Editor’s note • This story discusses sexual assault. If you need to report or discuss a sexual assault in Utah, you can call the Rape and Sexual Assault Crisis Line at 801-736-4356. The National Sexual Assault Hotline is 800-656-4673.
A new filing in the lawsuit brought by five women accusing Tim Ballard of sexual assault has added an allegation of rape, as well as a host of new assertions — including a startling accusation that Ballard arranged a penthouse with women and cocaine at a private club in downtown Salt Lake City for Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes.
The attorney general denied the allegation, dismissing it as “ridiculous.”
The amended complaint, filed Friday evening, alleges that Operation Underground Railroad, the anti-trafficking nonprofit Ballard founded, had given nearly $1 million in grants to Reyes’ office “in order to motivate General Reyes to protect Ballard and OUR.”
After a criminal investigation was opened by the Davis County attorney’s office, Ballard was upset, the suit asserts, “especially since Ballard made arrangements for General Reyes to use a penthouse at Mac’s Place with women and cocaine.”
Mac’s Place is an exclusive social club located north of Pioneer Park. It has frequent high-profile guests and contains meeting spaces, a shoeshine stand, barber chairs and massage tables.
Reyes, whose decadelong personal and professional relationship with Ballard has come under scrutiny, denied the latest allegations through a spokesperson Monday. Reyes announced in December that he would not seek reelection.
“This, along with several other allegations are just absolutely ridiculous,” said Alan Crooks, Reyes’ political consultant.
The court filing attributes the alleged penthouse arrangement to anonymous “witnesses” and does not elaborate on the source of the allegation or whether witnesses saw Reyes using cocaine.
Pressed for information about the sources, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, Alan Mortensen, said the allegations “are set forth as notice to the defendants of what we intend to prove in discovery.”
“Those allegations are based upon our investigation that is always ongoing,” he said.
For his part, Ballard faces multiple lawsuits from women accusing him of sexual abuse and assault. They also accuse OUR of being complicit and enabling his alleged behavior. OUR terminated Ballard last June, just before the release of “Sound of Freedom,” a movie loosely based on his anti-trafficking heroics that has earned hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office.
In addition to the new allegations toward Reyes, the lawsuit escalates a previous description of the severity of one of the numerous acts of sexual abuse and assault Ballard is accused of committing.
One victim statement filed with the suit details plaintiff Kira Lynch’s allegation that Ballard pinned her down on the stairs of her home after she had cut his hair and raped her while she pleaded with him to stop.
Lynch reported her case to law enforcement last October. Despite initially denying an open records request, insisting there were no police reports related to the alleged attack, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office provided The Salt Lake Tribune last week with an initial contact report in Lynch’s case.
The Tribune generally does not name alleged victims of sexual assault, but Lynch has agreed to go public with her accusations.
Chad Kolton, a spokesperson for Ballard, said the story keeps changing “but what remains the same is the relentless focus on shaking down Tim Ballard for millions of dollars.”
Kolton said Lynch did not contact authorities until after “Sound of Freedom” became a hit, weeks after filing the lawsuit and nearly two years after the alleged crime.
“She offers no evidence at all,” he said, “for her claims or much of the rest of this motion.”
The lawsuit contends that Ballard “confessed” the alleged assault to M. Russell Ballard, a now-deceased senior apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who is not related to Tim Ballard but at one time was a friendly adviser to Tim Ballard.
“President Ballard did not tell Tim Ballard to go to the police and report his horrible act,” the lawsuit alleges. Instead, it said, he advised Tim Ballard to do a better job of obeying the rules of the “couples ruse” — a tactic in which the OUR founder says he and various women would pose as a couple to try to infiltrate child-trafficking rings.
The couples were supposed to pose as intimate partners but not engage in any sexual behavior, a rule the lawsuit alleges Ballard regularly broke.
The lawsuit also asserts that, according to unnamed witnesses, Elder Ballard at times turned to Tim Ballard’s psychic, Janet Russon, for guidance and advice.
When asked about these claims, the church did not offer a response but pointed to a previous statement on the matter.
In September 2023, the Utah-based faith issued a rare public rebuke of Tim Ballard, acknowledging that he was friends with Elder Ballard but that “once it became clear Tim Ballard had betrayed their friendship, through the unauthorized use of President Ballard’s name for Tim Ballard’s personal advantage and [for] activity regarded as morally unacceptable, President Ballard withdrew his association.”
Tim Ballard’s spokesperson said the allegations in the lawsuit are irrelevant and appear to be intended to “pressure their targets to pay up.”
“The plaintiffs in these cases,” Kolton said, “will smear anyone – including respected members of the LDS Church — without any evidence at all — if they think it can help them get rich.”
— Tribune reporter Tamarra Kemsley contributed to this story.
Correction • April 30, 3 p.m.: This story has been corrected to say plaintiffs allege that Tim Ballard arranged for Sean Reyes to use a penthouse with women and cocaine.
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