March 5, 2026 • 54 mins
Defending the Victims of Child Sex Abuse: How Trey’s Law Is Going National
In one of the most emotional and consequential episodes of Verdict with Ted Cruz to date, Senator Ted Cruz and co‑host Ben Ferguson sat down in Washington, D.C. with a courageous guest whose story is reshaping the national conversation about child protection. Elizabeth Phillips—sister of the late Trey Carlock, a survivor of years of sexual abuse at a well‑known summer camp—joined the show to discuss the growing bipartisan momentum behind Trey’s Law, newly introduced by Senator Cruz in the United States Senate.
This episode wasn’t about politics, polls, or campaigns. It was about protecting children, amplifying the voices of survivors, and confronting a disturbing reality in America: child sexual abuse is widespread, chronically underreported, and too often covered up by powerful institutions using non‑disclosure agreements (NDAs) to silence victims.
For parents, for survivors, and for anyone who cares about ensuring that abuse is never hidden in the shadows again, this is an episode—and a movement—you cannot ignore.
The Epidemic: Child Sexual Abuse in America
Senator Cruz opened with a chilling reality check:
- A child in the U.S. is sexually abused every nine minutes.
- 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be abused before the age of 18.
- Most victims will never disclose their abuse, or not until decades later.
This phenomenon—known as delayed disclosure—is well‑documented. Children rarely come forward immediately. Many wait until adulthood. Some never speak out at all.
Yet despite this, institutions facing civil litigation routinely push victims—sometimes still legally children—into signing NDAs that silence them for life. Those NDAs become powerful tools not for justice, but for cover‑ups, helping predators avoid exposure and enabling institutions to protect their reputations rather than the children in their care.
As Senator Cruz put it, “We cannot always prevent the first victimization. But we can stop the second victimization—when institutions use NDAs to muzzle survivors.”
Trey’s Story: Groomed, Abused, Silenced—And a Family’s Fight for Truth
Elizabeth Phillips shared the heartbreaking story of her brother Trey, whose life was stolen long before he died.
Beginning at age seven, Trey attended Kanakuk Camps in Missouri—a “faith‑based” youth camp trusted by families across the South and Midwest. Behind the façade, a camp director was grooming and abusing Trey and other children for years.
The perpetrator was eventually sentenced to three consecutive life terms. But by then, decades of damage had been done.
What Elizabeth and many other families would later learn is that Kanakuk staff and leadership had systematically concealed years of abuse—not reporting predators, not warning parents, and in many cases moving known abusers to other affiliated ministries. The more survivors came forward, the clearer the pattern became. Elizabeth’s investigation with other families revealed over 90 alleged perpetrators connected to the camp or its affiliated ministries.
But the final blow came when Trey—under pressure from the camp, its lawyers, and even his own attorney—was convinced to sign a restrictive NDA as part of a civil settlement. The secrecy consumed him. He could not speak about what happened to him—not even in therapeutic settings—without fear of retaliation.
At age 28, Trey died by suicide.
His last words to a therapist still haunt Elizabeth:
“They will always control me. I will never be free.”
The Birth of Trey’s Law: Ending NDAs for Child Sex Abuse Victims
Trey’s Law is simple but groundbreaking. It makes NDAs in cases of child sexual abuse:
- Void
- Unenforceable
- Illegal to require in a civil settlement
Importantly, victims retain the right to request an NDA if they want privacy. The bill protects survivors—not institutions, not predators.
Texas and Missouri have already passed versions of Trey’s Law thanks to survivors like Elizabeth and advocates across the political spectrum. Now, Senator Cruz, along with bipartisan co‑sponsor Senator Kirsten Gillibrand an
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome in as Verdict with Center Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
with you and Senator You're in Washington, d C. With
a very special guest on a very important piece of legislation.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
This is one of those shows.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
That we are promised we're going to get to the
elections and we're going to get to what's going on
around We will talk about that in future shows, but
there is an extremely important piece of legislation that you
are working on in Washington, d C. And there are
countless people that listen to show that may know victims,
and this is a show I hope you will hit pause,
you will share it on social media because it is
(00:35):
an important law that we're talking about right now.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Well, that's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
And this is a special show because we're talking today
about child sexual abuse and it is an epidemic across
this country. So many children are the victims of sexual abuse.
And we're going to talk about legislation that I introduce
today in the Senate to empower the victims of sexual abuse.
And and a very special guest that is adjoining us
(01:03):
today and you're going to get a chance to hear
about her journey and tragically her brother's journey as a
victim of sexual abuse.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Before we get to that, I want to tell you
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Now is your time to stand with Israel's most vulnerable
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or give online at IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ dot org. Senator,
I want to be clear for everybody that's gonna hear
(02:41):
the show, it's on YouTube, it's on Facebook. I hope
you'll share it and just take the time because there
are people that are out there that need to hear
the show that are victims. And this is one of
those important shows where you don't know whose life you're
going to be able to help and affect in a
positive way, whose life literally could be saved because of
(03:01):
this show and the information that they're going to hear.
And this legislation center that you introduced today in Washington,
d C. Is incredible. And your guest who's with you
in DC as well, it's amazing the story that she
is telling, but also just how powerful it is to
stand up for so many others that need help.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Well, that's right.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
This week I introduced legislation in the Senate called Trey's Law,
and it is designed to protect kids, kids who tragically
are the victims of sexual assault. And Trey's Law prohibits
non disclosure agreements binding children who have been victims of
sexual assault and this is a problem we are seeing nationwide,
(03:48):
a staggering statistic. A child in America is sexually abused
every nine minutes. Yeah, one in four girls in America
will be sexually abused before she turns eighteen. One in
six boys in America will be sexually abused before he
turns eighteen. And we have been seeing over and over
(04:14):
again when their violators are held accountable, when they're prosecuted,
and when there is civil litigation, that it is becoming
a routine for the violators to insist upon a non
disclosure agreement, a non disclosure agreement that binds the children
and forces them to be silent. And Trey's Law is
(04:38):
named for a Texan, Trey Carlock, who horrifically was abused
at a summer camp in Missouri, abused over a number
of years, and his abuser was prosecuted as a abuser
is serving three consecutive life terms in prison. And in
the course of civil litigation, Trey was convinced to sign
(05:04):
a non disclosure agreement and that secret haunted him so
much so that at twenty eight years old, he took
his own life. And that is a tragedy in his
life and his family's life, but it's a tragedy nationally.
(05:28):
And we have a guest on the podcast tonight who's
another text in Elizabeth Phillips. Elizabeth is Trey's sister, and
she has taken the grief and agony of losing her
brother and of knowing what happened to him losing her brother.
It's one thing to lose a sibling in a car accident.
(05:52):
My sister died of a drug overdose. It is always
difficult to lose a family member that you love, but
it is particularly gut wrenching, yeah, to lose a family
member who you know was the victim of abuse and
(06:14):
was haunted by that. And I will tell you Elizabeth.
She lives in Dallas and she has devoted thousands of
hours to fighting for Tray's Law. Tray's Law has been
adopted number of states, including Texas. Texas has adopted Tred's
Law and at the state level.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
But today, with with a group of.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Seven bipartisan co sponsors, I've introduced at the federal level
and we're going to get passed at the federal level.
But I want to start Elizabeth, Welcome to VERDIC. We're
glad to have you.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Thank you so much for not just the introduction of
trades law to US Congress this morning, but for offering
this platform as well. And I agree, I hope it
goes viral. Every parent needs to understand how this system works,
because I think there are a lot of assumptions that
if your child is sexually abused, whether it be at
a summer camp which was Tree's story, or a school
(07:08):
or a faith based setting or sports setting, they're going
to come forward immediately. But there's something called delayed disclosure.
Children that are victimized in this way don't come forward
oftentimes for decades, if ever at all, and we need
to be sure that we are protecting children and their
voices so that when they do come forward, survivors are heard, believed,
(07:29):
and that we can respond with action to hold the
bad actors accountable.
Speaker 6 (07:33):
Yeah, so thank you for the conversation.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Well, thank you for being here. Let me ask you,
could you just tell your brother's story to just share
with our listeners and viewers. Tell folks who your brother
was and what happened to them.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Yeah, and thank you for going into some of that
in your introduction, because it's honestly the hardest part for
me to talk about. I can go over stats and
data about child sexual abuse and ways to prevent it
all day long, but it's really hard for me to
talk about Trey. And I didn't know that you also
lost a sibling. So I'm sorry for your loss and
(08:07):
I'm sorry We can.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Relate on that. That's not not a club anyone wants.
Speaker 6 (08:12):
To be a member exactly.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
But I think also we understand that you can grieve
it and move on, or you can grieve it and
turn that pain into purpose. And I think what we
saw at the press conference this morning was pain turned
into power. When there was a nineteen year old young
woman who came forward, it named her abuser for the
first time because her voice was protected under Trey's Law,
(08:37):
since that was passed and put into effect in Missouri
last August. And so that's what we're wanting to expand nationally.
This journey for me began because my brother died by
suicide when he was twenty eight, not only due to
the child sexual abuse and what we now believe to
be trafficking at the hand of Cannonicut Camps based in
southwest Missouri. They had international mission trips. They were moving
(08:58):
kids across state lines. It was never fully investigated. The
criminal case landed in Taney County, Missouri and the sheriff's department,
and at the time of my brother's perpetrator sentencing, there
were fifty seven known victims, but we now have had
many victims come forward since I started a website called
facts about Cannicut dot com with other survivor families to
(09:21):
get the facts out there to parents and warn the
public that this is much more widespread than what had
been reported upon massive cover up, which is not unusual
in a lot of these situations because of NDAs. So
that's what we're addressing with Trey's Law that's now been
introduced to Congress, very bipartisan. You said, you know, no
one you've brought this to has said no to it.
(09:43):
I mean it's something everyone should get behind and hopefully
can get behind. You know, in Trey's story, he was
groomed and then abused by a camp director. So seven
to seventeen this was going on, and.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
So he was seven when he started going to the camp.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
When he started going to the camp, and that's when
the grooming began, and then the sexual abuse began, and
then his perpetrator, who, like you said, is now in
prison for three life terms, confessed to his crimes and
was sentenced in twenty ten, but under the civil statute
limitations in Texas, Trade was forced to file his civil
(10:17):
lawsuit by the age of twenty three. And just imagine,
you know, go back to when you were twenty three,
were you ready to go up against a system and
quote unquote ministry like Cannacouc that has between thirty five
and forty five million in annual revenue. I mean, at
twenty three, you're still a kid. We call them college kids, right,
You're just trying to get through college and start a job,
(10:38):
build a life. And if someone puts a settlement agreement
in front of you and says sign on the dotted
line and this can all go away and you can
have restitution and some you know, some money for your healing,
for therapy or be for lost income, You're probably going
to do it. And for closure and for healing enclosure.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
And I say that because I have friends that worked
at Cannicock during the time period you're talking about. I
also know people that were abused at Kennacock. And this
story when I saw we were doing it. It's it's
I've lost friends who've committed suicide because of sexual abuse.
But Cannicuck is a place where I went to Ole,
miss A lot of people I grew up with from Memphis,
(11:24):
from Houston, they went to Cannacock And the cover up
word that you use there is I think one of
the most sad parts about all this is there was
so many of these ndia's center. I didn't realize it,
like how much this was going to just bring up
in me. But when you know people that were abused
there and you've set with them and you hear how
(11:45):
the system did not protect them, but I actually think
made them a victim a second time over by the
way that they use these NDA's, It is infuriating because
you realize that, like everything in this situation worked against
them for years.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
And that's what in the Texas hearings, I was calling
this institutional abuse on top of child sexual abuse. So
you're exactly right. And yes, Memphis is a huge market
for cannonic Cook and Kids of Court America, which is
another ministry and outside of Branson that Joe White still
runs to this day, There's been no change in leadership.
(12:21):
No one's been held accountable because of these crimes. And
so you were asking about my story and how we
got to this point, and really it was because I
learned more about my brother's trauma and his death than
I knew in his life because of the NBA. So
until Treys Law went into effect in Texas September of
twenty twenty five, I never saw what he signed. He
(12:42):
wouldn't talk about it. He was so terrified, even in
therapeutic settings, even trying to get sober in AA for example,
he was worried Cannicok would come after him if he
mentioned all of the people involved that knew about what
Pete was doing and didn't report the crimes to the
authorities or disciplined him internally, And that allowed this perpetrator
(13:05):
to go on and abuse. What we now know is
hundreds of more victims. And that's one perpetrator alone. So
victims of Cannonicuk have asked for three things. Admit to
known failures, release in DAS, and commission an independent investigation. Since,
as I mentioned, the Taney County Sheriff's Department missed a
few spots, we don't need a rabbit hole on that
(13:27):
right now. But that's the three asks of survivors, very
common since steps they could take. So we've done Canna
Cook's job for them. And we've found out that we
now know of over ninety perpetrators with allegations against them
affiliated with cannoncuk and its associated ministries and programs across
the country and world. Ninety over ninety. So the ninety
(13:47):
how many have been held accountable.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I've got to know that number because as I was
told about this several months ago, they said that not
only are there still people in the ninety as you're
described that are affiliated, there are some that are still
in major leadership roles and around children.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Yes, so we're calling it out again, doing Cannoncuck's job
for them. I think as parents we have an expectation
that if a child molester or a sex offender is
caught at an institution where your child was attending or enrolled,
that you will be informed if they are ever charged
with anything criminal. That is not what cannacuck has done.
(14:28):
So we've done that job for them. So facts about
cannicuck dot com. We have a known abuser's page where
we name thirteen and might even be more now that
have convictions that are yeah, they have criminal indictments, convictions
or formal allegations in the media, coroborated by multiple victims.
And then the rest of the perpetrators in our database
(14:51):
are just still out there living their lives and a
lot of them have never been held accountable.
Speaker 6 (14:58):
We know who they are.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
We've turned database over to the authorities and we are
hoping that the FBI or some sort of law enforcement
agency takes action. But the normal thing to do when
you're not covering up for pedophiles as an institution, using
in das and continuing to promote pedophiles within your organization
or moving them around to associated ministries, which is another
(15:21):
thing CANNICUK has done. They have a year round ministry
called k Life similar to a Young Life, which I
think is better known. They will move someone that has
allegations at the camp to a chapter of k Life
where they go on to continue harming children. So our
known abuser's page is supposed to be a public facing
database for when we know cannicock affiliate has been convicted
(15:43):
and dieted or formally alleged of child sexual abuse, and
the rest of it will come to light. Over time,
as more and more victims come forward, the list continues
to grow, and with exposure like this, we expect even more.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
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Speaker 4 (17:30):
So one of the things you described, we did a
press conference today announcing Trays Law in the Senate and
you described the pressure that was on your brother, not
just from the camp but also from his own lawyer.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
You share that story a little bit.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
Yeah, So, you know, one of the questions as we
were going state by state, you know, starting in Texas
because that's my home state and that's where Trey grew up.
We spent a few years also in Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia's
introduced trays Law along with eight other jurisdictions, but then
Missouri past Trey's Law last August. And you know, my
brother was abused in so many jurisdictions that there were
(18:10):
different options for the venue in his civil case. He's
greed in Texas, as I mentioned, that ended with settlement
agreement that involved a restrictive inn DA and he was
an adult when he sued for the child sexual abuse
that he suffered, but he hadn't exactly.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
And you know that therapist.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
After his death, I started doing my own investigation to
understand what just happened to my brother, and that therapist
said that he had made a comment just before he
died that they would always control him and he would
never be free. And that's what it feels like living
under an NDA. And in America, where we stand on
(18:52):
freedom and freedom of speech, and anyone who studied constitutional law,
I mean that is aright as an American citizen to
have freedom of speech and we protect it with veracity.
But in this case, there's been a misuse of ndias,
which originally were created to protect intellectual property like the
(19:14):
Coca Cola recipe or trade secrets, and they've since been
misused to silence victims of childhood sexual abuse, trafficking, even
adult sexual assault survivors. That was addressed in the Speak
Out Act that passed in twenty twenty two with the
co sponsor of Treys Law, Senator Jilbrandt. But kids are
(19:35):
being put under these NDAs and kids, they can't consent
to contracts or clauses like this, and so oftentimes it's
a guardian or a parent who is signing this DA
on behalf of their child. The child grows up, becomes
a young man or woman realizes what their parents signed
and that they can't own their own story.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
And it's just a bar.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Or even feel like they can't heal because they can't
talk about it. In fact, they're so afraid. Talking to
one person that was a victim of this, they described
it to me this way. They said, Cannicut basically had
enough money to buy silence to protect the brand because
they knew if we were told our stories, the brand
would die and all the money would stop coming in.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
That's a simplistic way. But you mentioned their revenue.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
This was you got to spend money to save this
brand and continue to grow in sports and all the
other activities that they that they do. I mean, that
is that a fair way of putting it.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
I think that's yeah, that's definitely a fair way of
putting it. And to add the other thing that's a
layer of trauma in this is that their cover up
bought enough time for these victims to be out of statute,
So they can't now that they know the extent of
the cover up unless under a certain discovery rule, which
you could speak to as a lawyer senator, But they
(20:55):
can't even have access to the civil courts and the
jurisdiction where they were abused. So in Missouri, the civil
statute of limitations to sue an institution that's liable for
child sexual abuse or trafficking has been in the age
of twenty six and that's been unchanged since nineteen thirty nine.
And so we're doing a lot of advocacy work in
Missouri to say survivors need more time. As I said
(21:17):
when you asked the first question, there is a lot
of research on delayed disclosure. My brother was unfortunately forced
into disclosure because he was named as a victim during
the criminal proceedings, and so he didn't have decades to
process what happened to him and then come forward.
Speaker 6 (21:34):
But victims that weren't named.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
Or who came forward closer to the time of Pete
Newman's arrest to name one of again, over ninety perpetrators
we're aware of to.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Date, they got how was he caught, how was his
his abuse discovered?
Speaker 5 (21:49):
There are a few theories on that Canicut hasn't really
been transparent about what led to his confession. So I
would love to know the answer to that question. And
that's why an independent investigation or some of LA enforcement
agency stepping in is so necessary in this. He confessed
allegedly in March two thousand and nine to abusing seven boys,
and then he wasn't arrested until September two thousand and
(22:13):
nine after summer camp season went uninterrupted, and then upon
arrest they started investigating him criminally, and then that led
to his sentencing in February twenty ten. Here we are
in twenty twenty six, and because of facts about Cannacuk,
which was created by a coalition of survivor families, and
(22:33):
then recent publicity through USA Today published five articles on
this dispatch. The Dispatch published it the New York Times.
I just went on the Sean Ryan Show, and we're
getting more and more disclosures not just about Pete Newman,
but other perpetrators associated with Kanukuck and other leadership who
covered this up. And they are calling attorneys who are saying,
(22:56):
I'm sorry, you're fifteen thirty forty five years too late.
So victims don't know they're on the clock when perpetrators
know exactly when, and institution's like Cannicut know exactly when
the deadline is to file a civil lawsuit against them.
So they bought enough time at this point for the
cover up to have worked well.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
One of the things you talked about at the press
conference today is how your brother's lawyer was pressuring him
to sign this NDA and the incentives of the current system. Look,
an abuser has every incentive in the world to try
to cover it up, to try to hide it, to
want an NDA to not have truth and transparency, and
(23:41):
so we are seeing NDAs demanded by abusers in exchange
for compensation. And the way our legal system works is
typically if a victim has a lawyer, that lawyer will
usually be compensated on a contingency basis where they eve
a portion of whatever financial recovery there is. So the
(24:05):
lawyer has every incentive in the world to try to
reach a deal, to try to reach a settlement, to
have a financial amount paid, and to discount the harm
of silencing their client. And so it's one of the
real values of Trey's law. It is that when this
(24:28):
passes and I didn't say. If I said, when we
will get this passed, thank you. When this passes, that
incentive will go away. Look, if you're negotiating a settlement,
I used an example earlier today, there aren't settlement agreements
that say, as a condition of the settlement, you have
to deal crack cocaine, because dealing crack cocaine is illegal.
(24:52):
And so you can't agree in a settlement to do
something that is illegal. By taking NDAs off the table,
or forcing victims of child sex abuse to not be
able to disclose what happened to them, that incentive for
their lawyers to pressure them to.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Do this will go away.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Likewise, and importantly, we drafted trays law so that a
victim can still insist on an NDA for the abuser.
If a victim decides I don't want my story told,
that's your right as well. We're not going to force
a victim to tell his story or her story against
their will.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
That you're protecting the victim in the way you're writing this,
which I think is such an important part of this conversation.
I want people to understand that it's a lot of
what we talked about with we want to protect victims.
For example, when we're exposing everything with Epstein Foules, it's
the same mentality here. If you don't want your name
out there, we want to protect it.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Right.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
That's the heart of Trey's Law is giving survivors ownership
of their own stories, yes, so that they can decide
what they want told about what happened to them. The
trauma alone is enough abuse. We don't need to pile
that on. And you bring up a good point, Senator,
around the incentives and the incentives being misaligned, because this
type of case falls under personal injury law. And so
(26:09):
you've been to law school and in that area of
the law, it's typically your attorneys who are taking auto
accident cases or slip and falls. Child sexual abuse is
of fear, it's in it. I like that it's a
personal injury claim because it is an injury to the brain,
to the soul, and so it should be a personal
injury claim. But the way personal injury law works is
(26:32):
that you are looking to settle, keep this from going.
I mean, over ninety six percent of cases I think
settle outside of trial when it comes to personal injury.
And so you know the victim doesn't want to have
to go to trial and put themselves through more trauma.
Their incentivized to settle, and a lawyer says, this can
all be behind you if you sign on the dotted
(26:52):
line and then they can take forty percent, which is
the typical commission on a case like this, move on
to the next once and repeat, And that doesn't work
when we're talking about childhood sexual abuse.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Well, and the U. S.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Supreme Court has described They've said, other than murder, rape
is the most grievous harm that could be inflicted to
a person. And I've spent a lot of my career
fighting against child sexual abuse. So when I was the
Solicitor General of Texas, I argued in front of the U. S.
(27:25):
Supreme Court defending Louisiana's law that provided for capital punishment,
the death penalty for the most egregious child rapist. Unfortunately,
the Supreme Court five to four struck that down, so
we did not prevail in that case.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Texas's law was also struck down. When Louisiana's law was struck.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Down, I also defended Texas has a Texas Sexually Violent
Predator Civil Commitment law that gives the courts the ability
to take a sexually violent predator and put them in
civil commitment, take them off the streets to protect people.
And a state court of appeals had struck that law
down and concluded it was unconstitutional, and I argued the
(28:04):
case in front of the Texas Supreme Court defending that law,
and we won unanimously. The law was reinstated, and it's
now a tool that you have to go after sexual predators.
And you know we mentioned before, so this bill, my
lead co sponsor is Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat from New York.
And then we have on this bill as well, we
(28:26):
have Katie Britt Republican from Alabama's a dear friend. We
have Eric Schmidt, Republican from Missouri, another very good friend.
And then we also have Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota.
We have Peter Welch, Democrat from Vermont, and then Jeane Shaheen,
a Democrat from New Hampshire. And I think we will
get very widespread bipartisan support. To be honest, those six
(28:49):
are the only six I asked. I started with them.
I've worked all of them. I've worked with on previous legislation.
But you know, I'll tell you Jelibrendon and I started
working on this issue more than a decade ago because
she was a leader in going after sexual assault in
the military. And there's been a real problem with sexual
(29:10):
assault in the military, and the way it used to
work is the decision about whether to prosecute a rapist
was made by the commander, and the commander frequently knew
the violator, often was close to the violator, and victims
of sexual assault in the military were afraid to report
(29:32):
the rapes because they didn't believe the commander would be fair.
They believed the commander would be biased in favor of
the violator. And so Jelibrandon, this is back twenty thirteen,
when I was a brand new baby senator had just
been elected. Kirsten was leading the charge saying, this doesn't
make any sense, and the decision of whether to prosecute
(29:55):
should not be made by the commanding officer, but rather
should be made by a career military prosecutor. So in
the military, but not in the chain of command, so
not connected to the to the alleged violator. And I
will tell you the Pentagon fought tooth and nail. They
hated that provision, and I was on the Senate Armed
(30:17):
Services Committee with Kirsten at the time, and I heard
her make the argument, make the argument passionately for changing
the prosecutor prosecuting decision to a career prosecutor. And it
was one of those instances where sometimes you say hearings,
don't you know our our kind of performance, They don't
necessarily change anyone's mind. Well, I listened to her arguments
(30:37):
and I was persuaded, and I went up to her
and I said, Kirsten, I want to team up with
you and let's get this done.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
And we did.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
It took nearly a decade to get it done because
the Barack Obama wouldn't do it. By the way Obama
was president, he could have done it unilaterally, and he
wouldn't do it.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
And it took We ultimately got the legislation passed, but
it was it was a decade long battle. And this
is one I'm confident will be faster. I don't think
this will take a decade to make happen. You know,
you mentioned at the press conference also that we had
another victim of sexual abuse share her story. Her name
is Jaden Harris, and I want to play what she
(31:17):
said at the press conference because this was.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Really powerful and moving.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
She was sharing about about the sexual violence she experienced
and give a listen, give a watch.
Speaker 7 (31:31):
Good morning. First, I want to thank these co sponsors
for their leadership in filing Tree's law at the federal level.
My name is Jaden Harris, nineteen years old, and I'm
here today not just as a child sexual abuse survivor
from Branson, Missouri, but as someone whose voice was protected
(31:55):
by Drew's law. It's why you can be here today.
When I came forward about the abuse I experienced, I
was prepared for it to be difficult. What I wasn't
prepared for was the intimidation not only for my abuser,
but for my own lawyer to sign a non disclosure
(32:16):
agreement in exchange for restitution during a mediation process. I
was alone when it came to fighting.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
For my voice.
Speaker 7 (32:24):
It was both my abuser and my lawyer that tried
to require me to sign an NDA, a contract to
a clause that would have restricted my ability to speak
about the details of what happened to me for the
rest of my life. Imagine being told you can never
tell your own truth. Despite the bowling for my attorney
(32:47):
and all those involved in the case. In my heart,
I knew I had to stand for truth, not just
for myself, but for others who feel they had been silenced.
I'm standing here today with my voice because Trey's Law
protected it as a matter of public policy, and I
was able to achieve settlement while preserving my ability to
(33:09):
speak out in hope of protecting others. Due to learning
about Trey's Law and Missouri, I knew something important. I
cannot be legally forced into silence. No agreement could take
away my right to speak about my own experience and
those responsible for the abuse. That legal right changed everything.
(33:31):
It shifted the balance and power. It meant that any
resolution would not come at the cost of me owning
my story, not only as having a voice essential to
my healing journey, but is also how I can warn others.
My abuser is still out in public every day. He
goes by the name Raisa. He is a well known
(33:53):
entertainer in Branson who still has a magic show, and
I'm concerned about ongoing victimization. The criminal justice system has
done nothing to remove them from being around children. So
I'm going to do something. I'm speaking out today, and
I'm advocating the law that protected me to protect victims everywhere.
(34:20):
Federal action on Trey's Law is critical. A survivor's freedom
of speech should not depend on geography. I am fortunate
that Trey's law had passed in Missouri and allowed me
to keep my voice. But someone's ZIP code should not
determine whether they can tell the truth and warn the
public about predators. This needs to be national. Trey's law
(34:43):
is straightforward but powerful. It makes non disclosure agreements in
cases of child sexual abuse void and unenforceable. It ensures
that secrecy cannot be purchased when a child has been harmed.
It affirms that survivors can be seen, heard, and leaved,
and that's in the best interest of public safety. What
(35:04):
almost happened to me, siting away my voice should never
be an option in this country. I'm grateful to be
part of today's important milestone and making that happen in
setting truth free.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Thank you, sator, you're watching that. It's painful.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
It also is incredible to see someone like that get
their voice because of this law and that was enacted
in her state, and that's exactly what you are trying
to do nationwide and It's why I say this for
everyone watching, please share this. There may be somebody that
(35:46):
needs to know the website with a connection with Cannoncut.
There may be someone else that needs to know this
because they're in an NBA. This is why we do
this show, and it's one of those episodes that I
hope you'll put it everywhere on social media.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Well, and look, there's something really powerful about a survivor
taking ownership of their own story, of their own abuse
and sharing their story. It can be healing, it can
be empowering. Look when Jaden told her story, there was
not a dry eye in the room. I mean it
(36:21):
was you just heard it, and for those of you
watching online, you saw it. And this is a nineteen
year old young woman who was bearing her soul. And
there's something powerful a for the survivor to move past
the pain and grief. But it's also powerful because for
(36:44):
every survivor that tells her story or his story, there
are dozens or hundreds or even thousands of other victims
who never told anybody. And one of the horrific things
about this crime in particular, listen, if you're walking home
at night and you get mugged and beaten up. You're
(37:05):
not typically embarrassed or ashamed to admit I got mugged
and beaten up someone stole my wallet. Sexual assault, and
particularly sexual assault for kids, the guilt, the self loathing.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
The fear, the precis the shame.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
So many victims are trapped in silence and never report
their crimes. And so there is a power not just
for the survivor, but but for everyone else who's been
a victim, who has not been able to to own
(37:52):
their truth. And you know, I don't like language like that.
Own their truth sounds a little new agy for me.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
It's not the way I normally speare.
Speaker 6 (37:59):
But survivors hold the truth.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
And here it is right. I don't think someone has
their truth on whether two plus two is four. But
your life and your experience no one should take away,
particularly from a child, the ability to tell your story.
(38:22):
And it's and I'll tell you look, Trey's Law would
not have been a law in Missouri, Elizabeth, without your leadership,
it would not have been a law in Texas.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
It would not have been a law.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
I mean, you have devoted a lot of time to
fighting for this nationwide.
Speaker 5 (38:40):
Yeah, and I hope to get back to my day job. Eventually,
I'm a mother of three. I've got other things to do.
This is not something I want to carry. It's always
encouraging when legislators like yourself step up and say we're
going to champion this on behalf of survivors so that
Trey's outcome doesn't happen again. And I just want to
(39:03):
comment on Jaden and what she did today because that
was heroic. It will inspire others to come forward, and
as she stated in her testimony, she just doesn't want
other people to continue to be victimized by her abuser.
Today was the first time she named her abuser. Wow,
and I am so honored.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
I didn't realize that when she said that, I assumed
she had said it previously.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
I did not realize she had not.
Speaker 5 (39:31):
That's when a press conference becomes holy, sacred space, because
she was sharing the truth about a predator who's still
out there. And I am amazed by her courage because
she achieved settlement last year and asked if she wanted
(39:51):
this opportunity. It was healing for her, as hard as
it was to be able to stand on truth. And
that's one of our slogans with the trays campaign is
every voice of truth matters, because I agree with you,
I don't like this language around. They are truth, There
is absolute truth. And Jaden stead on that today in
(40:14):
her remarks and we got to stand beside her, and
that was so powerful, and like you said, not a
dry eye in the room, because if you're not personally
affected by child sexual abuse, you sure know someone who
Waymen is or will come forward eventually about that.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
The numbers are staggering, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
And we have studied this. Only one in seven victims
will ever come forward. And the deadly disclosure issue I
was bringing up earlier, especially with male victims, they often
don't disclose until between the age of fifty and seventy.
And so it's important parents understand that because again I
think they think if someone experiences this, that child's going
(40:56):
to come home and tell mom and dad immediately. But
to your point, it's not like an injury you would
endure on the streets or in some sort of other accident.
This does have an element of shame. And what Jayden
did today is she put the shame back where it belongs, Yeah,
on the person who accused her. It was never her fault.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
And let me say to anyone listening to this, if
you've been a victim, it's not your fault.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
And that's one of the lies.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
These abusers try to convince children that it is your
fault that you invited this, that the blame is with you,
and that is a total and complete lie.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
Yeah, And that's what grooming does, and what grooming is
is it creates secrecy.
Speaker 6 (41:39):
If you ever tell.
Speaker 5 (41:40):
Anyone, I'm going to hurt your loved one, or if
you ever tell anyone, it's going to ruin everything. That
is a grooming tactic to keep the victim quiet, and
they often don't come out of that brainwashing for many,
many years. So that's why research shows all of this
around it late disclosure. She was able to move from
victim is a to survivor and now survivor advocate in
(42:03):
a matter of months, and that's what we got to
witness today thanks to you introducing Trey's Law federally along
with Senator Jilligren and other co sponsors. And I thought
Senator Britt had some really poignant remarks as well.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
She was fantastic.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
Oh, and it was very clear that the group you
mentioned earlier, the ones you've asked so far they are
behind survivors. They want to protect survivors' voices, and that's
what Trey's Law will do. And it does need to
be national because going state by state creates an imbalance,
protects the people in power, the predators, and the institutions
(42:36):
that harbor these predators over a child having ownership of
their story. And that's the core of our mission here.
And thank you for taking time out of not a
slow news day to make this a priority to hear
from people like Jaden and others.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
Who spoke this is important to happen and to go
to the really corrosive power of shame last year, and
we talked about this earlier today. A law that I
authored and we passed into law was to Take It
Down Act. And Take it Down Act makes it a
crime to post non consensual intimate imagery, either real pictures,
(43:15):
and you see so called revenge porn of explicit photographs
or videos that a couple breaks up and one decides, Okay,
I'm going to hurt my former lover and publish and
no one has the right to make that public and
to do that to someone else. But we've also seen
with AI the rise of deep fakes, and this problem
(43:39):
has increased more than three thousand percent in the last year,
and more than ninety percent of the victims are either
women or teenage girls. And when we were pushing to
pass it and building the coalition to pass it, one
of the things we did, the First Lady became very
actively involved in this legislation, and I appreciated she. I
hosted the First Lady on Capital Hill and she was
(44:01):
at a roundtable where she met with a number of
the victims. And to give you a sense, there was
one person who testified who was a state legislator in
South Carolina.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Whose son.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
Had received it was online, and he was a teenager
and he thought he was talking with a cute teenage girl,
and the supposed cute teenage girl was flirting with him,
and teenage boys everyone can make foolish decisions, but teenage
(44:37):
boys in particular. This cute girl convinced him to take
revealing and naked pictures of himself and to send those pictures.
It turned out that the cute girl was not a
cute girl, but rather was a predator, a predator, a
(44:59):
foreign predator, who then began blackmailing him and saying I'm
going to take this picture that you just took. You
just took a naked picture of yourself and sent it
to me. I'm going to send this picture to your family.
I'm going to send it to your parents. I'm going
to send it to your friends. I'm going to send
it to everyone unless you give me money sextortion, And tragically,
(45:22):
this teenage boy took his life. The entire exchange from
the first interaction to when he took his own life
was ninety minutes.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
And his father shared that story.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
But that's the power of shame of this teenager who
had taken a picture of thinking he was flirting, and
then the terror of if I get exposed for that,
which look compared to being a victim of sexual assault,
taking a picture of yourself is not nearly as severe.
And yet that shame was so powerful that that teenage
(45:59):
boy took a life. I mean, this is the pressures
on our kids. They're enormous, and they face things that
technology amplifies all of this.
Speaker 6 (46:11):
Yeah, it's really an epidemic.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 6 (46:17):
As a mom of three, I know you have two girls.
Speaker 5 (46:20):
The threats are different than they were in our childhoods
and very different, very different.
Speaker 6 (46:25):
We were play.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
One in three kids one in three kids will be
propositioned sexually online.
Speaker 5 (46:29):
Yeah, one and three, And so again, thank you for
championing the Take It Down Act and your co sponsors
and the survivors and sadly the families victimized in that situation.
Speaker 6 (46:41):
The National Center on Missy Next.
Speaker 5 (46:42):
With Your Children just put out a very powerful video
on that issue in particular. And when I was the
board chair of an anti trafficking organization, the FBI put
out their notice on sex stortion. We had something come
through a case around girls being trafficked on Venmo. So
it sometimes often these apps parents are and even thinking about,
but roadblocks especially atrocious. So many examples of abuse happening
(47:08):
on discord and then what they do is they take
it live. So in my brother's story, it was an
institution that covered up abuse. Now it's these tech companies
covering up abuse, and the bad actors are a step
ahead of us, and the legislation can't continue to be reactive.
What I think Trey's law does is it removes that
(47:30):
barrier because the shame is already inherent in the crime itself,
and it removes that barrier so that victims come forward quicker.
We can catch the bad guys faster and the truth
comes to light a lot sooner than when the power
and balance is in such a way that lawyers, even
plaintiffs attorneys as we've discussed, or others, are keeping that
(47:54):
victim from speaking out. So NDAs are one barrier. But
the shame is real and the gap in parntal education
is real, and that's why conversations like this really matter.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
Well, Elizabeth, thank you for taking your pain. I know
you missed your brother.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
I know you feel the pain every day, but thank
you for taking that and saying I'm not just going
to de grieve. I'm not just going to weep. I'm
going to use the pain to make a difference and
help others because your courage matters. It has already changed
the law in a number of states across the country,
and it's going to change the law nationally. And your
(48:34):
leadership is why this is happening. And so I just
want to say thank you.
Speaker 6 (48:38):
It's a sacred honor.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Final question I want to bring up real quick one.
Will you give the website one more time for people
that may have been affected at CANNICOCT with the place
where your brother was and to senator, so this doesn't
drag on for a decade to get it passed.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
What can vertict listeners.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Do to help advocate for this and no matter who
their senator is.
Speaker 5 (49:02):
So the whistleblower website on Cannoncock is facts about Cannacock
dot com. And then our website for Trey's Law is
Treyslaw dot org. There's a community page for survivors who
want to tell their story in a safe way until
we get this legislation passed and they don't feel safe
coming out fully in their identity. We had a survivor
testify in Missouri just a couple of weeks ago, and
(49:24):
he said, for twenty five years, I've been a John
Doe and today I'm coming forward in my full name
because of trays passing in Texas. That's the power of
Trey's Law in Texas. And you know we heard about
Missouri today at the press conference and just replay Jaden's remarks.
Speaker 6 (49:38):
So this needs to be national.
Speaker 5 (49:41):
The other way to support this effort is through the
No More Victims Alliance and that website is in Mvalliance
dot org. And we have a lot of advocates and
allies who want to help support this, and Senator, I'm
curious your thoughts as far as what are the most
effective calls to action people that want to jump in.
Speaker 4 (50:01):
So let me say one thing. The press conference we had,
we had probably about fifty people who came. There was packed,
many of whom were themselves victims or they were the
families of victims. And the emotions, the tears in the room,
it was I actually think that the TV cameras did
not pick up on the folks that were there that
(50:24):
were supporting what we were doing. But it was really powerful. Look,
what can you do? One thing I would encourage you
to do. Share this podcast, Send this podcast to your friends,
send them the YouTube link, send them the audio link.
Encourage people to learn about trades law and then pick
(50:45):
up the phone and make a phone call. Call your senator,
call your house member, and urge them past trades law.
Look those phone calls, people wondered, do those phone calls matter?
Do they make a difference? And I'll tell you they do.
I get a report every day, and I think this
is true for most members of Congress. I get a
report of how many calls we got and what the
(51:06):
topics were what the people were urging. And you notice,
if there's a surge on a topic, it makes a
difference and it focuses the mind. And so speaking out,
urging your elected representatives to support this law. As we've
got broad bipartisan support, we're going to get this done.
And also speak out, you know, speak out on social media.
(51:28):
Put up a post on Facebook, put up a post
on X or true Social or Instagram or whatever whatever
platform you use. But speak out and advocate it, because
the more people hear about this, I think it is
basic common sense.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
There is no reason a.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
Child lacks the emotional maturity to make a decision to
bind themselves by an NDA. And and Trade's law is
going to say, we're not going to allow children to
be taken advantage of first when they're abused, but they're
taking advantage of a second time when they are pressured
(52:08):
into signing an NDA and muzzled for the rest of
their life. And look, we can't necessarily stop every instance
of abuse of kids in the first instance, so though
obviously we want to, but every predator we take off
the street stops that predator from victimizing another child another victim.
(52:30):
But we can stop the second victimization. We can say
we are not going to allow, as a matter of law,
for children who have experienced this violence to be silenced.
And that's what we're trying to do. And Elizabeth, that's
what your leadership is producing.
Speaker 5 (52:45):
Well, and that's why we call this a public safety bill.
And you know, nothing will bring my brother back. And
thank you for acknowledging that, like this is happening out
of heartbreak and I see it as you know, grief
can be love and action. So I'm taking action because
of what my brother's life and death has taught me.
(53:06):
So bigger picture, you know, encourage people to not let
these hardened lessons die in vain. We won't let this
be in vain. And thank you for taking action with me,
With all the survivors in the room today who flew
in from across the country. They've been advocating in Georgia
and Alabama and Missouri and Texas, and they showed up
(53:27):
in that room and it was, yes, full of tears,
but also full of hope. And there's some other bills
right now that it needs support, like the Renewed Hope
Act and the Defiance Act, which is a compliment to
the Take It Down Act, and so this Congress can
achieve a lot to protect victims. And if people do
call their elected legislators, then we can get this done.
(53:51):
And I love hearing you say that over and over
that it's not an if, it's a win, and you
know with this kind of thing there's never a win.
It is a lose lose in my family's case. But we,
like you said, we can prevent this from happening. We
can catch it sooner and this era can end.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Amen, don't forget. We do this show three days a week, Monday,
Wednesday and Friday. I ask you, if you get to
see this, please share the video YouTube video on Facebook
as well.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
You can share it on x and share this podcast.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
You can hit that little forward button and share it
wherever you are on social media. Hopefully you can help
others and victims come forward and understand what's happening to
the laws and how they're changing.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Also, be an advocate.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
Talk to your senator and call their offices and let
them know about this law.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
They may not know what's going on with it.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
Let them know why you're in favor of it, why
they should get behind it so it doesn't take ten
years to get this pass and the Senat, and I
will see you back here in a couple of days
Welcome in as Verdict with Center Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
with you and Senator You're in Washington, d C. With
a very special guest on a very important piece of legislation.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
This is one of those shows.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
That we are promised we're going to get to the
elections and we're going to get to what's going on
around We will talk about that in future shows, but
there is an extremely important piece of legislation that you
are working on in Washington, d C. And there are
countless people that listen to show that may know victims,
and this is a show I hope you will hit pause,
you will share it on social media because it is
(00:35):
an important law that we're talking about right now.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Well, that's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
And this is a special show because we're talking today
about child sexual abuse and it is an epidemic across
this country. So many children are the victims of sexual abuse.
And we're going to talk about legislation that I introduce
today in the Senate to empower the victims of sexual abuse.
And and a very special guest that is adjoining us
(01:03):
today and you're going to get a chance to hear
about her journey and tragically her brother's journey as a
victim of sexual abuse.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Before we get to that, I want to tell you
about our good friends at IFCJ. As Operation Epic Fury intensifies,
the world braces for what comes next, and people of
faith pray for freedom and for God's people to be
protected in the Holy Land, red alert sirens fill the air,
sirens that give you fifteen seconds to reach the nearest
(01:35):
bomb shelter. The situation is serious and the threat is real.
In times like this, freedom and faith aren't just abstract ideas.
They are what we depend on. And the International Fellowship
of Christians and Jews is on the ground preparing large
scale distributions of life saving food, first aid, and emergency
(01:58):
essentials for security personnel, while helping ensure hospitals, emergency rooms,
and shelters are stocked with critical medical supplies. This ad
is focused on Israel's most vulnerable, the sick, the elderly,
children and families in great need. But the Fellowship needs
your most generous gift today to make this work all possible.
(02:19):
Now is your time to stand with Israel's most vulnerable
to rush your gift. Call eight eight eight four eight
eight IFCJ. That's eight eight eight four eight eight IFCJ
or give online at IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ dot org. Senator,
I want to be clear for everybody that's gonna hear
(02:41):
the show, it's on YouTube, it's on Facebook. I hope
you'll share it and just take the time because there
are people that are out there that need to hear
the show that are victims. And this is one of
those important shows where you don't know whose life you're
going to be able to help and affect in a
positive way, whose life literally could be saved because of
(03:01):
this show and the information that they're going to hear.
And this legislation center that you introduced today in Washington,
d C. Is incredible. And your guest who's with you
in DC as well, it's amazing the story that she
is telling, but also just how powerful it is to
stand up for so many others that need help.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Well, that's right.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
This week I introduced legislation in the Senate called Trey's Law,
and it is designed to protect kids, kids who tragically
are the victims of sexual assault. And Trey's Law prohibits
non disclosure agreements binding children who have been victims of
sexual assault and this is a problem we are seeing nationwide,
(03:48):
a staggering statistic. A child in America is sexually abused
every nine minutes. Yeah, one in four girls in America
will be sexually abused before she turns eighteen. One in
six boys in America will be sexually abused before he
turns eighteen. And we have been seeing over and over
(04:14):
again when their violators are held accountable, when they're prosecuted,
and when there is civil litigation, that it is becoming
a routine for the violators to insist upon a non
disclosure agreement, a non disclosure agreement that binds the children
and forces them to be silent. And Trey's Law is
(04:38):
named for a Texan, Trey Carlock, who horrifically was abused
at a summer camp in Missouri, abused over a number
of years, and his abuser was prosecuted as a abuser
is serving three consecutive life terms in prison. And in
the course of civil litigation, Trey was convinced to sign
(05:04):
a non disclosure agreement and that secret haunted him so
much so that at twenty eight years old, he took
his own life. And that is a tragedy in his
life and his family's life, but it's a tragedy nationally.
(05:28):
And we have a guest on the podcast tonight who's
another text in Elizabeth Phillips. Elizabeth is Trey's sister, and
she has taken the grief and agony of losing her
brother and of knowing what happened to him losing her brother.
It's one thing to lose a sibling in a car accident.
(05:52):
My sister died of a drug overdose. It is always
difficult to lose a family member that you love, but
it is particularly gut wrenching, yeah, to lose a family
member who you know was the victim of abuse and
(06:14):
was haunted by that. And I will tell you Elizabeth.
She lives in Dallas and she has devoted thousands of
hours to fighting for Tray's Law. Tray's Law has been
adopted number of states, including Texas. Texas has adopted Tred's
Law and at the state level.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
But today, with with a group of.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Seven bipartisan co sponsors, I've introduced at the federal level
and we're going to get passed at the federal level.
But I want to start Elizabeth, Welcome to VERDIC. We're
glad to have you.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Thank you so much for not just the introduction of
trades law to US Congress this morning, but for offering
this platform as well. And I agree, I hope it
goes viral. Every parent needs to understand how this system works,
because I think there are a lot of assumptions that
if your child is sexually abused, whether it be at
a summer camp which was Tree's story, or a school
(07:08):
or a faith based setting or sports setting, they're going
to come forward immediately. But there's something called delayed disclosure.
Children that are victimized in this way don't come forward
oftentimes for decades, if ever at all, and we need
to be sure that we are protecting children and their
voices so that when they do come forward, survivors are heard, believed,
(07:29):
and that we can respond with action to hold the
bad actors accountable.
Speaker 6 (07:33):
Yeah, so thank you for the conversation.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Well, thank you for being here. Let me ask you,
could you just tell your brother's story to just share
with our listeners and viewers. Tell folks who your brother
was and what happened to them.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Yeah, and thank you for going into some of that
in your introduction, because it's honestly the hardest part for
me to talk about. I can go over stats and
data about child sexual abuse and ways to prevent it
all day long, but it's really hard for me to
talk about Trey. And I didn't know that you also
lost a sibling. So I'm sorry for your loss and
(08:07):
I'm sorry We can.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Relate on that. That's not not a club anyone wants.
Speaker 6 (08:12):
To be a member exactly.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
But I think also we understand that you can grieve
it and move on, or you can grieve it and
turn that pain into purpose. And I think what we
saw at the press conference this morning was pain turned
into power. When there was a nineteen year old young
woman who came forward, it named her abuser for the
first time because her voice was protected under Trey's Law,
(08:37):
since that was passed and put into effect in Missouri
last August. And so that's what we're wanting to expand nationally.
This journey for me began because my brother died by
suicide when he was twenty eight, not only due to
the child sexual abuse and what we now believe to
be trafficking at the hand of Cannonicut Camps based in
southwest Missouri. They had international mission trips. They were moving
(08:58):
kids across state lines. It was never fully investigated. The
criminal case landed in Taney County, Missouri and the sheriff's department,
and at the time of my brother's perpetrator sentencing, there
were fifty seven known victims, but we now have had
many victims come forward since I started a website called
facts about Cannicut dot com with other survivor families to
(09:21):
get the facts out there to parents and warn the
public that this is much more widespread than what had
been reported upon massive cover up, which is not unusual
in a lot of these situations because of NDAs. So
that's what we're addressing with Trey's Law that's now been
introduced to Congress, very bipartisan. You said, you know, no
one you've brought this to has said no to it.
(09:43):
I mean it's something everyone should get behind and hopefully
can get behind. You know, in Trey's story, he was
groomed and then abused by a camp director. So seven
to seventeen this was going on, and.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
So he was seven when he started going to the camp.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
When he started going to the camp, and that's when
the grooming began, and then the sexual abuse began, and
then his perpetrator, who, like you said, is now in
prison for three life terms, confessed to his crimes and
was sentenced in twenty ten, but under the civil statute
limitations in Texas, Trade was forced to file his civil
(10:17):
lawsuit by the age of twenty three. And just imagine,
you know, go back to when you were twenty three,
were you ready to go up against a system and
quote unquote ministry like Cannacouc that has between thirty five
and forty five million in annual revenue. I mean, at
twenty three, you're still a kid. We call them college kids, right,
You're just trying to get through college and start a job,
(10:38):
build a life. And if someone puts a settlement agreement
in front of you and says sign on the dotted
line and this can all go away and you can
have restitution and some you know, some money for your healing,
for therapy or be for lost income, You're probably going
to do it. And for closure and for healing enclosure.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
And I say that because I have friends that worked
at Cannicock during the time period you're talking about. I
also know people that were abused at Kennacock. And this
story when I saw we were doing it. It's it's
I've lost friends who've committed suicide because of sexual abuse.
But Cannicuck is a place where I went to Ole,
miss A lot of people I grew up with from Memphis,
(11:24):
from Houston, they went to Cannacock And the cover up
word that you use there is I think one of
the most sad parts about all this is there was
so many of these ndia's center. I didn't realize it,
like how much this was going to just bring up
in me. But when you know people that were abused
there and you've set with them and you hear how
(11:45):
the system did not protect them, but I actually think
made them a victim a second time over by the
way that they use these NDA's, It is infuriating because
you realize that, like everything in this situation worked against
them for years.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
And that's what in the Texas hearings, I was calling
this institutional abuse on top of child sexual abuse. So
you're exactly right. And yes, Memphis is a huge market
for cannonic Cook and Kids of Court America, which is
another ministry and outside of Branson that Joe White still
runs to this day, There's been no change in leadership.
(12:21):
No one's been held accountable because of these crimes. And
so you were asking about my story and how we
got to this point, and really it was because I
learned more about my brother's trauma and his death than
I knew in his life because of the NBA. So
until Treys Law went into effect in Texas September of
twenty twenty five, I never saw what he signed. He
(12:42):
wouldn't talk about it. He was so terrified, even in
therapeutic settings, even trying to get sober in AA for example,
he was worried Cannicok would come after him if he
mentioned all of the people involved that knew about what
Pete was doing and didn't report the crimes to the
authorities or disciplined him internally, And that allowed this perpetrator
(13:05):
to go on and abuse. What we now know is
hundreds of more victims. And that's one perpetrator alone. So
victims of Cannonicuk have asked for three things. Admit to
known failures, release in DAS, and commission an independent investigation. Since,
as I mentioned, the Taney County Sheriff's Department missed a
few spots, we don't need a rabbit hole on that
(13:27):
right now. But that's the three asks of survivors, very
common since steps they could take. So we've done Canna
Cook's job for them. And we've found out that we
now know of over ninety perpetrators with allegations against them
affiliated with cannoncuk and its associated ministries and programs across
the country and world. Ninety over ninety. So the ninety
(13:47):
how many have been held accountable.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I've got to know that number because as I was
told about this several months ago, they said that not
only are there still people in the ninety as you're
described that are affiliated, there are some that are still
in major leadership roles and around children.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Yes, so we're calling it out again, doing Cannoncuck's job
for them. I think as parents we have an expectation
that if a child molester or a sex offender is
caught at an institution where your child was attending or enrolled,
that you will be informed if they are ever charged
with anything criminal. That is not what cannacuck has done.
(14:28):
So we've done that job for them. So facts about
cannicuck dot com. We have a known abuser's page where
we name thirteen and might even be more now that
have convictions that are yeah, they have criminal indictments, convictions
or formal allegations in the media, coroborated by multiple victims.
And then the rest of the perpetrators in our database
(14:51):
are just still out there living their lives and a
lot of them have never been held accountable.
Speaker 6 (14:58):
We know who they are.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
We've turned database over to the authorities and we are
hoping that the FBI or some sort of law enforcement
agency takes action. But the normal thing to do when
you're not covering up for pedophiles as an institution, using
in das and continuing to promote pedophiles within your organization
or moving them around to associated ministries, which is another
(15:21):
thing CANNICUK has done. They have a year round ministry
called k Life similar to a Young Life, which I
think is better known. They will move someone that has
allegations at the camp to a chapter of k Life
where they go on to continue harming children. So our
known abuser's page is supposed to be a public facing
database for when we know cannicock affiliate has been convicted
(15:43):
and dieted or formally alleged of child sexual abuse, and
the rest of it will come to light. Over time,
as more and more victims come forward, the list continues
to grow, and with exposure like this, we expect even more.
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Speaker 4 (17:30):
So one of the things you described, we did a
press conference today announcing Trays Law in the Senate and
you described the pressure that was on your brother, not
just from the camp but also from his own lawyer.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
You share that story a little bit.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
Yeah, So, you know, one of the questions as we
were going state by state, you know, starting in Texas
because that's my home state and that's where Trey grew up.
We spent a few years also in Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia's
introduced trays Law along with eight other jurisdictions, but then
Missouri past Trey's Law last August. And you know, my
brother was abused in so many jurisdictions that there were
(18:10):
different options for the venue in his civil case. He's
greed in Texas, as I mentioned, that ended with settlement
agreement that involved a restrictive inn DA and he was
an adult when he sued for the child sexual abuse
that he suffered, but he hadn't exactly.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
And you know that therapist.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
After his death, I started doing my own investigation to
understand what just happened to my brother, and that therapist
said that he had made a comment just before he
died that they would always control him and he would
never be free. And that's what it feels like living
under an NDA. And in America, where we stand on
(18:52):
freedom and freedom of speech, and anyone who studied constitutional law,
I mean that is aright as an American citizen to
have freedom of speech and we protect it with veracity.
But in this case, there's been a misuse of ndias,
which originally were created to protect intellectual property like the
(19:14):
Coca Cola recipe or trade secrets, and they've since been
misused to silence victims of childhood sexual abuse, trafficking, even
adult sexual assault survivors. That was addressed in the Speak
Out Act that passed in twenty twenty two with the
co sponsor of Treys Law, Senator Jilbrandt. But kids are
(19:35):
being put under these NDAs and kids, they can't consent
to contracts or clauses like this, and so oftentimes it's
a guardian or a parent who is signing this DA
on behalf of their child. The child grows up, becomes
a young man or woman realizes what their parents signed
and that they can't own their own story.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
And it's just a bar.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Or even feel like they can't heal because they can't
talk about it. In fact, they're so afraid. Talking to
one person that was a victim of this, they described
it to me this way. They said, Cannicut basically had
enough money to buy silence to protect the brand because
they knew if we were told our stories, the brand
would die and all the money would stop coming in.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
That's a simplistic way. But you mentioned their revenue.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
This was you got to spend money to save this
brand and continue to grow in sports and all the
other activities that they that they do. I mean, that
is that a fair way of putting it.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
I think that's yeah, that's definitely a fair way of
putting it. And to add the other thing that's a
layer of trauma in this is that their cover up
bought enough time for these victims to be out of statute,
So they can't now that they know the extent of
the cover up unless under a certain discovery rule, which
you could speak to as a lawyer senator, But they
(20:55):
can't even have access to the civil courts and the
jurisdiction where they were abused. So in Missouri, the civil
statute of limitations to sue an institution that's liable for
child sexual abuse or trafficking has been in the age
of twenty six and that's been unchanged since nineteen thirty nine.
And so we're doing a lot of advocacy work in
Missouri to say survivors need more time. As I said
(21:17):
when you asked the first question, there is a lot
of research on delayed disclosure. My brother was unfortunately forced
into disclosure because he was named as a victim during
the criminal proceedings, and so he didn't have decades to
process what happened to him and then come forward.
Speaker 6 (21:34):
But victims that weren't named.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
Or who came forward closer to the time of Pete
Newman's arrest to name one of again, over ninety perpetrators
we're aware of to.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Date, they got how was he caught, how was his
his abuse discovered?
Speaker 5 (21:49):
There are a few theories on that Canicut hasn't really
been transparent about what led to his confession. So I
would love to know the answer to that question. And
that's why an independent investigation or some of LA enforcement
agency stepping in is so necessary in this. He confessed
allegedly in March two thousand and nine to abusing seven boys,
and then he wasn't arrested until September two thousand and
(22:13):
nine after summer camp season went uninterrupted, and then upon
arrest they started investigating him criminally, and then that led
to his sentencing in February twenty ten. Here we are
in twenty twenty six, and because of facts about Cannacuk,
which was created by a coalition of survivor families, and
(22:33):
then recent publicity through USA Today published five articles on
this dispatch. The Dispatch published it the New York Times.
I just went on the Sean Ryan Show, and we're
getting more and more disclosures not just about Pete Newman,
but other perpetrators associated with Kanukuck and other leadership who
covered this up. And they are calling attorneys who are saying,
(22:56):
I'm sorry, you're fifteen thirty forty five years too late.
So victims don't know they're on the clock when perpetrators
know exactly when, and institution's like Cannicut know exactly when
the deadline is to file a civil lawsuit against them.
So they bought enough time at this point for the
cover up to have worked well.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
One of the things you talked about at the press
conference today is how your brother's lawyer was pressuring him
to sign this NDA and the incentives of the current system. Look,
an abuser has every incentive in the world to try
to cover it up, to try to hide it, to
want an NDA to not have truth and transparency, and
(23:41):
so we are seeing NDAs demanded by abusers in exchange
for compensation. And the way our legal system works is
typically if a victim has a lawyer, that lawyer will
usually be compensated on a contingency basis where they eve
a portion of whatever financial recovery there is. So the
(24:05):
lawyer has every incentive in the world to try to
reach a deal, to try to reach a settlement, to
have a financial amount paid, and to discount the harm
of silencing their client. And so it's one of the
real values of Trey's law. It is that when this
(24:28):
passes and I didn't say. If I said, when we
will get this passed, thank you. When this passes, that
incentive will go away. Look, if you're negotiating a settlement,
I used an example earlier today, there aren't settlement agreements
that say, as a condition of the settlement, you have
to deal crack cocaine, because dealing crack cocaine is illegal.
(24:52):
And so you can't agree in a settlement to do
something that is illegal. By taking NDAs off the table,
or forcing victims of child sex abuse to not be
able to disclose what happened to them, that incentive for
their lawyers to pressure them to.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Do this will go away.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Likewise, and importantly, we drafted trays law so that a
victim can still insist on an NDA for the abuser.
If a victim decides I don't want my story told,
that's your right as well. We're not going to force
a victim to tell his story or her story against
their will.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
That you're protecting the victim in the way you're writing this,
which I think is such an important part of this conversation.
I want people to understand that it's a lot of
what we talked about with we want to protect victims.
For example, when we're exposing everything with Epstein Foules, it's
the same mentality here. If you don't want your name
out there, we want to protect it.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Right.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
That's the heart of Trey's Law is giving survivors ownership
of their own stories, yes, so that they can decide
what they want told about what happened to them. The
trauma alone is enough abuse. We don't need to pile
that on. And you bring up a good point, Senator,
around the incentives and the incentives being misaligned, because this
type of case falls under personal injury law. And so
(26:09):
you've been to law school and in that area of
the law, it's typically your attorneys who are taking auto
accident cases or slip and falls. Child sexual abuse is
of fear, it's in it. I like that it's a
personal injury claim because it is an injury to the brain,
to the soul, and so it should be a personal
injury claim. But the way personal injury law works is
(26:32):
that you are looking to settle, keep this from going.
I mean, over ninety six percent of cases I think
settle outside of trial when it comes to personal injury.
And so you know the victim doesn't want to have
to go to trial and put themselves through more trauma.
Their incentivized to settle, and a lawyer says, this can
all be behind you if you sign on the dotted
(26:52):
line and then they can take forty percent, which is
the typical commission on a case like this, move on
to the next once and repeat, And that doesn't work
when we're talking about childhood sexual abuse.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Well, and the U. S.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Supreme Court has described They've said, other than murder, rape
is the most grievous harm that could be inflicted to
a person. And I've spent a lot of my career
fighting against child sexual abuse. So when I was the
Solicitor General of Texas, I argued in front of the U. S.
(27:25):
Supreme Court defending Louisiana's law that provided for capital punishment,
the death penalty for the most egregious child rapist. Unfortunately,
the Supreme Court five to four struck that down, so
we did not prevail in that case.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Texas's law was also struck down. When Louisiana's law was struck.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Down, I also defended Texas has a Texas Sexually Violent
Predator Civil Commitment law that gives the courts the ability
to take a sexually violent predator and put them in
civil commitment, take them off the streets to protect people.
And a state court of appeals had struck that law
down and concluded it was unconstitutional, and I argued the
(28:04):
case in front of the Texas Supreme Court defending that law,
and we won unanimously. The law was reinstated, and it's
now a tool that you have to go after sexual predators.
And you know we mentioned before, so this bill, my
lead co sponsor is Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat from New York.
And then we have on this bill as well, we
(28:26):
have Katie Britt Republican from Alabama's a dear friend. We
have Eric Schmidt, Republican from Missouri, another very good friend.
And then we also have Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota.
We have Peter Welch, Democrat from Vermont, and then Jeane Shaheen,
a Democrat from New Hampshire. And I think we will
get very widespread bipartisan support. To be honest, those six
(28:49):
are the only six I asked. I started with them.
I've worked all of them. I've worked with on previous legislation.
But you know, I'll tell you Jelibrendon and I started
working on this issue more than a decade ago because
she was a leader in going after sexual assault in
the military. And there's been a real problem with sexual
(29:10):
assault in the military, and the way it used to
work is the decision about whether to prosecute a rapist
was made by the commander, and the commander frequently knew
the violator, often was close to the violator, and victims
of sexual assault in the military were afraid to report
(29:32):
the rapes because they didn't believe the commander would be fair.
They believed the commander would be biased in favor of
the violator. And so Jelibrandon, this is back twenty thirteen,
when I was a brand new baby senator had just
been elected. Kirsten was leading the charge saying, this doesn't
make any sense, and the decision of whether to prosecute
(29:55):
should not be made by the commanding officer, but rather
should be made by a career military prosecutor. So in
the military, but not in the chain of command, so
not connected to the to the alleged violator. And I
will tell you the Pentagon fought tooth and nail. They
hated that provision, and I was on the Senate Armed
(30:17):
Services Committee with Kirsten at the time, and I heard
her make the argument, make the argument passionately for changing
the prosecutor prosecuting decision to a career prosecutor. And it
was one of those instances where sometimes you say hearings,
don't you know our our kind of performance, They don't
necessarily change anyone's mind. Well, I listened to her arguments
(30:37):
and I was persuaded, and I went up to her
and I said, Kirsten, I want to team up with
you and let's get this done.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
And we did.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
It took nearly a decade to get it done because
the Barack Obama wouldn't do it. By the way Obama
was president, he could have done it unilaterally, and he
wouldn't do it.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
And it took We ultimately got the legislation passed, but
it was it was a decade long battle. And this
is one I'm confident will be faster. I don't think
this will take a decade to make happen. You know,
you mentioned at the press conference also that we had
another victim of sexual abuse share her story. Her name
is Jaden Harris, and I want to play what she
(31:17):
said at the press conference because this was.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Really powerful and moving.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
She was sharing about about the sexual violence she experienced
and give a listen, give a watch.
Speaker 7 (31:31):
Good morning. First, I want to thank these co sponsors
for their leadership in filing Tree's law at the federal level.
My name is Jaden Harris, nineteen years old, and I'm
here today not just as a child sexual abuse survivor
from Branson, Missouri, but as someone whose voice was protected
(31:55):
by Drew's law. It's why you can be here today.
When I came forward about the abuse I experienced, I
was prepared for it to be difficult. What I wasn't
prepared for was the intimidation not only for my abuser,
but for my own lawyer to sign a non disclosure
(32:16):
agreement in exchange for restitution during a mediation process. I
was alone when it came to fighting.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
For my voice.
Speaker 7 (32:24):
It was both my abuser and my lawyer that tried
to require me to sign an NDA, a contract to
a clause that would have restricted my ability to speak
about the details of what happened to me for the
rest of my life. Imagine being told you can never
tell your own truth. Despite the bowling for my attorney
(32:47):
and all those involved in the case. In my heart,
I knew I had to stand for truth, not just
for myself, but for others who feel they had been silenced.
I'm standing here today with my voice because Trey's Law
protected it as a matter of public policy, and I
was able to achieve settlement while preserving my ability to
(33:09):
speak out in hope of protecting others. Due to learning
about Trey's Law and Missouri, I knew something important. I
cannot be legally forced into silence. No agreement could take
away my right to speak about my own experience and
those responsible for the abuse. That legal right changed everything.
(33:31):
It shifted the balance and power. It meant that any
resolution would not come at the cost of me owning
my story, not only as having a voice essential to
my healing journey, but is also how I can warn others.
My abuser is still out in public every day. He
goes by the name Raisa. He is a well known
(33:53):
entertainer in Branson who still has a magic show, and
I'm concerned about ongoing victimization. The criminal justice system has
done nothing to remove them from being around children. So
I'm going to do something. I'm speaking out today, and
I'm advocating the law that protected me to protect victims everywhere.
(34:20):
Federal action on Trey's Law is critical. A survivor's freedom
of speech should not depend on geography. I am fortunate
that Trey's law had passed in Missouri and allowed me
to keep my voice. But someone's ZIP code should not
determine whether they can tell the truth and warn the
public about predators. This needs to be national. Trey's law
(34:43):
is straightforward but powerful. It makes non disclosure agreements in
cases of child sexual abuse void and unenforceable. It ensures
that secrecy cannot be purchased when a child has been harmed.
It affirms that survivors can be seen, heard, and leaved,
and that's in the best interest of public safety. What
(35:04):
almost happened to me, siting away my voice should never
be an option in this country. I'm grateful to be
part of today's important milestone and making that happen in
setting truth free.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Thank you, sator, you're watching that. It's painful.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
It also is incredible to see someone like that get
their voice because of this law and that was enacted
in her state, and that's exactly what you are trying
to do nationwide and It's why I say this for
everyone watching, please share this. There may be somebody that
(35:46):
needs to know the website with a connection with Cannoncut.
There may be someone else that needs to know this
because they're in an NBA. This is why we do
this show, and it's one of those episodes that I
hope you'll put it everywhere on social media.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Well, and look, there's something really powerful about a survivor
taking ownership of their own story, of their own abuse
and sharing their story. It can be healing, it can
be empowering. Look when Jaden told her story, there was
not a dry eye in the room. I mean it
(36:21):
was you just heard it, and for those of you
watching online, you saw it. And this is a nineteen
year old young woman who was bearing her soul. And
there's something powerful a for the survivor to move past
the pain and grief. But it's also powerful because for
(36:44):
every survivor that tells her story or his story, there
are dozens or hundreds or even thousands of other victims
who never told anybody. And one of the horrific things
about this crime in particular, listen, if you're walking home
at night and you get mugged and beaten up. You're
(37:05):
not typically embarrassed or ashamed to admit I got mugged
and beaten up someone stole my wallet. Sexual assault, and
particularly sexual assault for kids, the guilt, the self loathing.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
The fear, the precis the shame.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
So many victims are trapped in silence and never report
their crimes. And so there is a power not just
for the survivor, but but for everyone else who's been
a victim, who has not been able to to own
(37:52):
their truth. And you know, I don't like language like that.
Own their truth sounds a little new agy for me.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
It's not the way I normally speare.
Speaker 6 (37:59):
But survivors hold the truth.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
And here it is right. I don't think someone has
their truth on whether two plus two is four. But
your life and your experience no one should take away,
particularly from a child, the ability to tell your story.
(38:22):
And it's and I'll tell you look, Trey's Law would
not have been a law in Missouri, Elizabeth, without your leadership,
it would not have been a law in Texas.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
It would not have been a law.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
I mean, you have devoted a lot of time to
fighting for this nationwide.
Speaker 5 (38:40):
Yeah, and I hope to get back to my day job. Eventually,
I'm a mother of three. I've got other things to do.
This is not something I want to carry. It's always
encouraging when legislators like yourself step up and say we're
going to champion this on behalf of survivors so that
Trey's outcome doesn't happen again. And I just want to
(39:03):
comment on Jaden and what she did today because that
was heroic. It will inspire others to come forward, and
as she stated in her testimony, she just doesn't want
other people to continue to be victimized by her abuser.
Today was the first time she named her abuser. Wow,
and I am so honored.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
I didn't realize that when she said that, I assumed
she had said it previously.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
I did not realize she had not.
Speaker 5 (39:31):
That's when a press conference becomes holy, sacred space, because
she was sharing the truth about a predator who's still
out there. And I am amazed by her courage because
she achieved settlement last year and asked if she wanted
(39:51):
this opportunity. It was healing for her, as hard as
it was to be able to stand on truth. And
that's one of our slogans with the trays campaign is
every voice of truth matters, because I agree with you,
I don't like this language around. They are truth, There
is absolute truth. And Jaden stead on that today in
(40:14):
her remarks and we got to stand beside her, and
that was so powerful, and like you said, not a
dry eye in the room, because if you're not personally
affected by child sexual abuse, you sure know someone who
Waymen is or will come forward eventually about that.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
The numbers are staggering, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
And we have studied this. Only one in seven victims
will ever come forward. And the deadly disclosure issue I
was bringing up earlier, especially with male victims, they often
don't disclose until between the age of fifty and seventy.
And so it's important parents understand that because again I
think they think if someone experiences this, that child's going
(40:56):
to come home and tell mom and dad immediately. But
to your point, it's not like an injury you would
endure on the streets or in some sort of other accident.
This does have an element of shame. And what Jayden
did today is she put the shame back where it belongs, Yeah,
on the person who accused her. It was never her fault.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
And let me say to anyone listening to this, if
you've been a victim, it's not your fault.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
And that's one of the lies.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
These abusers try to convince children that it is your
fault that you invited this, that the blame is with you,
and that is a total and complete lie.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
Yeah, And that's what grooming does, and what grooming is
is it creates secrecy.
Speaker 6 (41:39):
If you ever tell.
Speaker 5 (41:40):
Anyone, I'm going to hurt your loved one, or if
you ever tell anyone, it's going to ruin everything. That
is a grooming tactic to keep the victim quiet, and
they often don't come out of that brainwashing for many,
many years. So that's why research shows all of this
around it late disclosure. She was able to move from
victim is a to survivor and now survivor advocate in
(42:03):
a matter of months, and that's what we got to
witness today thanks to you introducing Trey's Law federally along
with Senator Jilligren and other co sponsors. And I thought
Senator Britt had some really poignant remarks as well.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
She was fantastic.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
Oh, and it was very clear that the group you
mentioned earlier, the ones you've asked so far they are
behind survivors. They want to protect survivors' voices, and that's
what Trey's Law will do. And it does need to
be national because going state by state creates an imbalance,
protects the people in power, the predators, and the institutions
(42:36):
that harbor these predators over a child having ownership of
their story. And that's the core of our mission here.
And thank you for taking time out of not a
slow news day to make this a priority to hear
from people like Jaden and others.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
Who spoke this is important to happen and to go
to the really corrosive power of shame last year, and
we talked about this earlier today. A law that I
authored and we passed into law was to Take It
Down Act. And Take it Down Act makes it a
crime to post non consensual intimate imagery, either real pictures,
(43:15):
and you see so called revenge porn of explicit photographs
or videos that a couple breaks up and one decides, Okay,
I'm going to hurt my former lover and publish and
no one has the right to make that public and
to do that to someone else. But we've also seen
with AI the rise of deep fakes, and this problem
(43:39):
has increased more than three thousand percent in the last year,
and more than ninety percent of the victims are either
women or teenage girls. And when we were pushing to
pass it and building the coalition to pass it, one
of the things we did, the First Lady became very
actively involved in this legislation, and I appreciated she. I
hosted the First Lady on Capital Hill and she was
(44:01):
at a roundtable where she met with a number of
the victims. And to give you a sense, there was
one person who testified who was a state legislator in
South Carolina.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Whose son.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
Had received it was online, and he was a teenager
and he thought he was talking with a cute teenage girl,
and the supposed cute teenage girl was flirting with him,
and teenage boys everyone can make foolish decisions, but teenage
(44:37):
boys in particular. This cute girl convinced him to take
revealing and naked pictures of himself and to send those pictures.
It turned out that the cute girl was not a
cute girl, but rather was a predator, a predator, a
(44:59):
foreign predator, who then began blackmailing him and saying I'm
going to take this picture that you just took. You
just took a naked picture of yourself and sent it
to me. I'm going to send this picture to your family.
I'm going to send it to your parents. I'm going
to send it to your friends. I'm going to send
it to everyone unless you give me money sextortion, And tragically,
(45:22):
this teenage boy took his life. The entire exchange from
the first interaction to when he took his own life
was ninety minutes.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
And his father shared that story.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
But that's the power of shame of this teenager who
had taken a picture of thinking he was flirting, and
then the terror of if I get exposed for that,
which look compared to being a victim of sexual assault,
taking a picture of yourself is not nearly as severe.
And yet that shame was so powerful that that teenage
(45:59):
boy took a life. I mean, this is the pressures
on our kids. They're enormous, and they face things that
technology amplifies all of this.
Speaker 6 (46:11):
Yeah, it's really an epidemic.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 6 (46:17):
As a mom of three, I know you have two girls.
Speaker 5 (46:20):
The threats are different than they were in our childhoods
and very different, very different.
Speaker 6 (46:25):
We were play.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
One in three kids one in three kids will be
propositioned sexually online.
Speaker 5 (46:29):
Yeah, one and three, And so again, thank you for
championing the Take It Down Act and your co sponsors
and the survivors and sadly the families victimized in that situation.
Speaker 6 (46:41):
The National Center on Missy Next.
Speaker 5 (46:42):
With Your Children just put out a very powerful video
on that issue in particular. And when I was the
board chair of an anti trafficking organization, the FBI put
out their notice on sex stortion. We had something come
through a case around girls being trafficked on Venmo. So
it sometimes often these apps parents are and even thinking about,
but roadblocks especially atrocious. So many examples of abuse happening
(47:08):
on discord and then what they do is they take
it live. So in my brother's story, it was an
institution that covered up abuse. Now it's these tech companies
covering up abuse, and the bad actors are a step
ahead of us, and the legislation can't continue to be reactive.
What I think Trey's law does is it removes that
(47:30):
barrier because the shame is already inherent in the crime itself,
and it removes that barrier so that victims come forward quicker.
We can catch the bad guys faster and the truth
comes to light a lot sooner than when the power
and balance is in such a way that lawyers, even
plaintiffs attorneys as we've discussed, or others, are keeping that
(47:54):
victim from speaking out. So NDAs are one barrier. But
the shame is real and the gap in parntal education
is real, and that's why conversations like this really matter.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
Well, Elizabeth, thank you for taking your pain. I know
you missed your brother.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
I know you feel the pain every day, but thank
you for taking that and saying I'm not just going
to de grieve. I'm not just going to weep. I'm
going to use the pain to make a difference and
help others because your courage matters. It has already changed
the law in a number of states across the country,
and it's going to change the law nationally. And your
(48:34):
leadership is why this is happening. And so I just
want to say thank you.
Speaker 6 (48:38):
It's a sacred honor.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Final question I want to bring up real quick one.
Will you give the website one more time for people
that may have been affected at CANNICOCT with the place
where your brother was and to senator, so this doesn't
drag on for a decade to get it passed.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
What can vertict listeners.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Do to help advocate for this and no matter who
their senator is.
Speaker 5 (49:02):
So the whistleblower website on Cannoncock is facts about Cannacock
dot com. And then our website for Trey's Law is
Treyslaw dot org. There's a community page for survivors who
want to tell their story in a safe way until
we get this legislation passed and they don't feel safe
coming out fully in their identity. We had a survivor
testify in Missouri just a couple of weeks ago, and
(49:24):
he said, for twenty five years, I've been a John
Doe and today I'm coming forward in my full name
because of trays passing in Texas. That's the power of
Trey's Law in Texas. And you know we heard about
Missouri today at the press conference and just replay Jaden's remarks.
Speaker 6 (49:38):
So this needs to be national.
Speaker 5 (49:41):
The other way to support this effort is through the
No More Victims Alliance and that website is in Mvalliance
dot org. And we have a lot of advocates and
allies who want to help support this, and Senator, I'm
curious your thoughts as far as what are the most
effective calls to action people that want to jump in.
Speaker 4 (50:01):
So let me say one thing. The press conference we had,
we had probably about fifty people who came. There was packed,
many of whom were themselves victims or they were the
families of victims. And the emotions, the tears in the room,
it was I actually think that the TV cameras did
not pick up on the folks that were there that
(50:24):
were supporting what we were doing. But it was really powerful. Look,
what can you do? One thing I would encourage you
to do. Share this podcast, Send this podcast to your friends,
send them the YouTube link, send them the audio link.
Encourage people to learn about trades law and then pick
(50:45):
up the phone and make a phone call. Call your senator,
call your house member, and urge them past trades law.
Look those phone calls, people wondered, do those phone calls matter?
Do they make a difference? And I'll tell you they do.
I get a report every day, and I think this
is true for most members of Congress. I get a
report of how many calls we got and what the
(51:06):
topics were what the people were urging. And you notice,
if there's a surge on a topic, it makes a
difference and it focuses the mind. And so speaking out,
urging your elected representatives to support this law. As we've
got broad bipartisan support, we're going to get this done.
And also speak out, you know, speak out on social media.
(51:28):
Put up a post on Facebook, put up a post
on X or true Social or Instagram or whatever whatever
platform you use. But speak out and advocate it, because
the more people hear about this, I think it is
basic common sense.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
There is no reason a.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
Child lacks the emotional maturity to make a decision to
bind themselves by an NDA. And and Trade's law is
going to say, we're not going to allow children to
be taken advantage of first when they're abused, but they're
taking advantage of a second time when they are pressured
(52:08):
into signing an NDA and muzzled for the rest of
their life. And look, we can't necessarily stop every instance
of abuse of kids in the first instance, so though
obviously we want to, but every predator we take off
the street stops that predator from victimizing another child another victim.
(52:30):
But we can stop the second victimization. We can say
we are not going to allow, as a matter of law,
for children who have experienced this violence to be silenced.
And that's what we're trying to do. And Elizabeth, that's
what your leadership is producing.
Speaker 5 (52:45):
Well, and that's why we call this a public safety bill.
And you know, nothing will bring my brother back. And
thank you for acknowledging that, like this is happening out
of heartbreak and I see it as you know, grief
can be love and action. So I'm taking action because
of what my brother's life and death has taught me.
(53:06):
So bigger picture, you know, encourage people to not let
these hardened lessons die in vain. We won't let this
be in vain. And thank you for taking action with me,
With all the survivors in the room today who flew
in from across the country. They've been advocating in Georgia
and Alabama and Missouri and Texas, and they showed up
(53:27):
in that room and it was, yes, full of tears,
but also full of hope. And there's some other bills
right now that it needs support, like the Renewed Hope
Act and the Defiance Act, which is a compliment to
the Take It Down Act, and so this Congress can
achieve a lot to protect victims. And if people do
call their elected legislators, then we can get this done.
(53:51):
And I love hearing you say that over and over
that it's not an if, it's a win, and you
know with this kind of thing there's never a win.
It is a lose lose in my family's case. But we,
like you said, we can prevent this from happening. We
can catch it sooner and this era can end.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Amen, don't forget. We do this show three days a week, Monday,
Wednesday and Friday. I ask you, if you get to
see this, please share the video YouTube video on Facebook
as well.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
You can share it on x and share this podcast.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
You can hit that little forward button and share it
wherever you are on social media. Hopefully you can help
others and victims come forward and understand what's happening to
the laws and how they're changing.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Also, be an advocate.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
Talk to your senator and call their offices and let
them know about this law.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
They may not know what's going on with it.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
Let them know why you're in favor of it, why
they should get behind it so it doesn't take ten
years to get this pass and the Senat, and I
will see you back here in a couple of days
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