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A former YouTuber who gave parenting advice online has been jailed for up to 30 years after she admitted to physically and emotionally abusing her children.

Ruby Franke, a mother of six from Utah who gave parenting tips via a once-popular video blog called “8 Passengers”, convinced her two youngest children that they were evil, possessed and needed to be punished to repent.

The 42-year-old and her business partner, mental health counsellor Jodi Hildebrandt, pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse.

In her plea deal, Franke admitted to kicking her son while wearing boots, holding his head underwater and closing off his mouth and nose with her hands.

She and Hildebrandt admitted they also forced the boy into hours of physical labour in the summer heat without much food or water – causing dehydration and blistering sunburns.

According to emergency call records, Franke’s 12-year-old son escaped through a window of Hildebrandt’s house, in the southern Utah city of Ivins, in August and asked a neighbour to call the police.

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Who is Ruby Franke?

This image from video shows Ruby Franke during a hearing Monday, Dec. 18, 2023, in St. George, Utah. Franke, a Utah mother of six who gave parenting advice via a once-popular YouTube channel called "8 Passengers" has pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse for abusing and starving two of her children. (Ron Chaffin/St. George News via AP, Pool)
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Ruby Franke during a court hearing in December. Pic: AP

He was thin, covered in wounds and had duct tape around his ankles and wrists.

According to a search warrant, the boy told officers that Hildebrandt had used cayenne pepper and honey to dress his cuts.

The two women were arrested at Hildebrandt’s home and were each charged with six felony counts of aggravated child abuse.

Franke pleaded guilty to four of her six charges and not guilty to two at a hearing in December, in a plea deal that was accepted by the court.

At her sentencing hearing, Franke told her children, who had not turned up to see their mother jailed: “I’ll never stop crying for hurting your tender souls.

“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.”

Jodi Hildebrandt attends a hearing Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023, in St. George, Utah. Hildebrandt, a Utah mental health counselor who had been arrested alongside parenting advice blogger Ruby Franke, pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse for her role in physically and emotionally abusing Franke's children. (Sheldon Demke/St. George News via AP, Pool)
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Franke’s business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, during a court hearing in December. Pic: AP

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Hildebrandt also pleaded guilty to four counts, and two counts were dismissed as part of her plea deal. She was also jailed for up to 30 years.

Each charge for both women carries a prison sentence of one to 15 years, which will run consecutively. But, according to NBC News, Utah law says that the maximum aggregate sentence for consecutive terms is 30 years.

Hildebrandt admitted to coercing Franke’s youngest daughter, who was nine at the time, to jump into a cactus multiple times and run barefoot on dirt roads until her feet blistered.

The boy and girl were taken to the hospital after the arrests and placed in state custody along with two more of their siblings.

Housing developments are shown in Ivins, Utah, on Wednesday, May 3, 2023. A Utah woman who gave online parenting advice via a once popular YouTube channel has been arrested on suspicion of aggravated child abuse after her malnourished son escaped out a window and ran to a nearby house for help, authorities said. Ruby Franke, whose now defunct channel ...8 Passengers... followed her family, was arrested Wednesday night, Aug. 30, 2023, in the southern Utah city of Ivins. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP)
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Ivins, Utah. Pic: AP


Franke and her husband, Kevin Franke, launched “8 Passengers” on YouTube in 2015 and amassed a large following as they documented their experiences raising six children.

The YouTube channel has since ended and Kevin Franke has filed for divorce.

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Rust weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez appeals against conviction over fatal shooting on Alec Baldwin film set

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Rust weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez appeals against conviction over fatal shooting on Alec Baldwin film set

The weapons supervisor for the Western film Rust is appealing against her conviction for involuntary manslaughter over the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on set, according to court documents.

Hannah Gutierrez was jailed in April after being found guilty by jurors following a trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the US.

She was in charge of weapons during the production of the film in October 2021, when a Colt 45 revolver fired by actor and co-producer Alec Baldwin went off during a rehearsal.

Alec Baldwin
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Alec Baldwin, pictured on the Rust set, faces a separate trial

Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died, while director Joel Souza was injured.

A defence lawyer for Gutierrez, who is serving an 18-month sentence at a prison for women in New Mexico, filed a shortly worded appeal notice on Monday.

Her legal team has 30 days to submit detailed arguments. They previously requested a new trial following the verdict.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is found guilty of involuntary manslaughter of Halyna Hutchins
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Hannah Gutierrez, pictured during her trial, is appealing against her conviction

Gutierrez’s trial was told she unwittingly brought live ammunition to the set, where it was expressly prohibited, and failed to follow basic gun safety protocols.

During her sentencing hearing, she told the court she had tried to do her best while working on the production, despite not having “proper time, resources and staffing”.

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Prosecutors say Baldwin had ‘no control’ of emotions on set

Halyna Hutchins.
Pic:Shutterstock
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Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died after the gun went off. Pic: Shutterstock

Alec Baldwin case latest

Baldwin, who was a producer for the film as well as its star, has also pleaded not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter.

He maintains he pulled back the gun’s hammer – but not the trigger – before it fired, and is set to face trial in July. He denies any wrongdoing.

The 66-year-old was originally charged in January 2023, more than a year after the shooting, but those charges were dropped a few months later. He was charged again in January this year.

His legal team has filed a motion calling for the charges to be dropped. Prosecutors responded with a 32-page document claiming that footage of the star on set shows he had “absolutely no control of his own emotions” and “no concern for how his conduct” affected those around him.

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Assistant director David Halls, who also faced charges, entered a plea bargain for negligent use of a deadly weapon last year, receiving a six-month suspended sentence.

Filming of Rust resumed last year in Montana – with Baldwin reprising his role as the main character – after an agreement made Ms Hutchins’s widower an executive producer.

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Man who scooped $1.35bn lottery win ’embroiled in legal battle with his own family’

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Man who scooped .35bn lottery win 'embroiled in legal battle with his own family'

A man who scooped a $1.35bn lottery win is said to be embroiled in a legal battle – with his own family.

The Mega Millions winner, who has not been named but is believed to hail from the US state of Maine, won the fourth-largest jackpot in US history last year (worth around £1.07bn).

But the story has only grown more complex since then, and the man is now involved in legal proceedings with two members of his family, US media outlet The Daily Beast reports.

He is said to have sued his daughter’s mother for allegedly revealing his newfound wealth to other members of his family in what he claimed was a violation of a non-disclosure agreement.

The lottery winner has also reportedly demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties, claiming that his child’s mother told his father, sister and stepmother about his big windfall.

But in recent court filings, the woman alleged that the man himself told his father and stepmother about the win, The Daily Beast reported.

Her lawyers said this “shatters the remaining shards” of the lawsuit.

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The unnamed lottery winner’s father has also now apparently become involved in the legal proceedings, alleging that his son misled him about a number of things since the win.

“I understand that my son has stated that he told me nothing about his money ‘other than the simple fact that I had won.’ That is not true,” he is quoted as saying in a declaration.

His dad adds that his son “told me a number of things he planned on doing with his money,” even though he never asked him for anything, The Daily Beast also reported.

These allegedly included building a new garage for his father as well as buying old cars to fix up.

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Michael Cohen tells trial he lied and bullied for ex-president and was ‘knee deep’ in Trump ‘cult’

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Michael Cohen tells trial he lied and bullied for ex-president and was 'knee deep' in Trump 'cult'

Michael Cohen said he had been “knee deep into the cult of Donald Trump” as he testified for a second day in the ex-president’s trial.

As Trump‘s defence tried to paint the former lawyer and ‘fixer’ as a bitter and fame-hungry former acolyte, he denied being obsessed by his former boss but said he had once “admired him tremendously”.

He is testifying in the case about hush money payments to ex-porn star Stormy Daniels in an attempt to cover up an alleged sexual encounter in 2006.

Trump trial – Day 17 as it happened

Such payouts aren’t illegal, but Trump is accused of falsifying business records to hide it – a claim he denies.

He told the court on Tuesday that loyalty was the reason he kept lying about the payment when it came out in the media.

In 2016 he described Trump as kind, humble, honest and genuine.

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The defence asked whether he had believed what he was saying.

“At the time, I was knee-deep into the cult of Donald Trump,” he responded, adding: “I was not lying, no, that’s how I felt.”

Mr Cohen admitted he “missed Trump” at times after he became president.

They have also pointed to hundreds of media appearances, podcasts and interviews in which the disgraced lawyer has mentioned him.

Michael Cohen (right) leaves his apartment building in New York on Tuesday. Pic: AP
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Michael Cohen (right) was once a fiercely loyal confidant of the ex-president. Pic: AP

His credibility was under attack as Mr Cohen has previously admitted lying under oath.

The 57-year-old was jailed after pleading guilty in 2018 to charges relating to the hush money payment and other unrelated offences.

He said that after a FBI raid on his home the same year, Trump had messaged him: “I am the president of the United States, everything is going to be okay, stay tough”.

Read more:
Porn stars, sex scandals and zzzs: A to Z of Trump trial

Donald Trump denies the liaison with Stormy Daniels and says Mr Cohen acted on his own initiative when he made the payment.

The former lawyer denied that claim in earlier evidence, saying “everything required Trump’s sign-off”.

Donald Trump on day 17 of his hush money trial. Pic: Reuters
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Mr Trump, who denies the charges, faces several other trials. Pic: Reuters

‘I violated my moral compass’

Mr Cohen – who once said he would take a bullet for his boss – admitted at the end of questioning on Tuesday that he “violated my moral compass” while working for Donald Trump.

“I regret doing things for him that I should not have,” he told the New York court. “Lying, bullying people in order to effectuate the goal.

“I don’t regret working for the Trump Organisation – as I expressed before, [those were] some very interesting, great times,” he added.

“But to keep the loyalty and to do things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as did my family. That is my failure.”

On Monday, the court heard him testify about setting up a shell company to make the $130,000 hush money out of his own money.

Stormy Daniels, seen here in January, received a $130,000 payment from Trump's lawyer Pic: AP/DeeCee Carter/MediaPunch /IPX
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Stormy Daniels has also testified in the case. AP/DeeCee Carter/MediaPunch /IPX

Prosecutors say Trump later paid the money back and covered it up by recording it as a legal retainer fee.

He faces 34 counts of falsifying business records over the claims.

Trump – who will take on Joe Biden in his bid to become president again in November – is unlikely to face a custodial sentence if found guilty.

His other cases are potentially more damaging but mired in delays.

They concern allegations of keeping stacks of secret documents after leaving office and trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. He denies the claims.

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