind or convincing anyone of like like it's so obviously a manipulation tactic to save face um but that was pretty pretty enraging and then slowly throughout the day like a lot of this weight just like slowly kind of lifted off my shoulders and a lot of this subconscious fear that somehow she was going to be able to kind of Wiggle her way out of any accountability um slowly lifted yeah so I was able to speak to the DA a little bit that evening and he informed me that the likelihood of her getting maximum maximum sentencing is incredibly high that she's most likely going to be getting the 60 years wow that we were wondering that because again you know 15 years is the max on each um each church and you know look the way that we understand it as well and from Utah laws it really isn't the judge who sets it it's more like this is what punishment is and um it's up to a board to determine if shove or be granted parole so I mean that's our understanding about it yeah so he also told me that it's about eight months from now that that board will be put together and that's going to be like the first parole hearing will be in in as little as eight months yeah um and that's what we're going to be Focus like what the da said to be focusing on like having a written statement of of harm and um showing up to those to those hearings and hopefully that this will this after this first one it will be pushed years down the line well first of all were you there when she pled guilty and do you plan to appear at her senten um I was not there um I I didn't want to be there um or at least I was I was pretty torn on whether I wanted to be there or not um I won't be there for her sentencing simply because of um just the timing of it I'll be in Europe um I I would have liked to be there for the sentencings I will be there for the parole hearing um most likely that's I think where a lot of victims like that's the important time for victims to come forward and and to convince the the board that she doesn't deserve any sort of parole I thought it was really interesting when you said that it didn't seem genuine you know her reason for pleading guilty uh obviously from a legal point of view there's a number of reasons why I think she did it um you know you had Ruby Frankie agreeing to testify against her evidence looks really bad but you don't believe in any way you don't believe in any way she feels bad about what happened not even a little bit no that was it's so wild because something that she would constantly um accuse me of when I was living with her so when when the abuse started getting really bad people at my in my church started noticing that I didn't look well and that something was wrong and um they started talking to the bishop or the pastor the person in charge of our Ward um just like their concerns and the P the bishop Bishop banger told jod these people's names and then we would go to their home and she would coach me in the car and tell me exactly what I was going to say and then she would go in with me and I would have to apologize to them for manipulating them into feeling sorry I believed that jod was that Jesus was working through jod and that jod was saving me and so it's just Darkly Darkly ironic that watching her in the pews like at the sentencing just like looking so sad and then telling like her attorney coming out and saying something like that it's just like wow oh you're manipulating all these all that time you were telling me that that's what I was doing was just a projection because that's what you would do and are doing like it's like you don't get you don't get accused and like convicted of child torture and then suddenly are like oh I just really care about these children's healing like that's not what happens yeah you don't go 15 years of having this be a pattern and then suddenly be like I just really care about these children that's not possible and I wanted to ask you about that because now that the plea agreements have been entered these court documents have been filed and we now know more details about what happened to these kids I mean talking about uh jod hilderbrand as I mentioned earlier on in the show she either physically forced or coerced a 9-year-old girl Eve to jump into a cactus multiple times these two children were dehydrated they weren't given food they were uh made to work outside in the heat does it did it seem worse what happened to these kids or Just eily similar to what you went through so a lot of it was similar um there were certain specifics that were not um I went on news Nation to give a a a statement right after the plea and I didn't know about the the cactus and they had spoken about it right before they brought me on and it was horrifying to hear about not surprising but horrifying nonetheless um she again she is she's one of the most convincing powerful humans you will ever meet and when you are in a state of vulnerability especially as a child there's just she can convince you of anything I mean I worked out in her garden in the middle of the summer like we didn't live in southern Utah so it was not as hot um or or as dry but was I was working out in her yard all summer and you know she used you know holding withholding food withholding water as a way of force um I mean she would you know she duct tape me and tied me up but I was also a teenager there's a very big difference between being 16 and going through something like this and being a 9-year-old like there's just no way of comparing those two things it was horrifying for me I I think it was worse than I even imagined I mean talking about just the injury sustain what these kids went through not even the physical trauma the emotional mental trauma well and you've talked about that as well yes the the emotional and spiritual abuse I mean it took me I mean I'm still in therapy every week for it there's no and that and again it was almost 15 years ago and I'm still daily like I I mean through this this experience for months there's been a tremendous amount of healing on my end um which just goes to show how important um accountability is for the victims right um but no I mean this doesn't the the the invisibility of harm almost it makes it even worse because you you know if if those kids didn't have those horrifying physical marks on their bodies would have this would this ever have been intervened yeah I mean like I think about that whether if Russell never SK aped what would have happened um look I I know um we have to let you go but I did want to ask you real quickly about something that really struck me and how this all went down is that Ruby Frankie pleed guilty um she was going to testify against jod Hill de bran but her lawyers right before the plea agreement or before The Plea hearing they released this statement and I read it in part and it says again initially Miss Frankie believed that jod hildbrandt had the insight to offer a path to continual Improvement Miss hilderbrandt took advantage of this Quest and T Twisted it into something heinous over an extended period Miss hilderbrand systematically isolated Ruby Frankie from her extended family older children and her husband Kevin Frankie this prolonged isolation resulted in Miss Frankie being subjected to a distorted sense of morality shaped by Miss hilderbrand's influence what is your reaction to uh Ruby Frankie throwing Jody hilderbrand under the bus and was going to testify against her yeah no it's um hearing that Ruby was going to testify against jod just shows me that they had a lot more on jod like the fact that jod got off on only four counts of of child abuse which is significant and in my opinion nothing compared to what they probably had on her um and as I want to say that Ruby is an adult Ruby is the mother you know she is responsible for her children and she is resp responsible for what happens to her children full stop and I fully agree like I can completely understand is coming from in that statement I don't agree with her not having responsibility she deserves every one of those counts of child abuse um but jod is one of the most manipulative and it is systematic and I know that the last time that I I was on here I I talked about that how it was with me it's like line upon line precept upon precept conditioning it's like you're this frog being boiled alive in water so slowly that you don't realize it's happening until it's already happened Jesse Before I Let You Go one last quick question you mentioned what the prosecutor said could be a potential sentence uh for jod hild debrand the maximum did the prosecutor give you any indication about what the potential sentence for Ruby Frankie would be um I didn't ask honestly um just that's that's not the connection I have to this case I got you I gotta Jesse Hill de brand again thank you so much for coming on so sorry again for everything that you've gone through and you're continuing to go through especially as this case became so National and became on the Forefront and the conversation uh developed about it but again thank you so much for your bravery to come on speak about what happened and uh we wish you the best of luck as this case progresses thank you so much I appreciate it all right everybody that is all we have for you right now here on sidebar thank you so much for joining us please subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify YouTube wherever you get your podcast I'm Jesse Weber speak to you next [Music] time

Channel: Law&Crime Network

Views: 186,636

Keywords: law and crime, law and crime network

Id: s4fBC5fPwBs

Length: 25min 18sec (1518 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 04 2024