Parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke Pleads Guilty To Child Abuse Charges, Blames Her Business Partner For Subjecting Her To “A Distorted Sense of Morality”

Ruby Franke, the mother of six who ran a successful YouTube channel called “8 Passengers,” has pleaded guilty to four counts of child abuse this week. When asked in court how she pleaded, Franke said, “With my deepest regret, and sorrow for my family and my children — guilty,” per People.

Franke and her former business partner Jodi Hildebrandt were both arrested in August and faced aggravated child abuse charges after after Franke’s 12-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt’s home in Utah and sought help from a neighbor. The boy was described at the time as “emaciated and malnourished, with open wounds and duct tape around the extremities.”

Franke’s 10-year-old daughter was also found at Hildebrandt’s residence in “similar physical condition of malnourishment.”

After their arrests, YouTube removed Franke’s channels, in which she documented her severe parenting methods, including withholding food from her children and enforcing cruel punishments on them, and banned her from creating new channels.

In the time since her arrest, Franke’s four minor children were taken in by the local Department of Child and Family Services, and Franke’s husband Kevin filed for divorce.

After rendering her guilty plea, Franke’s lawyers offered a statement in which they blamed Hildebrandt for manipulating her former business partner into an abuser.

“Initially, Ms. Franke believed that Jodi Hildebrandt had the insight to offer a path to continual improvement. Ms. Hildebrandt took advantage of this quest and twisted it into something heinous,” their statement says, per People. It also claims Hildebrandt “systematically isolated Ruby Franke from her extended family, older children, and her husband, Kevin Franke. This prolonged isolation resulted in Ms. Franke being subjected to a distorted sense of morality, shaped by Ms. Hildebrandt’s influence.”

Hildebrandt is expected to appear in court herself on Dec. 27, while Franke’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 20, 2024.