Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Latter-day Saint movements Ivins, Utah, USA · 2024

United States: counselor sentenced for child abuse committed through doctrinal control of a mother

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

counselor running the 'Connexions' program, exercising quasi-religious authority over clients

Organization

Connexions Classroom

Spiritual nexus

Hildebrandt held no church office, and the record says so: her authority was therapeutic control wrapped in religious language — sin, possession, distortion — exercised over a mother who then delivered her children to the harm. It is the same indirect doctrinal path as the corpus's Kingston exception, and it is recorded as an edge case rather than a clerical one.

  • Guru or spiritual-teacher authority
  • Threatened spiritual consequence

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2024-02-20 · guilty plea and sentence

    Fifth District Court, Washington County, Utah, USA. Jodi Hildebrandt pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse against two of Ruby Franke's children and was sentenced on 20 February 2024 to four consecutive terms of one to fifteen years, up to thirty years in total; her counseling license was revoked in May 2024.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • therapeutic authority framed in religious language of sin, possession and 'distortion'
  • control exercised over the children through their mother's submission

Primary record

Sources

national broadcaster court reporting sentencing report CBS News: sentencing report.

National court reporting.

official prosecutor release case record Washington County Attorney: case page.

The prosecuting authority's own case record.

Related record

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