The therapist from Utah, who was arrested with Ruby Franke, a controversial vlogger, employed disturbing tactics to dismantle her victims’ families, as disclosed by her former clients in a recent series.
Jodi Hildebrandt manipulated troubled couples into setting up deceitful schemes against one another and extorting millions of dollars from them under the guise of treating false addictions, all in her crusade against sexual misconduct, according to those who fell prey to her.
Hildebrandt is now behind bars after she and Franke, a mom of six, each pleaded guilty to four counts of abusing Franke’s kids in December 2023.
The Mormon business partners were both sentenced to up to 30 years in state prison.
Their scheme unraveled when Franke’s youngest child managed to flee from Hildebrandt’s abusive residence and sought help from a neighbor in August 2023, uncovering a history of appalling child mistreatment.
While Franke and Hildebrandt worked together on their parenting and lifestyle YouTube channel called ConneXions Classrooms, Hildebrandt also offered counseling sessions.
Now, Hildebrandt’s methods of controlling her former clients are coming to light in ID’s new docuseries episode The Curious Case of… Jodi Hildebrandt.
Two of her former clients, Adam Steed and Daniel Choate, recalled their harrowing experiences going through marriage counseling with Hildebrandt, who was advertised as a “superstar therapist.”
The two men said Hildebrandt used shame and Mormon cultural norms to turn married couples against each other so she could have power over the wife.
Both Steed and Choate said Hildebrandt treated all of her clients as addicts and blamed most of their marital problems on sexual addiction due to masturbation and pornography.
“There wasn’t any aspect of the human condition that she couldn’t pathologize,” Choate said.
The clients in marriage counseling formed men’s and women’s groups that met weekly to hold each other accountable as they struggled to achieve “moral perfection,” Choate said.
Steed said Hildebrandt empowered women to gain control over their husbands by making unreasonable demands over them.
Choate reported the same thing, recalling his wife made a list of demands under Hildebrandt’s instruction that banned him from sleeping in bed with her.
“If I didn’t abide by these rules, she let me know that she was going to take the kids and leave,” he claimed.
Steed recalled a disturbing experience that became the tipping point for his marriage.
[Jodi Hildebrandt] capitalized on Mormon shame to the tune of a million dollars.”
Adam Steed
“My wife asked me to bathe our daughter, and this was at a point where Jodi had taken away from us the ability to kiss, the ability to be physical, the ability to have sex, the ability to talk to each other, and she was very disciplined on this,” Steed said.
Steed said he was in the bathtub with their baby when his wife came into the bathroom in lingerie.
“[She] acted really sexy and it started to give me an erection, so I was laughing with her, and I asked her to take the baby out of the tub,” he recalled.
“So she took the baby out, presumably to come back in and hop in the tub and have sex with me, and I was thinking she was becoming her old funny self again, and then she looked at my private parts disgusted and just walked off.”
Shortly after the incident, Steed’s wife filed for divorce and served him with an order of protection.
He then lost custody of his kids.
In the protective order, Steed’s ex-wife claimed he didn’t “understand healthy boundaries” because he had to call her to take the baby out of the tub because he had an erection.
Steed alleges Hildebrandt and his ex-wife set up the bathtub scene in a sick trap to make him look like a bad dad.
Choate reported a similar story.
He said his ex-wife accused him of cheating on her and making sexual comments about their daughter.
“I would never hurt my daughter,” he said through tears.
He said once he was separated from his wife, he called other men in Hildebrandt’s group – and then realized a majority of the couples were separated.
Hildebrandt didn’t just turn families against each other – she also charged them expensive rates for the bizarre treatment.
Steed said Hildebrandt “capitalized on Mormon shame to the tune of a million dollars.”
“We were paying two and a half times more for Jodi than we were paying for all of our living expenses,” he said.
HILDEBRANDT’S RISE
Hildebrandt launched ConneXions in 2007, according to her LinkedIn.
In 2012, she was put on probation for 18 months after she was disciplined by Utah’s Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing, according to documents obtained by NBC News.
The therapist got in trouble for “unprofessional conduct” after she disclosed private information about a patient with Latter Day Saints church leaders and Brigham Young University officials.
Steed told NBC News that he was the former patient involved in the case.
“My family got destroyed. My life got destroyed,” he told the outlet in September 2023.
Hildebrandt’s license was reinstated in August 2013.
Franke, a YouTuber who posted on her YouTube channel called 8 Passengers to over two million followers, first became acquainted with Hildebrandt through her counseling sessions.
It wasn’t long before Franke joined Hildebrandt on ConneXions Classrooms as the two worked together to raise her children.
Franke’s ex-husband, Kevin, told cops that he couldn’t explain what happened when Hildebrandt entered his family’s life, according to an interview released by prosecutors last year.
He said he was first convinced by Ruby and his friends to join ConneXions Classroom as a self-improvement program.
After joining the group, Kevin was shut out of his own home as Franke grew closer to Hildebrandt, he later told police.
‘FRESH IN A CULT’
Subscribers to Franke’s channel became worried about her kids when her parenting style took a sharp turn around 2022 when she started collaborating with Hildebrandt.
The two religious moms shared their extreme views on parenting on their podcast.
In disturbing diary entries from that time, Franke admitted to holding her son’s head underwater, shoving him into a cactus, and chaining him up with duct tape.
She denied her daughter meals and forced her to work outside barefoot with no protection from the sun.
In October 2023, just before Kevin Franke filed for divorce, his attorney Randy Kester said that the Frankes were separated “at Ruby’s directive,” according to Today.
“Kevin did not want to be separated,” Kester said.
While reacting to a video of Kevin about his marriage troubles with his wife, Steed noted that his behavior seemed appropriate for someone who had experienced Hildebrandt’s treatment.
“He’s just fresh in it. Fresh in a cult,” Steed said in the docuseries.
Franke’s horrific punishments for children
Starting in May 2023, disgraced YouTuber Ruby Franke journaled about the punishments she imposed on her children.
She appeared to justify the abuse by referring to “Satanic choices” and “the devil’s” influences on her kids’ actions.
Some of the horrific punishments detailed in the journal include:
- Poking her children with cactus needles
- Pouring cold water on the kids
- Whipping with a towel or belt
- Forcing them to stand in the hot sun
- Forcibly dunking her son in the pool
- Forcing them to sleep on the ground
- Restricting food
During Franke’s sentencing, she apologized to her family in an emotional moment at her sentencing.
“I will never stop crying for hurting your tender souls,” she told her children in court.
“I’m sorry for twisting God’s words and distorting his doctrine.
“My willingness to sacrifice all for you was masterfully manipulated into something very ugly. I took from you all that was soft and safe and good.
“I am willing to serve a prison sentence as long as it takes to unravel what I believed.”
On February 20, 2024, a judge sentenced Franke and Hildebrandt to four one-to-15-year terms in Utah State Prison, served consecutively, which is the maximum sentence for this type of offense.
The Curious Case of… Jodi Hildebrandt premiered on Monday, February 10, on Discovery and is available to stream on Max.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call or text the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 800 422 4453 or live chat at https://www.childhelphotline.org/.
If a child or other person is in immediate danger, contact 911 immediately.
