Content warning: This story discusses child abuse.
The case surrounding Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt continues.
Two months after the former business partners were given four consecutive one to 15 year prison sentences on child abuse charges, Ruby’s estranged husband Kevin Franke has filed a lawsuit against Jodi.
In the court documents, as obtained by local outlet KUTV and viewed by E! News, Kevin alleges Jodi was responsible for physical and emotional abuse against two of his and Ruby’s six children—listed as 11-year-old son ”R.F.” and 9-year-old daughter “E.F.” in the documents—after Ruby moved them into Jodi’s home in May 2023.
In the documents, Kevin alleges Jodi confined his children to the basement of her house, “from which they were not allowed to leave without the permission of the Defendant or Ruby Franke” upon the threat of punishment. Among the punishments and “physical torture” Jodi is accused of inflicting against R.F. are “wall sits, carrying boxes full of books up and down stairs and […] outside labor without shoes and in the summer heat.”
The latter accusation is further detailed as R.F. being forced to stand in direct summer sunlight for days on end with minimal water and no sun protection, resulting in “repeated and serious sunburns with blistered and sluffing skin.”