Six women who sued Tim Ballard for sexual assault in state court filed a new lawsuit in federal court this week, alleging that Ballard, the founder of the anti-trafficking organization Operation Underground Railroad, engaged in sex trafficking.

The lawsuit makes many of the same allegations and arguments previously raised in the state lawsuits and adds that Ballard violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act by coercing and manipulating women into situations where Ballard could sexually exploit them.

“This lawsuit exposes the truth behind the facade of Tim Ballard and OUR,” attorneys Suzette Rasmussen and Alan Mortensen said in a statement. “Instead of rescuing women and children from trafficking, these defendants used their positions of trust to exploit and abuse and traffic women.”

OUR and several other Ballard associates, including an alleged financier of OUR’s operations, are also named as defendants in the suit.

“After an almost unbroken string of defeats in every state court that has heard their cases, the plaintiffs are engaging in desperate forum shopping with the same tired allegations that judge after judge has called inconsistent and unsupported by the facts.” Ballard’s attorney, Mark Eisenhut. , said in a statement.

A spokesperson for OUR did not respond to a request for comment.

Ballard founded Operation Underground Railroad in 2013 with the aim of combating child sex trafficking. Last summer, just before the release of the movie “Sound of Freedom,” which was loosely based on his work and earned a quarter of a billion dollars at the box office, Ballard was removed from the organization after an internal investigation into alleged misconduct.

The plaintiffs in the suit — Celeste Borys, Mary Hall, Sashaleigha Hightower, Krista Kacey, Kira Lynch and Bree Righter — are also plaintiffs in other state court civil suits. Their attorneys have filed a total of eight lawsuits against Ballard on their behalf and others over the past year.

A lawsuit was filed by Righter, alleging negligence on the part of Ballard and OUR resulted in a serious injury during a training eventwas fired because she signed a waiver before she was injured and another lawsuit alleges that Ballard and his associates tried to intimidate a criticSuzanne Whitehead was also quietly dismissed. Both are appealed.

Kelly Suarez, who sued Ballard for defamation over how a “Sound of Freedom” character based on her was portrayed in the film, was later found guilty of pimping a minor in Colombia.

“Two lawsuits against Tim Ballard have already been dismissed and a third is held by a woman convicted of pimping minors. This new suit is unlikely to be more successful,” Eisenhut said.

The women in the other lawsuits, as well as the new federal lawsuit, allege Ballard groomed, manipulated and sexually exploited them, with acts ranging from assault to rape.

Ballard has he contradicted the women accusing them of defamation and accusing Borys, his former executive assistant, of illegally accessing his computer and using the information as part of lawsuits. In his lawsuit, he claims the assault charges were fabricated to counter his anti-trafficking efforts.

“Unfortunately, it appears that there are rich and powerful people connected to this dark and evil underworld who do not want to be exposed,” his lawsuit states.

The latest federal lawsuit includes an audio recording in which Ballard and an associate, Ken Krogue, recount a meeting with M. Russell Ballard, former acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. who died last November. Tim Ballard, on the record, says that M. Russell Ballard told him that Tim Ballard would be “a household name” in 10 years, and Krogue adds that if it didn’t happen, “we’d all be slaves.”

The women’s lawyers claim that Tim Ballard used such stories while “grooming his victim to gain her admiration and trust, positioning himself as a spiritual savior and heroic figure in the fight against trafficking.”