Free Republic

Nearly a year after his suicide, some lurid details have finally been confirmed. Nearly a year after the December suicide of Kent Stermon, Northeast Florida officials are offering real insight into the events leading up to the shocking incident in which a man once named “Citizen of the Year” by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office took his own life amid controversy that got global attention.Stermon, a 50-year-old man who was connected to Jacksonville-area Republicans and who played a major role in the political ascent of Ron DeSantis to the Governorship, was under confirmed investigation from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (which started...

The police chief who oversaw a controversial raid on a small Kansas newspaper has been suspended. The raid, carried out on the Marion County Record on August 11, was personally led by Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody . Another raid was enacted on the home of the newspaper's publisher' 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, who subsequently died. The police chief who led a highly criticized raid of a small Kansas newspaper, that saw its 98-year-old owner die the following day, has been suspended. ... The August 11 raids of the Marion County Record office and the homes of its publisher and...

Tim Ballard, the real-life inspiration behind the hit film “Sound of Freedom,” is facing serious allegations of sexual misconduct.Ballard, who was portrayed by actor Jim Caviezel in the movie, founded the non-profit organization Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.) in 2013. The organization’s mission is to rescue children from human trafficking. However, Ballard’s reputation as a hero is now under scrutiny as he faces accusations from seven women. Ballard, a former CIA agent from Utah, is accused of pressuring women into compromising situations during missions.

Here we go. Sound of Freedom hero Tim Ballard’s June resignation/removal from Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) was due to claims of sexual misconduct. Ballard recently said he is considering a run for Mitt Romney’s senate seat after the Utah RINO announced his retirement. According to VICE News, at least 7 women have accused Ballard of sexual misconduct. Operation Underground Railroad told VICE News that Tim Ballard resigned on June 22, 2023. “He has permanently separated from O.U.R.”

Tim Ballard’s exit from Operation Underground Railroad earlier this year followed an investigation into claims of sexual misconduct involving seven women, according to sources with direct knowledge of the organization. Sources familiar with the situation said that the self-styled anti-slavery activist, who appears to be preparing for a Senate run, invited women to act as his “wife” on undercover overseas missions ostensibly aimed at rescuing victims of sex trafficking. He would then allegedly coerce those women into sharing a bed or showering together, claiming that it was necessary to fool traffickers. Ballard, who was played by Jim Caviezel in the...

The police chief whose “Gestapo”-style raid on a small town newspaper has become the focus of national outrage was being investigated by its reporters over claims of alleged sexual misconduct. Gideon Cody and every officer in the Marion Police Department stormed into the Marion County Record’s offices Friday with a search warrant where they seized computers and servers. They also raided the home of the editor and publisher, Eric Meyer, and his 98-year-old mother Joan Meyer, the paper’s co-owner. She died the following day of “shock and grief,” Meyer said, stressed and unable to sleep when police seized her computer...

...Although I identified nearly 900 citations in the literature2 that discussed educator sexual misconduct in some format, there were only 14 U.S. and five Canadian or UK empirical studies on educator sexual misconduct. ...This analysis (Shakeshaft, 2003) indicates that 9.6 percent of all students in grades 8 to 11 report contact and/or noncontact educator sexual misconduct that was unwanted. 8.7 percent report only noncontact sexual misconduct and 6.7 percent experienced only contact misconduct...Based on the assumption that the AAUW surveys accurately represent the experiences of all K-12 students, more than 4.5 million students are subject to sexual misconduct by an...

There was a time not too long ago when parents wanted their kids in the coveted Loudoun County school district. That was before the school board and most educators embraced the “woke” tenets of LGBTQ+ supremacy in which sexually confused students were propped up as being more privileged than normal students.Following rapes and sodomies in a high school that sparked nationwide attention (despite corporate media ignoring it), a new complaint has sparked an investigation by the Sheriff’s department. This time, a male student has allegedly been inappropriately touching other male students at one of the middle schools.Christopher Rufo posted about...

Hey ladies, Governor Cuomo is single and ready to mingle… It was big news on Tuesday, but it’s not Tuesday anymore. It’s Thursday, and by the weekend, any push to remove grabby, groping Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York will be completely memory-holed by the left. So if you were thinking that grabbing subordinates' butts or boobs was a surefire way to exile in the Democrat Party…you haven’t been paying attention. There really isn’t anything for which they’ll hold their own accountable, unless it ultimately benefits them in the immediate, and holding Cuomo answerable for his actions does not. Former...

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has claimed that the sexual misconduct allegations made against him were part of an extortion scheme, and Bob Kent, one of the men allegedly involved in the scheme, all but confirmed in an interview on “The Michael Smerconish Program” on SiriusXM radio on Monday that he had asked Gaetz’s father for $25 million—but insists it was not extortion. Kent says he needed the money to help find FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in March 2007 and is presumed to be dead by his family, but Kent claims he’s seen video evidence that Levinson is...

Shauna Niequist has apologized for failing to speak out after her father, Bill Hybels, the founding pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, was accused of decades of sexual misconduct. In a lengthy Instagram post Monday, Niequist, a popular author and ministry leader, addressed the allegations along with a simple image that features the phrase “An apology.” “I apologize for my silence & for all that it communicated. I’m so sorry. I continue to grieve alongside every person who’s grieving,” she wrote. Niequist, whose husband, Aaron Niequist, formerly served as a worship leader at Willow Creek, said that the “season” in...

How should Christians respond when one of their most renowned leaders is revealed to have led a disturbing double life? It is a question that many followers of Christ have wrestled with since the inception of the Christian church, and it is one that I am struggling with after learning of the revelations regarding Ravi Zacharias, a world-renowned author, speaker, and leading voice on apologetics.Every weekend I used to listen to episodes of “Let My People Think” and “Just A Thought,” which featured the lectures, sermons, and teachings of Ravi Zacharias. His recordings were some of my favorites as a...

New details have emerged related to the now-acknowledged sexual misconduct of the late Ravi Zacharias as recordings of a former business partner have surfaced describing Zacharias' misdeeds. According to Anurag Sharma, a man who co-owned two spas with the late apologist, Zacharias repeatedly engaged in exposing himself to massage therapists and masturbating in front of them over the course of several years. In recently recorded audio footage that was shared exclusively with The Roys Report Monday, the website of independent investigative journalist Julie Roys, Sharma told investigators that he confronted Zacharias about his actions, which he discovered sometime between 2007...

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries confirmed on Wednesday that its late founder “did indeed engage in sexual misconduct.”Releasing an interim report by Miller & Martin PLLC, which the ministry hired to investigate allegations of misconduct that were made public months after Zacharias’ death, RZIM said, “Sadly, the interim investigation update indicates this assessment of Ravi’s behavior to be true.”“This misconduct is deeply troubling and wholly inconsistent with the man Ravi Zacharias presented both publicly and privately to so many over more than four decades of public ministry,” it added, noting that it is devastated for those who “suffered from Ravi’s misconduct.”Massage...

TAKING HISTORIC ACTION: President Donald J. Trump is ensuring that all students are safe to learn and achieve without facing sexual harassment and sexual assault in our Nation’s schools. Today, the Department of Education is issuing a final regulation to strengthen Title IX protections for survivors of sexual misconduct and fight sex misconduct in schools.For the first time in history, the new regulation will codify that sexual harassment, including sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking, is prohibited under Title IX.This new regulation will hold schools accountable for failures to respond equitably and promptly to incidents of sexual...

The New York attorney general’s office late last year launched an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment, retaliation and gender discrimination at NBC News, Variety has learned. NBC News chief Andrew Lack and former “Hardball” host Chris Matthews were among multiple high-ranking executives and newsroom talents whose behavior was the subject of questioning, according to multiple sources. Among those who cooperated with the investigation by providing testimony was Megyn Kelly, an individual close to the former “Today” host told Variety. Kelly declined to comment. News of the investigation followed the surprise announcement Monday that Lack would depart the company months...

Now the media and his party are covering up a history of sexual abuse. Surely Americans want these issues investigated before they place their vote? The biased hypocrisy of the #MeToo Movement was blatantly obvious when Tara Reade stepped forward to complain about being sexually assaulted by Democratic Presidential nominee, Joe Biden. Result? Total silence.

There are similarities in the sexual assault allegations made by Christine Blasey Ford and Tara Reade. Ford accuses Justice Brett Kavanaugh of pinning her to a bed, groping her over her clothes, and covering her mouth at a high school party in the early 1980s. Reade accuses Biden of forcibly penetrating her with his fingers when she worked for his Senate office in 1993.The allegations are both decades old. Both are denied by the accused men. That does not render them false. It does, however, offer an instructive case study in media bias.Reade’s allegation is against a Democrat, Ford’s...

At the time of his passing, Kobe Bryant was, by all accounts, a wonderful husband and father. His death is tragic, for his family and fans. A period of national mourning is wholly appropriate. Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez was suspended by her paper for tweeting about the rape case Bryant battled in 2003, hours after his death. The Post said Sonmez’s suspension came because her tweets did not “pertain” to her “coverage area,” and because her “behavior on social media is making it harder for others to do their work as Washington Post journalists.”This is a story with many...

On Monday, The New Yorker printed a lengthy piece by reporter Jane Mayer about the sad fate of former Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn. Franken resigned from the Senate in 2017 after a bevy of women accused him of sexual harassment; their accounts ranged from unwanted kisses to unsolicited a-- grabbing. In the midst of the #MeToo movement, Franken stepped down, all the while decrying President Trump's own record of allegations concerning mistreatment of women. At the time, there were two possible interpretations of events. The first was more inspiring: After decades of defending sexual misconduct by powerful Democratic figures, Democrats...