SALT LAKE CITY — One of the lawsuits against Tim Ballard and the nonprofit he founded has been dismissed.
FOX 13 News interviewed plaintiff Suzanne Whitehead earlier this year.
She has been working with human trafficking victims on and off for 14 years.
Whitehead filed her lawsuit against Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) last November, accusing the group of inflicting “emotional distress.”
She says it started when she criticized the organization, arguing that OUR operators are creating additional demand for human trafficking in the countries they visit.
"You can show up on your million-dollar jet, and then go ask around at a bar and say, 'Hey, I want a bunch of 12-year-old girls!'" Whitehead said. "If those guys think that they're going to get a ton of money from you? They're going to find you some 12-year-old girls, whether they've been trafficked or not!"
According to her lawsuit, OUR got angry at Whitehead when she claimed the nonprofit was trying to raise money with the story of a young girl at a shelter she partnered with in Nepal.
The shelter confirmed the girl was never trafficked, never rescued, and had nothing to do with OUR.
"My name was tied to things that weren’t true," Whitehead said. "I love this girl that they had just lied about... it was her name and parts of her story, but then it had been sexed up with all this extra stuff, and it was just so bizarre."
Whitehead confronted an OUR team member named "Damian," who expressed remorse for the inaccurate fundraising post.
The conversation prompted Whitehead to criticize OUR on social media. For example, she responded to an OUR social media post disputing a claim by Ballard that he knew the location of every victim rescued by OUR.
"We have no idea where the girls are. We have no idea," Damian said. "Unfortunately we were required elsewhere. I'll be honest. I was quite embarrassed about it."
Whitehead said members of OUR intimidated her with phone calls and on social media when she brought up the cases.
Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes was originally named as a defendant, but Whitehead agreed to drop the case against him after Reyes met with her to personally apologize and promise to not seek re-election.
- Watch the FOX 13 investigations leading up to withdrawal of Utah AG Sean Reyes
- Full documents: Utah AG Sean Reyes accused of witness tampering and intimidation
- Full documents: Utah AG Sean Reyes accused of using his office to silence critics
Another OUR member was named in the lawsuit accused of intimidation, but not as a defendant. The judge said it's not possible to prove his conduct toward Whitehead was on behalf of Ballard or the nonprofit.
"The narrative they were saying about me was like, 'Oh, you must hate kids,'" Whitehead described. "Really infuriating because I have been working with
children abroad in tons of countries, and obviously I don’t hate kids."
According to the judge's ruling — even if every claim in Whitehead's lawsuit were proven to be true — the case would still not rise to the level of "outrageous or intolerable conduct," especially because she wasn't "threatened with violence, sexual harassment, or other vile conduct."
The judge is allowing Whitehead to amend her lawsuit to include more details about Ballard, but the case against OUR was dismissed with prejudice.
An attorney for Ballard called it a “brief social media dispute” — not grounds for a lawsuit.
“It took Ms. Whitehead years to decide she had experienced 'severe' emotional distress following a brief social media dispute with Tim Ballard," wrote defense attorney Mike Eisenhut. "We're confident Mr. Ballard will be fully vindicated in the remaining cases too."
Ballard remains a defendant in three other civil lawsuits. Six former OUR employees have accused him of sexual misconduct, leading to his "permanent separation" from the nonprofit.
He is also the subject of multiple criminal investigations.