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Fabian Marta, a professional groomer, who primps girls and women of all ages, was arrested for alleged felony child kidnapping on July 21. He is known to fund “Sugar Baby/Sugar Daddy” parties and is also believed to have funded the controversial movie, Sound of Freedom, which incidentally deals with child trafficking as well.
According to the charges, Fabian Marta was arrested for removing a non-family member below the age of 14 without their parent’s consent and confining them.
The news of Fabian Marta’s arrest first surfaced on social media when Jim Stewartson, an Emmy Award-winning creative technologist who is also an anti-disinfo activist shared a chain of tweets reporting it.
Since the news became viral, netizens have been calling out Fabian Marta, who has reportedly deleted all his Facebook posts. He can face up to a minimum of ten years in prison and a potential life sentence if proven guilty.
“Projection is always a step closer to confession”: Netizens react to Fabian Marta’s arrest report
On July 21, Marta was arrested by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police after the child’s parents filed a report with them informing them about the alleged abduction. Currently, he is facing a felony child kidnapping charge and if proven guilty, can face life imprisonment.
As soon as the news surfaced on social media, thanks to Jim Stewartson, Fabian Marta received severe backlash from netizens who accused him of being a real-life child trafficker while funding movies related to child trafficking. Here are some of the harsh criticisms he earned online.
In brief, exploring the Sound of Freedom controversy and Fabian Marta’s link to it
Sound of Freedom is a 2023 action film directed and co-written by Alejandro Monteverde. The movie stars the likes of Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino, and Bill Camp and revolves around a former US government agent Tim Ballard (played by Caviezel) who embarks on a mission to rescue kids from s*x traffickers in Columbia. It is produced by Eduardo Verastegui, who also plays a minor but significant role in the film.
What’s interesting is that the film was completed in 2018 and a distribution deal was made with the Latin American subsidiary of the 20th Century Fox. However, when it was bought by the Walt Disney Company, it got shelved. Later, Verastegui and Monteverde purchased back the rights to the film and in turn sold it to Angel Studios.
As per Rolling Stone, Angel Studios used equity crowdfunding to raise the funds needed to distribute, market, and release the film. Over 7000 people invested, one of them being Fabian Marta, who was even credited at the end of the film. In fact, in a now-deleted Facebook post, Marta had said that he rescued the film when “Disney tried to bury it.”
The film was released on July 4 and became a sleeper hit. In fact, it has grossed over $153 million, almost ten times its budget. However, Sound of Freedom has earned mixed reception.
While the general audience seemed to have liked it, critics on the other hand have pointed out that the film portrays an inaccurate and sensationalized picture of child trafficking.
For instance, Polaris, an NGO working with the US National Human Trafficking Hotline told Today that the film features children being kidnapped by strangers, which is half the truth. In fact, it stated that the idea that most traffickers “target victims they don’t know” is a myth. Polaris also added:
“Many survivors have been trafficked by romantic partners, including spouses, and by family members, including parents.”
Likewise, Erin Albright, a prosecutor of traffickers told Rolling Stone in an interview that the movie’s portrayal of trafficking is “sensation” and that “it perpetuates unhelpful and even harmful myths.”
As per Albright, when films narrate that trafficking involves forceful kidnapping and imprisonment, they negate the concept of more complex trafficking cases, such as that of “coercive control or psychological manipulation.”
Angel Studios admitted in a recent blog post on its website that the movie’s portrayal of child trafficking did not reflect the ones that happen in the real world and that it took “creative liberties in depicting the different methods of trafficking.”
Apart from these controversies, Sound of Freedom has also been linked to QAnon, a far-right conspiracy group founded in 2017 that claims that former President Donald Trump is fighting a secret war against child abusers hidden inside the government, the entertainment, and the media.
The movie has also earned controversy for its “Pay It Forward” program where investors, donors, and people who enjoyed the film and can afford to send the studio money do so, in order to prompt movie-goers who can’t afford it.
