Sen. Ted Cruz introduces legislation to empower victims of sexual abuse, and a very special guest joins him to share her story of being sexually abused at a young age, and how she was able to stand up to her abuser and fight back.
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00:02:49.380I hope you'll share it and just take the time because there are people that are out there that need to hear this show that are victims.
00:02:55.260And 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 this show and the information that they're going to hear.
00:03:09.420And this legislation center that you introduced today in Washington, D.C. is incredible.
00:03:14.340And your guest, who's with you in D.C. as well, it's amazing the story that she is telling, but also just how powerful it is to stand up.
00:04:01.340One in four girls in America will be sexually abused before she turns 18.
00:04:08.560One in six boys in America will be sexually abused before he turns 18.
00:04:13.400And we have been seeing over and over again when their violators are held accountable, when they're prosecuted, and when there is civil litigation, that it is becoming routine for the violators to insist upon a nondisclosure agreement.
00:04:34.540A nondisclosure agreement that binds the children and forces them to be silent.
00:04:40.420And Trey's Law is named for a Texan, Trey Carlock, who horrifically was abused at a summer camp in Missouri, abused over a number of years.
00:04:53.340And his abuser was prosecuted, and his abuser is serving three consecutive life terms in prison.
00:05:01.980And in the course of civil litigation, Trey was convinced to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
00:05:10.440And that secret haunted him, so much so that at 28 years old, he took his own life.
00:05:23.160And that is a tragedy in his life and his family's life, but it's a tragedy nationally.
00:05:31.040And we have a guest on the podcast tonight who is another Texan, Elizabeth Phillips.
00:05:58.520It is always difficult to lose a family member that you love, but it is particularly gut-wrenching to lose a family member who you know was the victim of abuse and was haunted by that.
00:06:19.660And I will tell you, Elizabeth, she lives in Dallas, and she has devoted thousands of hours to fighting for Trey's law.
00:06:29.360Trey's law has been adopted in a number of states, including Texas.
00:06:32.340Texas has adopted Trey's law at the state level.
00:06:36.960But today, with a group of seven bipartisan co-sponsors, I've introduced at the federal level.
00:06:47.120And we're going to get passed at the federal level, but I want to start.
00:07:02.220Every 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 Trey's story, or a school, or a faith-based setting, or a sports setting, they're going to come forward immediately.
00:07:17.360But there's something called delayed disclosure.
00:07:19.880Children that are victimized in this way don't come forward oftentimes for decades, if ever at all.
00:07:24.940And we need to be sure that we are protecting children and their voices so that when they do come forward, survivors are heard, believed, and that we can respond with action to hold the bad actors accountable.
00:08:18.580But I think also we understand that you can grieve it and move on, or you can grieve it and turn that pain into purpose.
00:08:30.780And I think what we saw at the press conference this morning was pain turned into power when there was a 19-year-old young woman who came forward.
00:08:37.720It named her abuser for the first time because her voice was protected under Trey's law since that was passed and put into effect in Missouri last August.
00:08:44.260And so that's what we're wanting to expand nationally.
00:08:48.000This journey for me began because my brother died by suicide when he was 28, not only due to the child sexual abuse and what we now believe to be trafficking at the Hand of Canna Cut Camps based in southwest Missouri.
00:09:06.020The criminal case landed in Taney County, Missouri, in the Sheriff's Department.
00:09:11.300And at the time of my brother's perpetrator sentencing, there were 57 known victims.
00:09:16.840But we now have had many victims come forward since I started a website called FactsAboutCannaCuck.com with other survivor families to get the facts out there to parents and warn the public that this is much more widespread than what had been reported upon in massive cover-up, which is not unusual in a lot of these situations because of NDAs.
00:09:38.080So that's what we're addressing with Trey's law that's now been introduced to Congress.
00:09:59.640So he was 7 when he started going to the camp?
00:10:01.560When 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 2010.
00:10:18.400But under the civil statute of limitations in Texas, Trey was forced to file his civil lawsuit by the age of 23.
00:10:23.360And just imagine, you know, go back to when you were 23.
00:10:27.360Were you ready to go up against a system and a quote-unquote ministry like Kanakuk that has between $35 and $45 million in annual revenue?
00:10:40.140You're just trying to get through college and start a job, build a life.
00:10:43.600And 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 money for your healing, for therapy, or for lost income, you're probably going to do it.
00:11:06.220I say that because I have friends that worked at Kanakuk during the time period you're talking about.
00:11:11.400I also know people that were abused at Kanakuk.
00:11:16.520And this story, when I saw we were doing it, it's, I've lost friends who've committed suicide because of sexual abuse.
00:11:22.640But Kanakuk is a place where, I went to Ole Miss.
00:11:25.880A lot of people I grew up with from Memphis, from Houston, they went to Kanakuk.
00:11:30.780And the cover-up word that you used there is, I think, one of the most sad parts about all this is there was so many of these NDAs, Senator, I didn't realize it.
00:11:40.760Like, how much this was going to just bring up in me.
00:11:44.380But when you know people that were abused there, and you've sat with them, and you hear how 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 NDAs, it is infuriating because you realize that, like, everything in this situation worked against them for years.
00:12:02.460And that's what came, in the Texas hearings, I was calling this institutional abuse on top of child sexual abuse.
00:12:12.400And yes, Memphis is a huge market for Kanakuk and Kids of America, which is another ministry outside of Branson that Joe White still runs to this day.
00:12:25.720No one's been held accountable because of these crimes.
00:12:27.920And 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 NDA.
00:12:39.820So until Trey's law went into effect in Texas, September of 2025, I never saw what he signed.
00:12:48.380He was so terrified, even in therapeutic settings, even trying to get sober in AA, for example.
00:12:55.060He was worried Kanakuk 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.
00:13:07.000And that allowed this perpetrator to go on and abuse what we now know as hundreds of more victims.
00:13:50.580Of the 90, how many have been held accountable?
00:13:54.920I'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 90, as you're describing, that are affiliated,
00:14:05.500there are some that are still in major leadership roles.
00:14:10.000So we're calling it out, again, doing Kanakuk's job for them.
00:14:14.100I 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,
00:14:25.040that you will be informed if they are ever charged with anything criminal.
00:14:34.080So factsaboutkanakuk.com, we have a known abusers page where we name 13, and it might even be more now,
00:14:40.580that have convictions that are, yeah, they have criminal indictments, convictions, or formal allegations in the media corroborated by multiple victims.
00:14:51.220And then the rest of the perpetrators in our database are just still out there living their lives,
00:14:57.940and a lot of them have never been held accountable.