OUR Rescue to Move Headquarters, Another Lawsuit Filed Against Ballard
Six women have filed another lawsuit against OUR Founder Tim Ballard claiming he exploited them.
Operation Underground Railroad Rescue is moving its headquarters from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, according to reporting by Twin Cities Business.
Tim Ballard / Video screenshot via Instagram
“There is such a strong foundation here, in the legal community as well as the philanthropic community and the survivor support community,” Tammy Lee, OUR Rescue CEO said about Minneapolis. “It was the perfect trifecta for choosing Minnesota for the headquarters.”
The global headquarters’ relocation is planned for January 2025. Lee also said the mission of the organization will adjust to focus more on domestic trafficking and rescues.
“In this coming year, we’re going to be building out direct services for survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation,” Lee said. “We’re also looking at supporting key populations that are really underserved, looking at the indigenous populations and partnerships with other non-governmental organizations to do that work.”
Lee joined OUR Rescue as CEO in February 2024 with the task of rebuilding and rebranding the organization.
“I came into this role with the need to really turn this organization around,” Lee said. “It had a troubled past.”
OUR Rescue was founded by former homeland security agent Tim Ballard in 2013 as Operation Underground Railroad. In April, Lee and the board renamed the group OUR Rescue.
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While Lee says the group has an important mission and “a lot of amazing people” that work for it, it is still dealing with the fallout from accusations against Ballard.
“[T]his one individual is accused of some actions against women that caused the board to separate from him. They needed a new leader to come in and really make sure that we could continue on this mission, which is to rid the world of sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation,” Lee said.
Last week, six women filed another lawsuit against Ballard accusing him of violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA). The lawsuit also names OUR Rescue as a defendant.
“Rather than rescuing victims, the defendants manipulated and coerced women into sexually exploitative situations under the guise of undercover missions,” the lawsuit claims.
The women claim that they were recruited to participate in operations to combat trafficking, but were manipulated, coerced, and exploited for financial gain.
The lawsuit’s TVPRA claim alleges that the defendants coerced the plaintiffs “into participating in operations that subjected them to sexual exploitation and forced labor under false pretenses,” and the “anti-traffickers are the traffickers.”
The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory damages for physical, emotional, and psychological injuries, and punitive damages to “deter unlawful conduct.”
“After a nearly unbroken string of defeats in every state court that has heard their cases, the plaintiffs are engaging in desperate forum shopping with the same tired allegations which one judge after another has called inconsistent and unsupported by facts,” Ballard’s attorney, Mark Eisenhut, said in a statement to the Salt Lake Tribune.
In the MinistryWatch database, Operation Underground Railroad has a 1-star financial efficiency rating, a C transparency grade, and a donor confidence score of 45, meaning donors should exercise caution when giving to this group.
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