A Longtime Associate of Tim Ballard’s Is Rebuilding Operation Underground Railroad

In September 2023, the public became aware that Tim Ballard, the celebrity founder of the anti-trafficking non-profit Operation Underground Railroad and hero of the heavily fictionalized box-office hit Sound of Freedom, had left the organization following an investigation into sexual-misconduct claims made by women who worked for the group. Since then, OUR has promoted a clear and consistent message: Its ties to Ballard—by now a named defendant in a number of civil lawsuits accusing him of sexual misconduct and the subject of at least one criminal inquiry—are in the past.

The past has a way of not staying buried, though. Jeff Frazier, the man currently tasked with rebuilding OUR—which commands tens of millions of dollars and still enjoys a strong reputation with some donors despite its many scandals—is a longtime associate of Ballard’s who still refers to him as a friend, even as he says he believes Ballard “has made a series of destructive choices.” He’s also the person Ballard brought in to clean up one potential scandal, in which a different associate of Ballard’s was running an OUR-funded orphanage where, people with knowledge of the situation say, minors were being sexually abused. The association between Frazier and Ballard was tight enough that last year, OUR got involved in the negotiations after Frazier was kidnapped by a gang in Haiti.

This is, on the face of it, difficult to square with OUR’s strenuous insistence that it has moved on from Ballard. In November, for instance, in response to a sexual-assault lawsuit filed by a Marine veteran who volunteered with the group, OUR issued a statement to VICE News apologizing “for any harm or distress that Tim Ballard’s actions may have caused to anyone associated with OUR” and noting that its governance was under review by management. It reiterated these themes in a statement quietly posted to its website just before the holidays. “We are in the process of refreshing the Board of Directors,” it read, “and have initiated a search for a new CEO.” OUR, the organization has made clear, has “permanently separated” from its disgraced founder. 

One thing these statements haven’t mentioned is that OUR’s board is, at least for now, still entirely composed of relatives and close friends of Ballard’s. (A spokesperson for OUR told VICE News this week that “a relative of Tim Ballard who served on the Board recently resigned,” without specifying which one.) Another, which has not previously been reported, is that a new member of OUR’s leadership team—tasked since November 5, according to the spokesperson, with “helping to identify and recruit new board members and a new chief executive officer” and, according to one source, functionally serving as its current CEO—is Frazier.

“We're all pretty sure that Jeff Frazier is still connected to Tim,” one frustrated OUR employee, who says they learned that Frazier had been charged with restructuring the board around mid-October, told VICE News. Another person familiar with OUR’s inner workings said that Frazier has repeatedly stated that he will be chairman of OUR’s board once the reorganization is complete, that no one is contacting candidates for the board recommended by employees, and that Frazier is angling to staff it with his own friends and colleagues. Employees say they have demanded to see a copy of Ballard’s severance agreement, wanting to be reassured that Ballard did not somehow have sway over who would lead the organization after his departure.

A spokesperson for OUR told VICE News that Frazier is serving in a consulting role, and disputed that he is functionally acting as the organization’s CEO. The spokesperson also said that Frazier and Ballard have not spoken since September 2023. 

“The reconstituted board will elect a chairperson when they are seated,” wrote the spokesperson. “Jeff Frazier has stated that he ‘will serve the cause in whatever capacity is required’ and would prefer that a more experienced director serve as board chair. OUR is casting a wide net to identify accomplished professionals with diverse perspectives and skill sets who are committed to the organization’s mission. As part of this process, we have solicited and vetted candidates recommended by our staff and advisors. We appreciate and welcome all recommendations, and to the extent that candidates with duplicative skills have been recommended, we are seeking to enhance the board’s gender diversity by prioritizing female candidates with law enforcement, anti-trafficking and/or non-profit experience.”

According to his online résumé, Frazier is a former Army paratrooper, father of seven children, and the founder of Thread, a medical research firm, who has volunteered for OUR since 2020. (Like many people in OUR’s orbit, he’s a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and serves as a bishop in the church.) His ties to OUR and Ballard, though, are closer and go back longer than any of that would suggest.

The résumé, for instance, says he founded Stimpack, a Haiti-focused non-profit based in Florida, in June 2022. While Ballard is not listed or mentioned on the organization’s website, filings from last year from Florida listed Ballard as one of the group’s three directors.

Responding to questions through an OUR spokesperson in late December, Frazier said, “Tim Ballard is nominally a member of the Board of STIMPACK, a Haiti-focused non-profit and think tank, until I can appoint a suitable replacement, which I plan to do around the end of the year.” The OUR spokesperson told VICE News on January 8 that Ballard was no longer on the board. 

In 2020, the Utah journalist Lynn Packer reported that OUR had placed Frazier in charge of an orphanage in Haiti run by Guesno Mardy, father of Gardy Mardy, a child who went missing in 2009 and whose recovery Ballard has often depicted as the reason for OUR’s existence. (Gardy has never been found, despite OUR using supposed intelligence from a psychic medium to plan missions meant to find him; OUR and Ballard fundraised off their search for him for many years.) 

As far back as 2018, Frazier was also associated with a now-defunct organization called The Gardy Effect, which intended to “Light the load and the road for freed slave children,” per its mission statement, and which described itself as “an Operation Underground Railroad project.” It appeared to list Frazier as a point of contact, according to an archived version of its website, and a donation button for The Gardy Effect led to OUR’s website. Other ties between Frazier and Ballard date back at least to 2015, when Frazier tweeted enthusiastically about welcoming Ballard to Thread headquarters “to save children.”

The OUR spokesperson told VICE News, “The Gardy Effect was an OUR-sponsored program led by Mr. Frazier as a volunteer. The goal of the program was to oversee the sizable donations that OUR was making to support an orphanage in Haiti known as Foyer de Sion. The orphanage was owned and operated by Guesno and Marjory Mardy.”

Within OUR, the most-discussed elements of Frazier’s relationship to the organization are his ties to the Haiti orphanage, as well as a bizarre incident from earlier this year. According to a note OUR president and COO Matt Osborne sent to staff this May, Frazier was “kidnapped and held hostage in excruciatingly painful conditions” while in Haiti on non-OUR business in April, before being freed due to the efforts of OUR and “elements of the U.S. government.” 

People who work at OUR, including those with direct knowledge of this incident, have raised a number of concerns about it to VICE News. Chief among them are questions about why OUR was involved at all in negotiating or paying for the release of an associate of the organization who was in Haiti on “non-OUR business,” whether donor funds were used, and whether the organization has been repaid if so. 

According to several people with knowledge of OUR who spoke to VICE News, Frazier is believed to have reached out to someone working for the organization after being taken captive, with negotiations being handled at least in part by a longtime Navy SEAL who works for the group in the Caribbean. (This person did not respond to a request for comment from VICE News.) Frazier is believed to have escaped his captors at one point, and some people heard audio recordings of him being tortured with a stun gun. The FBI—which declined to comment to VICE News on this matter—is said to have been involved.

It isn’t clear why Frazier would contact OUR, whose own international operators say it has no capacity for hostage negotiation or rescue, especially since he was kidnapped while on non-OUR business.

Asked about the kidnapping, and why OUR was involved in negotiating for his release, the OUR spokesperson provided a statement from Frazier: 

Mr. Frazier’s wife was instrumental in securing his release, with support from certain members of the OUR team that were friends of Mr. Frazier and local security and logistics contacts in Haiti. Zero assistance is provided by the U.S. government. Mr. and Mrs. Frazier reached out to whomever might be willing to help. 

Any funds that were provided to Mr. Frazier’s family to help secure his release were never utilized and were returned to OUR by wire transfer shortly after Mr. Frazier’s return home.

Questions also remain about the orphanage in Haiti. According to several people who have worked for OUR, Frazier was sent in by Ballard and the organization to investigate what was happening at Foyer de Sion, which was founded around 1999 and run at the time by Ballard associate Guesno Mardy. (Neither Mardy nor an intermediary responded to VICE News’ requests for comment.)

Frazier is said by people familiar with the situation to have found more than 100 children living in deplorable conditions at the orphanage, with poor sanitation and not enough food. The children living there included eight that OUR had placed there following one of their purported “rescue” operations. In addition, at least one girl living at the orphanage is said to have been sexually abused by an adult staff member, who subsequently took her to obtain an abortion. 

“They tell the public every aftercare home is safe and has holistic services,” one frustrated OUR employee told VICE News. “But this is their most funded aftercare home.” 

It’s unclear what the current conditions at Foyer de Sion are; OUR’s involvement with the orphanage has apparently ended.

Contact the reporters at tim.marchman@vice.com or anna.merlan@vice.com. For extra security, download the Signal app to a non-work device and text us there at 267-713-9832.

“OUR was one of the sponsors of Foyer de Sion,” Frazier told VICE News, through the spokesperson. “I was on a small volunteer board that was asked to oversee OUR’s donations. It was decided at some time in 2022, that OUR and its mission were not compatible with Foyer de Sion and its mission. OUR made one final donation and informed Guesno Mardy that there would be no further donations to the orphanage.” Frazier declined to comment on allegations of sexual abuse at the orphanage.

In recent weeks, OUR has taken a more aggressive approach in countering the civil lawsuits filed against them by women who say they were sexually abused by Ballard. In December, the organization filed a countersuit against a married couple, Celeste and Michael Borys, who are among those suing the organization. The countersuit accuses Celeste, who says she was groomed and sexually manipulated by Ballard, of defamation; the organization is also suing her for fraud, and has filed a motion to dismiss the Borys’ suit. 

In response to the allegations against Tim Ballard, Frazier, through the OUR spokesperson, told VICE News that he believes “my friend Tim may have lost his way and is suffering from mental illness.” His quote reads, in full:   

To be clear, I don’t speak for OUR and have no legal authority on these matters to date. However, I’ve been trained to believe people that claim to have been victims of sexual misconduct. I plan to approach each situation from that perspective and deal with each allegation separately on a case-by-case basis. I also recognize that these situations can be bewilderingly complex, requiring patience, temperance and empathy. The scars of trauma run deep and are often long lasting and even confusing. Although he and I have not spoken since before all of these allegations were made, I believe my friend Tim may have lost his way and is suffering from mental illness. While I believe he has made a series of destructive choices, I believe he deserves patience, temperance and empathy as well. Prolonged exposure to traumatic situations is extremely dangerous. I believe that all men and women involved in the fight against child trafficking need better protection from the ravages of trauma that often accompany this work. I plan to use my influence to encourage additional support for OUR team members and its law enforcement partners to further safeguard these individuals from duty related trauma. My hope is that such efforts will minimize the risk that these selfless guardians face now and in the future.

As for righting past wrongs, I hope to offer all parties involved in these cases a path to peace that will allow for healing for all and for OUR to focus entirely on the critical need to fulfill its mission.

The OUR spokesperson told VICE News that “OUR is not aware of a pending criminal investigation.” (This despite the fact that Attorney General Sean Reyes, himself a longtime Ballard friend and OUR booster, said in early December that his office would launch a criminal investigation into both Ballard and the group.) The spokesperson also reiterated a statement they previously issued on December 8, which reads, “OUR intends to cooperate fully with any potential investigation conducted by the Utah AG’s office. We are confident that the facts are on OUR’s side and remain committed to the work that our strong, resilient team of dedicated operators, staff and volunteers is doing to help fight human trafficking.” 

Tim Ballard, an attorney representing him, and a public relations spokesperson previously said to speak on his behalf all have not responded to repeated requests for comment from VICE News.