Our client was charged with molesting his 4-year-old daughter.
The allegation was made by his wife who stated that the daughter told her on several occasions that her father had tickled and licked her vagina. He was arrested for the offense of aggravated child molestation.
Complicating matters was the fact that our client had previously been convicted of public indecency for exposing himself in front of a woman at a Panera restaurant. Our client also admitted to his wife that he had exposed himself on other occasions recently, including one time with the children in the car.
Our client admitted that he had a sexual disorder that caused him to expose himself in public but adamantly denied that he ever molested his daughter. We sent him for a polygraph exam that confirmed he was telling the truth as well as a psychosexual evaluation that showed that he did not have a sexual interest in children.
Our theory was that due to our client’s sexual disorder, his wife became extremely paranoid that it would cause him to molest their daughters. This led her to question the children on multiple occasions about whether their father had touched them inappropriately.
We uncovered two incidents in St. Louis where the wife had previously brought the older daughter to a hospital claiming that someone had molested her. On both occasions, the child was interviewed and she denied that anyone had touched her. This evidence confirmed our beliefs that the wife had unwarranted fears that her daughters were being molested.
Finally, we examined the forensic interview of the younger daughter’s allegation and noticed that her statements of abuse came only after the interviewer asked her a series of leading and highly suggestive questions. Therefore, there was not one reliable, unprovoked statement from the child that she had been molested by her father.
Once all of this evidence was gathered and examined by the defense team, we were able to present it to the district attorney’s office prior to them seeking an indictment. As a result, the district attorney’s office was convinced not to indict our client’s case. After the case was dismissed, our client’s arrest was expunged from his record.
Categories | Child Molestation Cases,