Five women on Monday sued the founder of an anti-child-trafficking group that inspired a popular movie this year, alleging he sexually manipulated, abused and harassed them on overseas trips designed to lure and catch child sex traffickers.

Tim Ballard’s life story and work with Operation Underground Railroad inspired “Sound of Freedom,” a 2023 film popular with conservative moviegoers.

The complaints against Ballard center on a “couple’s ruse” he allegedly engaged in with Operation Underground Railroad women who posed as his wife to fool child sex traffickers into thinking he was a legitimate client, according to the lawsuit filed in Utah state court.

While promotional materials portrayed the group’s overseas missions as “paramilitary drop-ins to arrest traffickers and rescue children,” they mostly involved “going to strip clubs and massage parlors across the world, after flying first class to get there, and staying at five-star hotels, on boats, and at VRBOs (vacation rentals by owner) across the globe,” the lawsuit alleges.

Even in private, the lawsuit alleges: “Ballard would claim that he and his female partner had to maintain the appearance of a romantic relationship at all times in case suspicious traffickers might be surveilling them at any moment.”

This story has been corrected to show that M. Russell Ballard is a high-ranking leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but that he is not president of the entire faith.

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