ST. GEORGE, Utah (TCD) — Popular parenting vlogger Ruby Franke, who was arrested in September alongside her business partner, has pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree child abuse.
Court documents shared by KUTV-TV show Franke entered the plea Monday, Dec. 18, in a Washington County district court. In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped two additional counts of aggravated child abuse. In addition, Franke agreed to testify against Jodi Hildebrandt, who is facing the same charges.
On Aug. 30, Santa Clara-Ivins Police Department officers received a call from someone who said there was a juvenile who “appeared to be emaciated and malnourished, with open wounds and duct tape around the extremities.” Police searched a nearby home and found a second juvenile “in a similar physical condition of malnourishment.”
According to the plea deal, the abuse occurred between May 22 and Aug. 30, and it involved her 9-year-old daughter, referred to as EF, and 11-year-old son. The older child, RF, turned 12 in that time.
The document says Franke would “physically torture” RF by forcing him to carry heavy boxes up and down the stairs, doing wall-sits, and working outside in the heat without shoes on. The boy was “forced to stand in the direct sunlight for several days” and had to remain outside “at all hours of the day and night for extended periods of time.”
He suffered “serious sunburns” and other blistering. Franke refused to give him water and food, and he was reportedly “punished when he secretly consumed water.”
Some of her other children were inside the house and did not endure any of the abuse.
RF reportedly tried to run away in July, though his hands and feet “were regularly bound” with handcuffs on his wrists and another pair on his ankles. The document says when the boy was on his stomach, “ropes were used to tie the two sets of handcuffs together so that his arms and lower legs were lifted off the ground.”
The injuries caused by the handcuffs were “treated with homeopathic remedies and covered with duct tape.”
Franke reportedly kicked RF while wearing boots, waterboarded him, and covered his mouth and nose with her hands, causing him to suffer from oxygen deprivation.
According to the document, Franke “and another adult regularly sought to indoctrinate RF and convince him that he was evil and possessed,” and he needed to “willingly be obedient to avoid punishments.”
RF was told the “punishments were necessary to repent” and that “everything that was being done to him were acts of love.”
RF’s younger sister, EF, also suffered “severe emotional harm” because she was “subjected to the same treatment as her brother” by being “isolated and forced to do the physical tasks, remain outside, and denied food and water.” She was told she was “evil and possessed” and “needed to go through these things in order to repent.”
EF reportedly had to work barefoot outside and run on dirt roads.
KUTV reports Franke could face one to 15 years in prison for each count. She will be sentenced in February.
She reportedly said she entered the plea “with my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children.”
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