'Sound of Freedom,' this summer's surprise blockbuster, is fronted by a QAnon supporter and financed by a man who defrauded Medicare

• Sound of Freedom, a movie about child sex trafficking, has been topping the box office

• Star Jim Caviezel has pushed QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theories about blood harvesting

• One of the film's executive producers pled guilty to defrauding Medicare of $89 million in 2020

"Sound of Freedom," the QAnon-adjacent movie that's become a sleeper hit at the box office, was financed in part by an executive producer who pled guilty in 2020 to an $89 million Medicare fraud scheme.

The film, which has grossed roughly $50 million, has come under heavy scrutiny for its depiction of the controversial anti-trafficking nonprofit Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), and for comments made by its star, Jim Caviezel, who plays the nonprofit's founder, Tim Ballard.

At a 2021 event promoting the film, Caviezel claimed that traffickers were harvesting adrenaline from children, a fringe conspiracy theory associated with QAnon.

Ballard and OUR have strenuously denied having any links with QAnon. In an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters this week, Ballard said he "still" doesn't know "what QAnon is."

But in another interview this month, with alt-right figure Jordan Peterson, Ballard said that he had just raided a West African "baby factory" where children are sold for organ harvesting and "Satanic ritual abuse," echoing myths that have been pushed by the QAnon movement.

Thursday, Operation Underground Railroad announced it had cut ties with Ballard. "Founder, Tim Ballard has recently stepped away from Operation Underground Railroad prior to launch of the film, 'Sound of Freedom,'" an OUR spokesperson told Vice News. Ballard remains the CEO of a nonprofit, The Nazarene Fund, founded by former Fox pundit Glenn Beck, who has amplified QAnon conspiracy theories since leaving the network in 2011.

Ballard did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Caviezel could not immediately be reached for comment. OUR did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Beck and Nazarene did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A executive producer awaiting sentencing for Medicare fraud

"Sound of Freedom" wrapped production in 2018, but sat in limbo for five years until its distribution rights were acquired by four Mormon brothers, who crowdfunded a campaign to get it in theaters. During that period, one of the movie's early investors pled guilty to a massive scheme to defraud Medicare.

Sound of Freedom executive producer Andrew McCubbins, a Utah serial entrepreneur, ran a telemedicine company that paid kickbacks to physicians and nurses in exchange for unnecessary prescriptions for genetic screening tests, which were processed by a lab McCubbins owned, according to charging documents and an Insider interview with McCubbins. Medicare reimbursed up to $8,000 per test, according to the federal indictment.

McCubbins has not been sentenced, a delay he attributed to a COVID backlog of cases.

Though a Utah business vlog characterized McCubbins as a "lead investor" in the film, McCubbins told Insider that his role was more minor. Between his investment in the film and other donations, he estimated his financial involvement with Operation Underground Railroad comes to "several hundred thousand dollars," he said. None of the proceeds from his Medicare fraud scheme went into the movie, he said.

He invested in the film because he hoped Sound of Freedom would "make people vote in a way that would help protect trafficked children," he said. McCubbins has also accompanied Operation Underground Railroad and two related nonprofits on 22 sting operations to catch human traffickers, he told Insider.

The scale and efficacy of those operations has repeatedly been called into question by media, trafficking experts, and law enforcement. In 2020, a Utah prosecutor opened an investigation into whether the group had misled donors about the scope of its operations. The prosecutor closed its investigation without filing charges in May.

The FBI, IRS, and Department of Homeland Security also opened investigations into Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad, Vice News reported in 2021, including into whether OUR volunteers had "engaged in sexual acts with human trafficking victims" and whether OUR created demand for trafficking.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return a request for comment. An IRS spokesperson said the agency could neither confirm nor deny whether it had ever investigated OUR.

Read the original article on Insider