What’s Next for Jodi Hildebrandt After Ruby Franke’s Guilty Plea to Child Abuse?

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 with Ruby Frankie bleeding guilty in her child abuse case what does that mean for the woman she's throwing under the bus her co-defendant jod hilderbrand kv2 news is Brian schne is is back with us to talk about what we can expect welcome to sidebar presented by law and crime I'm Jesse Weber there are still so many questions in the Ruby Frankie case out of Utah and as our sidebar followers know we have been actively following the story since it broke over the summer and now that Ruby Frankie has officially pleaded guilty in her criminal case what does that mean for her codefendant jod hilderbrand that is an important question now do a little bit of a backup remember Ruby Frankie was the once Infamous YouTuber she started a popular Channel called Eight passengers with her husband Kevin back in 2015 it documented their lives as a couple with their six children and Frankie took a lot of heat for her controversial parenting techniques you can shift from victim whether you're in denigrating or adulating victim you have the power to shift out of it at any moment now at one point Ruby ended up partnering up with a woman named jod hilderbrand who offered these life coaching Services through this organization known as connections Ruby in fact was listed as a certified mental fitness trainer on the connections website they're working together then you fast forward to August of this year and she and hildbrandt are each arrested and each charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse of Frankie's two young children who were staying at hilderbrand's Place her 12-year-old son managed to escape hilderbrand's home ran to a neighbor who called 911 the boy was reportedly emaciated with wounds and evidence that he' been tied up the boy's sister who was 9 years old at the time I believe she's 10 years old now again this is Ruby's daughter reportedly found in the house in similar condition she was taken to the hospital to be treated for malnourishment and Ruby and jod they were each charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse and it was our understanding that each count carries a maximum of 15 years in prison by the way Kevin ended up filing for divorce from Ruby and according to his lawyer he had been living separately from her for over a year for her arrest when I interviewed Kevin's attorney he basically seemed to suggest that parenting techniques were maybe one reason for the separation but then you fast forward to Last Friday and Frankie's Law Firm indicates that she is going to enter into a formal plea deal a formal plea agreement they released a statement and this statement was very Illuminating but there was one particular point I want to emphasize for purpose of our conversation today it says quot Ruby Frankie is a devoted mother and is also a woman committed to constant Improvement initially Miss Frankie believe that jod hildbrandt 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 hilderbrandt 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 okay so really putting the blame in a big way on jod hildbrand then you go to Monday December 18th and Ruby Frankie officially pled guilty in the fifth district court in Washington County Utah in front of Judge John J Walton she pled guilty to four of the six charges four counts of aggravated child abuse each are second degree felonies 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 failing with my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children guilty now there is no agreed upon sentence in this plea the judge will ultimately sentence Ruby Frankie and based on the way that I read the terms of this plea agreement he has discretion it seems that she could be sentenced to the maximum on each count 15 years and the sentences for each could run consecutively meaning one after the other not necessarily saying that is what would happen but it'll be interesting and after reading what I read in this plea agreement I wouldn't be surprised though if she's hit with significant significant prison time Ruby admitted and this is in the plea agreement that she abused the children such as kicking her son while wearing boots holding his head underwater cutting off his oxygen by covering his mouth and nose tying him up with handcuffs forcing him to stay outside in the sun during the summer months this was over a three-month span he suffered significant Sunbirds her daughter faced similar treatment and she was forced to run Barefoot on dirt road she was suffered blisters and scabs I mean this is just truly Unthinkable this is horrible horrible stuff but she is also accused of indoctrinating the kids to believe that they were evil and that this was all for their own good presumably with the help of jod hildbrand and that brings me to the next part because it states in this plea agreement that Frankie agrees to testify against jod hilderbrand but the plea terms are relatively simple she plad guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse the the state agreed to dismiss the two other counts of child abuse and she agreed to to serve a prison term and that the the the term for the four different counts will run consecutively and not concurrently and she agrees I'll read this one verbatim she agrees to testify truthfully against jod hilderbrand and in return to Washington County attorney's office agrees to remain neutral regarding future hearings before the Utah Board of Pardons that was the prosecutor outside of Court when this happened so what does all of this mean for Jody hilderbrand well I had an opportunity to sit down with Brian schne anchor and reporter for KU TV2 News out of Utah who has been actively following this case to talk about what all of this means for jod now here's a warning I actually interviewed him before Ruby Frankie's court appearance he was actually outside the courtroom uh or Courthouse when we were speaking so just to give you an idea what we're talking about is before she officially plad guilty before we saw this plea deal uh we saw the details of this plea agreement so just keep that in mind but here you go Ryan good to see you first let everybody know where you are right now at the time of this recording right now in St George Utah as Ruby Frankie goes into court here in just a few hours at the time of our conversation so what's interesting about this case is Ru is rooted in Northern Utah we are in southern Utah which is where jod hilderbrand's home is so we're about 253 minutes from Ivans which is where all of this went down months ago now but Ruby and jod have been held here locally about 10 minutes from where I'm sitting at Purgatory Correctional Facility so Ruby Frankie's waiver hearing is today and that's why we are here and we'll be in court for that now let's be entirely clear about this the reason you and I had this conversation I think it was about a week ago maybe a week and a half ago the terrific reporting from your team is what first broke it for us uh about this waiver hearing and we were talking about well what could be a waiver hearing and we know that a waiver hearing was essentially waving a preliminary hearing and could it be that they just you know from a legal point of you didn't want that hearing to be broadcast was there another consideration or could it possibly be that a plea has been entered or a plea is being negotiated we talked about this so the fact that we got this seeming confirmation from her law firm uh with that statement what was your reaction to it not surprised based on the initial you know email I got from them a few weeks ago saying that they were hoping to reach a resolution shortly um I think it's interesting because you have to let the process you know play itself out as you know Jesse so it was really interesting to see that all of the things that we talked about in terms of a potential plea coming actually coming to fruition today where there they expecting to you know defense and prosecution come together and ultimately have this plea agreement and I'm told that the court proceedings today should be relatively quick that's not to say some of the things that will come out today could be particularly heinous or really tough for some people to uh process at home now again I'm teasing up because we haven't even gotten into what this means for Jody Hilder I want to get there in a minute but I first want to talk about this statement because you and I haven't had a chance to talk about it I read you a portion of it which I think when we're talking about jod hbr it's the most essential part throwing her under the bus putting the blame on her now what is your reaction to that part because you know there's one thing for her to take a deal uh and plead guilty essentially to her crimes but to put the blame on Jody hilderbrand that was uh that was something what' you make of it you know I guess I'm not surprised because based on a lot of our reporting over the last few months the people that we have spoken to had similar stories about jod hilderbrand manipul ation isolation separating of couples as it pertains to ripping apart marriages that is in essence if you look at the Timeline that happened to Ruby Frankie too Kevin filed for divorce and then obviously there's the other parts down the line where it happened to do with whatever is involved in this child abuse portion which apparently you know depending on how you look into these things a lot of people have looked at the YouTube videos over the years and said hey some things didn't seem right even before Ruby met jod however over the last 3 years or so isolation from family isolation from Kevin Frankie isolation and then other tactics with children a lot of that is in line with what we've heard about jod hilderbrand for more than a decade now I mean we uh did a sidebar on this over the weekend when the news broke and I was playing a few clips from Jesse Hildebrand our interview uh with Jesse who is uh jod hilderbrand's niece and those themes of isolation manipulation control were so consistent with that statement from Ruby Frankie's Law Firm I too wasn't surprised but from a legal point of view it's so interesting because I don't know how effective that would have been if they both went to trial together um if you know throwing jod under the bus because there was an aspect of the charges that jod excuse me that Ruby faces that as long as you knew about the abuse and you allowed it to happen you yourself could be convicted so I didn't think Brian uh you know I'm not surprised hearing this um but I'm also not surprised that this is no longer uh we're seemingly no longer going to trial because that wouldn't have been a successful argument yeah and I agree with that and based on the conversation you've had with Jesse hild debrand and I have also had with her as well it it a lot of these things line up now Jesse was what a teenager at the time of her allegations of abuse uh running away from jod hild debrand basically not having a very sustainable time living with her for almost a year after being sent there by her parents thinking this was the right way and the right course of action to maybe quote unquote correct her in some way so it's kind of interesting and I think that in you know coming out of that statement we do see some admission of guilt right it's sprinkled in there of you know right some it's accepting responsibility and certain things to which we understand that there will obviously be charges today that will be discussed do we see all six probably not obviously based on the deal I would imagine not the case but it is one of those things that most of that statement does point the finger at jod hilderbrandt which consistent with a lot of our reporting in a way makes a lot of sense that somebody was in a way manipulated and kind of rope into this sort of thing now that doesn't mean not accepting any responsibility for the actions which I don't necessarily think they're not trying to do but the three4 of that or five six of that statement is indeed pointing the finger at jod hilderbrand saying hey look what she made me do right right or look how this all worked out and from a legal point of view I'm not surprised there's clear admission of guilt because the the deal hasn't been entered deals can break blow up and you don't want to say something you have to be very careful with what your attorneys say prior to a plea deal actually being accepted by the court it has to be accepted so they don't want to make a blanket admission until they get that uh plea agreement you know final down and ultimately ritten up all right Brian actually hold on for a second cuz we're going to get back to talking about jod hilderbrandt and there's a lot more to talk about but we all know how much these cases really emphasize how scary the world can be and how unsafe it can be that's why I wanted to take a minute to talk about our sponsor of this video Morgan and Morgan they have just been an incredible partner of ours and the reason that I want to talk about them now is because one of the scariest things in life is when you get hurt and you don't know what to do so Morgan and Morgan is actually the largest injury law firm in 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about to seemingly enter a plea deal uh plead guilty what does this mean for jod hilderbrand well this means there's a lot more heat on jod but maybe it does play in Ruby's favor that her hearing is first right and all of this is coming out first the statement points towards Jody there's about 10 days between the the two different hearings and I still have yet to hear back from Jody's representation which I haven't since the very beginning of all of this I mean we have tried to at least get an inkling of how are they perceiving things compared to Ruby's attorneys they have at least replied to some of our inquiries and you know we've had conversations and we have looked to this day um which is where we ultimately got the you know language in their statement first to be able to share with everybody but it was one of those things that I'm still waiting to hear from the person representing jod hilderbrand where they stand in all of this because today has a big effect on what happens 11 10 days from now and it would be really interesting to see how they are processing this whole thing to which again at the time of you and I talking here I did reach out again this morning just to say hey I'm in town here I would love to love to get a little perspective from you about where things are right now but it's been relatively silent and as you and I have talked about most of this with the exception of the first 15 days or so after all of this happened in late August and then their initial appearance in early September went really quiet right all we were hearing were people coming out of the woodwork select family members people that had experiences mostly with jod by the way that you really hadn't heard much other than having to assume that both sides are looking at the discovery from the prosecution and they're going to come together and likely strike a deal because they it didn't look like they were going to move forward to push towards trial at this point and it does doesn't seem that way for Jody either so you you think there's a strong possibility that when if let's say December 27th actually stays that jod hilderbrand would actually plead guilty as well because you have to imagine if she doesn't Ruby Frankie could potentially be a huge witness against her um you know for me one of the things that I'm thinking about as well the kids would have had to testify at a trial and I think that's a major consideration for why Ruby Frankie pled guilty that's why I also think prosecutors might be open to accepting some sort of deal for jod hilderbrand to make sure that these kids don't have to testify in an upcoming trial but you tell me do you think it's likely uh whether or not that hearing stays whether or not the hearing is delayed I mean this is a very big development you think it's potentially likely Jody hildbrand could plead guilty herself as an educated guest based on what we're seeing I do believe that this what we're seeing with Ruby could very well happen with jod and I do think a lot of it lies on the kids they have been very careful with how the children have been treated through this entire thing which I've been trying to be totally respectful of because I understand I I mean a new dad myself the last thing I'd want is for my daughter to be roped into any of these things right if if it ever came to that point you don't want to provide any further harm towards these children then they've already been thrust into the spotlight and you've already heard about the emaciation for two of the children the horrific 911 call from the neighbor saying hey I I I just came across this kid who had ties around his his wrists and his ankles having any of these children have to relive that in the form of taking the stand I think would be very damaging for the rest of their lives if it already hadn't been based on a lot of this so I do think we see something similar with jod down the line here but you're right things could very well be delayed after things take place today because what happens today directly impacts jod hilderbrand just to be clear um again we haven't seen the hearing yet for Ruby Frankie as we're recording this do you know if any representative from Jody hilderbrand her lawyers anybody is going to attend this hearing uh and be aware of what happened because I don't even know if jod hildbrand has been working around you know behind the scenes trying to work out a deal if she was hit by surprise at this statement from Ruby Frankie's uh lawyer we haven't heard anything either so I'd be very curious if you know if jod hildbrand any her lawyers anybody are actually going to attend Frank's hearing today you know it's not clear if they will but I'd have to imagine given the connection between these two right the Friendship the business partner the whatever and the fact that Jody's attorney has an office you know relatively close to the courthouse here I would really have to imagine that they would be sitting at least in the courtroom listening to what takes place today or maybe they already have a heads up on how this thing's going to go if they've worked together in anyway and it's a lot of those things that we don't know because you know they just don't talk about those things right but it's one of those things that we are waiting to see the exact paperwork on this agreement once it is filed into the system I do obviously have the expectation that Ruby Frankie will spend more time in jail um and that this is not getting off scott free at all because of the admission here or whatever she's pleading forth but I wouldn't be surprised if we did see anybody even if it's family or something like that related to jod hilderbrand that will be there uh at the hearing for Ruby Frankie on Monday December 18th coming up here as we are talking in just a few hours and that's what I want to F like kind of end the conversation on in terms of yeah I agree with you I can't imagine a deal where Ruby Frankie would get no time Behind Bars uh specifically there was this part in her statement where it seemed that she said she would support Kevin Frankie's ability to get custody of the kids paraphrasing a bit and that would seem to me to suggest maybe she's is not going to be around the bigger question is what would happen with jod so again these are very serious charges now you have Ruby throwing jod under the bus Which as we've been saying is consistent with what we've heard from other people if jod were even to enter into a deal I would have to imagine whatever punishment she receives would be much worse than Ruby Frankie would you agree with that based on the understanding that we have for how this is going to proceed with Ruby I would really imagine that Jody will take the brunt of this based on what we've heard from go back to Jesse hilderbrandt uh I asked her directly months ago would you say that jod was The Mastermind between all of this and she said yes based on the people that I've talked to about jod all of this screams Jody's tactics and how she has approached individuals over the years whether it be couples that have gone to them for counseling whether it had been somebody way back when that was referred through the church prior to things blowing up in that standpoint I would have to imagine that if there are extra charges to give they would likely go towards jod hild hilderbrand based on a lot of the conversations that we've been having with people that had past experiences with her and how Ruby does point the finger here at least in this statement from her attorneys it does make sense that there's kind of this uneven balance here between what has been going on keep in mind the children were found at Jody's house so it's all these things that lean more towards jod in a way than they do towards ru even though we do know that Ruby spend an ample amount of time in Ivan we did see the video of her uh pulled over for speeding what six days five days before all of this really shook down she was in Ivans again so there is that obvious connection between she was there obviously very well knew what was going on but I do believe all of this was spearheaded as it seems based on people that we've talked to by jod so I would H I would have to imagine those charges are going to be heavily levied against jod hbr and even in the police documentation they suggested that Ruby had filmed a video with jod in that residence two days before uh these arrests were made now um I I'll finish up the conversation by just saying again uh when you see this video Everybody when you see my conversation with Brian we will know the answer presumably about with Ruby Frankie but I think all of this still applies because we are most likely not going to have an answer about jod hillerbrand by the end of the day this is going to continue on Brian you've been doing incredible work uh thank than you so much for taking the time to talk about this um for anybody who wants you know upto-date coverage of what is happening in this case Ryan schne KU TV2 News they're going to be on the ground there uh really appreciate it um the only the only thing I you know is a little disappointing is that look we hope this case is resolved the best way it should be resolved in the interest of Justice I will say um that will conclude I mean our conversations if if this case ultimately wraps up which is a diff which is something I I'd be disappointed about because I really enjoyed having these conversations with you Brian but let's keep in touch let's find out what's happening next and I'm sure we'll have a lot more to talk about thanks as always for having me on too I've really enjoyed these it's an opportunity to share more of our long form conversation a better understanding to people at home that have been following this maybe you don't live in Utah you don't see our reporting every day and we've really tried to keep people up to date on this as we've been able to find out more sometimes when things go into the court process they get hidden they get stashed away and we just don't know but our team not just myself for example we have a team here today yep we've tried to do the very best we can to put all of this out there for ultimately the viewer to decide and the viewer to understand however Which Way they'd like to look at these two women and this overall situation but you never know there could be always more interesting things coming out of Utah that you want to talk about so y just keep the number on speed dial Will you well I I will hopefully hopefully that's not the case CU Anytime we cover it it's not great news so but I I hear you Brian schne thank you so much great talking to you as always happy holidays thank you that is all we have for you right now here on sidebar everybody 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: 261,266

Keywords: law and crime, law and crime network

Id: yMBmJ5bC8uw

Length: 25min 24sec (1524 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 20 2023