On this page mentioned: Allegations of marital rape. False child sexual abuse allegations. Domestic violence and child sexual abuse. False allegations and allegations of marital rape, false accusations. Phil Donahue, Geraldo Rivera, Oprah Winfrey. Little Rascals. American Bar Association.
FALSE CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE ALLEGATIONS
CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE FALSELY ACCUSED
You are "innocent until totally proven guilty," right? WRONG! If your guilt is proven it is too late to be innocent...
While acrimony in family situations is hardly a new concept, they go back more than a century in the world or in courtrooms dealing with family law. In the mid 1970's a disturbing new trend began to appear on the radar. The trend became explosive following the spread of no-fault divorce laws in North America and then in retaliation to joint custody laws. It began with allegations of incest made against fathers in divorce cases, and then grew to include allegations against day care centers, teachers, priests and others. Allegations of marital rape and then domestic violence which culminated in passage of the violence against women act (VAWA) came along when the child sexual abuse allegations began to lose their hysterical impact in child custody cases. While many of each of these kinds of allegations is true, many today remain quite false.
The purpose of this page is not to address the horrible crimes against spouses and children where the allegations are true. We deal with REAL allegations elsewhere on this site. The intent on this page is to address the issue of false allegations. The people who deny there is any problem with child abuse and subjects such as domestic violence aren't dealing with those issues honestly. People who refuse to believe that there is also a very serious problem with false allegations are equally as dishonest.
Let us make it clear, these web pages are NOT operated by a charity. We have no United Way funding, and we are not aware of any such funds to help you pay for defending yourself or a loved one from false accusations. If you are looking for free advice there are activist organizations that do that sort of thing. Some claim to help for free but really don't. It is a situation of "caveat emptor." (Let the buyer beware.) There are also many people and organizations that claim to be the "foremost experts" in these cases and to offer "consulting" in this area. Many have slick publications or promotions and make promises steeped in their personal grandiosity. There are many that try to pattern themselves after the A-Team or falsely claim to have been part of the A-Team, at least in so far as they think they understand what we do in these cases. Some of them are doing the things we were doing 10 or 15 years ago. We have updated since then and have incorporated many new techniques and technology not available even a month ago. Some of those procedures you will see mentioned elsewhere on this site. A good way for you to judge which of the folks you wish to believe is to look at their web sites, ask yourself whether they are offering information to you or engaging in self promotion. How much space is given to promoting the web site owner and how much to helping you? Because what you see on the website is what you’ll likely get. Is it about your case or is it about them?
A problem for those falsely accused that were present 25 years ago when we were new at dealing with these situations, remains just as much of a problem today. And that is that people still, after all these years, when facing accusations of child abuse, particularly child sexual abuse and domestic violence, just refuse to believe how the legal process works and what they will be required to confront, in other words just how much trouble they are in. People tend to romanticize how the legal system works, and refuse to believe that there are people in the system with sinister agendas. They believe, foolishly that the truth will set them free, you couldn't me more wrong. The system doesn't care about the truth. This problem is exacerbated by the conflicting advice they will get from so many divergent and contradictory sources. Most people place blind faith in people with specialty degrees such as a lawyer. A problem for potential clients begins when their local lawyer tells them the case is really nothing, and that they don't have to do anything costly to defend themselves, and of course don't have to spend their life savings defending themselves, it is like a narcotic. How many people in their right minds want to throw away tens of thousands of dollars when someone supposedly credible tells them it isn't necessary? Then you talk to us and we start talking about spending thousands of dollars to prove yourself innocent. Of course this is, America, after all, isn't it? You are "innocent until totally proven guilty," right? WRONG!
This naiveté has no contact with reality. It doesn't confront the many state child protection caseworkers that in reality are poorly trained, if trained at all and who often have an agenda that isn't open and above board. Most people don't think police officers or social workers will lie as much as they do in these cases. Look at the history in the cases in Wenatchee, Washington just a couple years ago. And look at the San Diego and Scott county pages here to see how the system can be polluted by people with less than honest agendas in official positions. It doesn't take into account the many other professions that are often involved in these cases and the many differing agendas within this "system" of child protection. And the many people who claim expertise that in reality have none whatsoever. Not to mention the "experts" in this field of hysteria who are gold plated phonies. I could mention a man who was prominent in a high profile Washington, D.C. area case who was the darling of the Phil Donahue, Geraldo Rivera, and Oprah Winfrey shows as "America's leading expert psychologist on child sexual abuse." The only problem with this man was that he didn't have the Doctorate in Psychology he claimed and in reality barely had a high school diploma. We find it interesting that even after this man was exposed as a fraud (with some help from us) and sent to prison, none of the three television shows he appeared on regularly even once indicated the fact nor did any attempt even slightly to correct the hysteria they were in part responsible for creating, much less the reputations of people ruined on those TV shows.
On these subjects the media has been largely irresponsible. The media has behaved much as the character we often see in many old western movies that is loudly spurring on lynch mobs from the middle of the mob to hang the bad men they have identified but too cowardly to stand up in front and admit what their agenda is as well. Too often the media is little more than a propaganda ministry for the "village voice" as opposed as to being the banner for the truth. Typically, as you can see from recent cases of outrage, the media is that loud voice in the crowd of villagers with torches with calls to burn down the castle and kill the monster, even when they have the wrong monster.
When you speak to me about your case you are likely not to appreciate my language or how I put things to you. I will be blunt, often vulgar because I have to be. If you think that I am bad, wait till you are dealing with the “system.” I want to remind you of what you or your loved one is being accused of. And it isn't being accused of putting too much sugar in your tea. The subject area here is crimes, often dealing with sex. Neither you nor I have the time to play endless word games with each other and varnishing language so you won't be offended. If you aren't offended by being accused of sexual imposition on a child, something is seriously wrong with you. The system wants you disarmed by using language that doesn't convey what you are really accused of. As we said before, the advice to do nothing, or to "wait and see" is very common in the legal profession. It's very bad legal advice! About 30 years ago, then Chief Justice Warren Berger of the United States Supreme Court made a presentation to the annual American Bar Association convention. The press outside the legal profession, by and large, ignores those gatherings. This case was different because Justice Berger was commenting on problems he saw in the law schools of America and the training lawyers were receiving. Justice Berger's comments created uproar within the legal community when he proclaimed that "95% of the lawyers who appear before us at the Supreme Court are totally incompetent." The Bar was universally furious over Berger's indictment of the profession. It remains as true today as it was when Justice Berger spoke those incendiary comments, and Justices have recently (Summer 2001) repeated their dismay at the staggering incompetence of so many lawyers, even those handling death penalty cases. In my work I see a lack of understanding on the part of most lawyers as to the real issue, the process, and the law, by the lawyers I have had to deal with. They have a lack of knowledge of the rules of evidence, procedure, and forms of pleading, and that is a prescription for disaster. The result of this incompetence is staggering for those who are wrongly accused and who come with blind trust to those lawyers. In family law cases it means lengthy deprivation of parental rights. In juvenile courts it can and often does result in termination of parental rights totally, and being placed on a sex offender registry for the rest of your life, and many life consequences too numerous to mention here. In criminal cases it often means lengthy sentences. According to the National District Attorneys Association the conviction rate in these cases is over 90%! And that happens because competent legal help is hard to find. But the scope of the problem doesn't end here. Of that 10% who escape conviction, 90% will face a second or third charge and will be convicted on those. So the real conviction rate is well over 98%. But you won't know that till you or your loved one is hauled away in that bus to the prison. And the only way to prevent being re-infected with the false allegation virus a second or third time is to destroy the virus in the first place. I have seen many who have mistakenly believe they dodged the bullet of a false allegation, only to be hit later and not so lucky the second time.
To repeat myself, the advice to sit motionless, to do nothing is extremely seductive. Especially when you have some strange guy advising you to bankrupt your entire extended family to put together a case that the lawyer you have hired tells you means nothing. In reality it MAY be a silly case. However people are being sent to prison almost every day on cases equally as silly as yours! And you will find that being in a prison cell isn't really all that funny. Life in prison is not something you will find to rival a vacation.
Bad legal advice is abundant. Many people are literally blackmailed by their own lawyers to accept plea bargains they never should accept. And what I find to be the worst aspect is that when a lawyer is blackmailing his client to take a plea bargain they almost never fully explain the consequences for doing so. They don't tell you, for example, that you surrender your right to appeal. No matter what evidence may come forward, at some future date, you can never clear your name the conviction will stand! Ask the only two people from the Little Rascals case who stand with convictions, two women, who were coerced to accept plea bargains despite being totally innocent, while all the other defendants were cleared, they stand as convicted child molesters. And must remain registered sex offenders. Your state may have what has been called a "Megan's law" and the ramifications of that law on your life is also something not explained by the lawyers. But something you need to know.
The alarming factor in these cases is the level of disbelief people have. People just don't want to accept that the "system" will work the way it does in reality. Most people have incredibly sophomoric ideas of how the legal system operates and the motives of the people who are hangers-on within it. There is a huge industry here generating a tremendous amount of money. There are lots of financial incentives for mischief. Also, there are a great many "sick" people surrounding this "system" who are acting out their own life dramas though their involvement in these cases, on both sides of the issue. All of this misinformation conspires against you in protecting yourself or your loved one.
Our approach has always been to act on cases immediately. We take very aggressive action to kill the case at the outset. In the long run that has proven to be the most long-term cost-effective and it has proven to also be the most effective in a practical sense in getting the desired results. This means getting a "PERMANENT" solution for you. It also means protecting you against new allegations next month or next year, and in many cases resulting in a change of custody in your favor.
It isn't our job to be your mother or to be your Pastor. We also are not the Bank of America. If you need financing see a loan officer at the bank. We just don't have any suggestions for you on where you will find the money to defend yourself. As much as we'd like to be able to do that. If that sounds harsh, it is honest. Beware those who make promises that seem too good to be true. There are those who want us to be something other than a business. The wild eyed activist generally doesn't have clear judgment when developing a strategy for a case. They are generally ruled more by their passions than by professional judgment. We are not a place to seek free advice.
On this page mentioned: Allegations of marital rape. False child sexual abuse allegations. Domestic violence and child sexual abuse. False allegations and allegations of marital rape, false accusations. Phil Donahue, Geraldo Rivera, Oprah Winfrey. Little Rascals. American Bar Association.