I am a retired Chief Petty Officer in the United States Navy. I proudly gave twenty years of my life and my family's life to defend a way of life that I believed in and I repeatedly swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, a document that I understood ensured the rights of the individual against the kind of institutional abuses, in the name of my Government, that my family has endured. On the morning of May 08, 1989, I was stationed aboard the USS INDEPENDENCE home-ported in San Diego, California. I didn't know it then, but that was the last sane day I was to know for a very, very long time.
On May 9, 1989 my eight year old daughter was discovered to have been viciously sexually assaulted. This was discovered during a medical examination at a health care facility that my wife and I had taken Alicia to after she complained of pain. She said nothing at the time that would have given any clue as to the true nature of her injuries. The Child Abuse Division of the San Diego Police Department was notified and we were all taken to the Childrens Hospital, this was the last time we were allowed to see our daughter for some time. Alicia informed the doctor and police detectives that someone had taken her out of her brother's window and had put her in a green car, drove to a secluded area and had hurt her, threatening to kill her if she cried out. Alicia gave a very detailed description of this individual including what color clothes, hair and eyes he had, down to describing a pimple on his lip. Alicia's injuries were such that she was immediately admitted and was surgically repaired that evening.
Alicia was placed with a therapist who immediately expressed her conviction that I was to blame and that Alicia was obviously covering up for me. The therapist did everything in her power (which is boundless) to convince the court that she had Alicia's trust and that the only way to ensure Alicia's safety was to severely restrict her family's access to her as much as possible.
When we first went to court the "attorneys" made us sign a piece of paper that stated in part that we would be responsible for any and all fees for attorneys and for foster care rising from this case, even if the charges were dropped. We were then told that in Juvenile court, you were considered guilty, until you could prove your innocence. They seemed very proud of this distinction they enjoyed.
By early June of 1989, Joshua had been added to the list of my victims by the social worker on the case by submitting a charge to the court that "Joshua had been sexually molested and that he was in danger of being molested again."
Joshua was never interviewed or examined by anyone, the social worker needed Joshua to be part of the case to ensure our cooperation and compliance with their directives, the penalty being that Joshua would also be removed from our home if we balked at their authority. As a result of these additional charges concerning Joshua the court ordered that I not be allowed to be alone with Joshua ever, and that any contact with Joshua must be constantly supervised. Additionally, we were not allowed to discuss or explain this order or any other aspect of the proceedings with Joshua.
In July of 1989 my wife and I were taken to trial on charges of sexual abuse and failure to protect charges for both Joshua and Alicia. They kept us there all day and finally at the end of the day, they told us that a plea bargain had been offered and it was put to us thusly:
(1) the prosecuting attorney admitted that they had no way of achieving a conviction on any of the counts, but since they knew I was guilty and that my wife was covering for me, they were willing to go through with what would be as lengthy a trial as they could manage. This would take up to as far as November 1989 and at that time, since Alicia would have been out of the home for over 6 months, (6 months seemed like a long time then) it would require another 6 month adjustment period, during which the family's behavior would be closely monitored and evaluated and Alicia would be slowly integrated back into the home ....
OR..
(2) My wife and I could plead NO CONTEST to a charge of neglect and after complying with several conditions, (all of which we were assured were only formalities) Alicia would be returned home. They never intended to return Alicia to us, they blackmailed us into submitting a plea of no contest, (guilty) by promising to return our daughter, we did and they then told us that Alicia's therapist had told the court that if they returned Alicia to us, I would kill her. Alicia was not returned but the plea bargain stood, we lost our day in court. The therapist was not required to justify that or any other remark she cared to utter about me.
The therapist and social worker were finally successful in isolating us from Alicia. The social worker violated court orders by refusing us court ordered visits for a month. When we finally got a court hearing to seek redress, the social worker, and the therapist told the judge a series of lies and half truths which ended with the judge severing all contact. My wife went for 11½ months without seeing my daughter, I went from October 1989 till October 31, 1991 without any contact with my daughter. During this time the therapist and the social worker told the court that I was trying to see my daughter, or that I had been making threatening phone calls to the foster parents, or that I had so severely frightened the social worker that she had a guard at the Juvenile court escort her to her car. Any lie would do, and all they had to do was utter it and the judge bought it.
Among the many unreasonable things that happened, the following come to mind:
We had to get Joshua's tonsils removed, so we did, when we mentioned it to the social worker we were severely reprimanded for not seeking her permission first;
After that we had to get permission from the court to take Joshua to Missouri to attend my maternal Grandmother's funeral, and we almost didn't get it;
Joshua had to have ear surgery, we had to get court permission;
We wanted to take him to 70 miles away to Polomar Mt., we had to get court permission; we couldn't take Joshua out of San Diego County without permission;
We discovered early in 1990 that the therapist and the foster mother had been telling Alicia that the only way she could come home was to tell them that I was the one who had hurt her. Alicia had complained to the social worker and asked for help, but her plea fell on deaf ears. After 13 months of isolation and intimidation in June of 1990, they succeeded in getting Alicia to say, "Daddy did it" The hypocrisy of those people. The social worker called us down to her office and told us that Alicia had identified me as the assailant, and that Alicia was going to be adopted away from us, and that I was going to go to jail. The social worker looked at me and told me with all sincerity that they "had to believe the child." I asked her "what about the other story Alicia was telling you, why didn't you believe her then?" She just smiled at me. We left her office completely devastated and lost.
During the course of these proceedings I was required to attend and "successfully" complete the following;
(*) individual therapy, twice a week, the object of which was for me to admit my guilt;
(*) group therapy in what was called a Denier's Group, with other men who had the misfortune to have been "accused" and found "guilty" of molesting children, typically their own and not being able to prove their innocence. The ground rules for this group is for you to "act" as if you are guilty, the only acceptable graduation from this therapy is for you to admit your guilt
(*) therapy with my wife in concert with other families who have been accused of similar crimes, twice a week. Again the only acceptable conclusion to this group is to admit your guilt.
Each of these groups required me to take a battery of tests, most of them similar, except in the case of the Denier's Group, they wanted me to take a penile plethismograph, a test which when administered will measure your level of physical arousal to certain stimuli.
All of this was court ordered by way of a Reunification plan, which stated that if I did not successfully complete all of the steps, we would lose Alicia. I hope you can see the predicament I was in, I could stick to my guns and lose my daughter or I could lie, say I did it and presumably get her back. Something that is not without precedent according to my therapist. Hell of a system.
I was at work at the Air Anti-Submarine Warfare Headquarters on the 13th of December 1990 when they came for me. I was handcuffed and led away. I was hooked and placed in jail with the other accused thieves, murderers and rapists of San Diego County. The guard who hooked me told me that when the other prisoners found out what I was in for, they would kill me, that after my arraignment, I would be given a piece of paper listing among other things, the charges I was facing. He told me that they would get that paper and read it, so if I wanted to live, I had better either eat it, flush it down a toilet or shove it up my ass, but just be sure to destroy it.
At the court hearing in February of 1991 I remember the anger and frustration at having to sit in the court room, the absolute insanity of sitting there listening to my daughter tell a completely fabricated story of her assault with me as the assailant and not being able to say anything to her, or them not even letting her look at me because it would "influence her, or terrify her." The really sad thing was though, that even with her sitting in a witness box, facing away from me, telling a made up account of me raping her, this was the very first time in 1½ years... 1½ years that I had seen my daughter or heard her voice, she looked and sounded great to me, it was heartbreaking. I wanted to tell her that it was ok, I wasn't mad at her and that I understood why she was saying what she was saying. I really wanted to tell her, it was ok to tell the truth, just tell them the truth sweetheart, but I was forbidden, by the very people who were actually doing all of the things to her that they were accusing me of.
Throughout this nightmare we had to rely on my parents for financial support and my mother specifically for emotional support. Many times my mother would fly out from Missouri on literally a moments notice to stay with Joshua. Remember I could not be alone with him, and there were times that this would have caused them to take him away also, if not for my mother . Once Denise had an appendicitis attack and had to be hospitalized 'for surgery. I was able to leave Joshua with some friends from our church until my mother could get there; she always came. Also remember, we were forbidden under pain of losing Joshua, to discuss or explain any of this to him. Kind of makes you proud to know that this sort of blackmail and intimidation is going on in this great country of ours doesn't it?
When it became known to the Juvenile authorities that DNA evidence was soon likely to clear me of this awful charges they moved quickly. In August of 1991, we were summoned to Juvenile court where the social worker, the therapist and the County Counsel tried to have Alicia adopted away. If they hadn't made a small mistake in their filing procedure they would have succeeded. Our attorneys fought to have the case put on hold until the pending DNA results were known, the Juvenile court judge refused. The judge told them to file the proper paper work and the adoption could go forward. The blood sample reports that we had back at that time proved that it was not Alicia's biological father who had assaulted her and that whoever had assaulted her was sterile, the county counsel then said that it hadn't been proven that I was the biological father and that it was entirely likely that I had a vasectomy reversed, I had spent time in a hot tub, and other equally ridiculous theories, ending with the statement that it was immaterial to them who had actually perpetrated the rape, Alicia was being adopted out solely because we had pled guilty (no contest) to a charge of neglect back in November of 1989.
With the intervention of the San Diego County Grand Jury, in the person of an angel named Carol Hopkins, and the public support generated by a series of newspaper articles written by Jim Okerblom and John Wilkerson, Alicia was returned home. Even when it had been proven I couldn't have been the one, they kept trying to adopt Alicia out. The County Counsel said that I could have just been holding Alicia down for a friend and that is why the semen didn't match me. I was, by the way, proven to be Alicia's biological father. The price of this kidnapping into the compassionate world of Child Abuse Prevention is difficult to calculate.
My wife tried to commit suicide and was hospitalized for 9 months in a locked psychiatric ward.
My children are afraid of policemen and others in authority, they have learned to fear those whom they should most be able to trust.
My maternal grandmother died in December of 1989, long before I was proven innocent, not knowing how it came out.
My son lost all of his friends and was told by their parents that he could not play with their children because his father raped his sister. Joshua was 6 years old at the time he was told this. My parents spent their entire life savings trying to keep me out of jail, money they had no reason to expect to ever get back, much, less to be successful in the attempt.
We spent 2½ years not knowing from one day to the next, what they were going to take away next, just knowing and dreading the inevitable fact that more was coming.
We were put through a literal hell of contempt and accusations by evil manipulators bent on destroying me and my family, why, because we had the misfortune of being the recipient of a random criminal assault.
I could go on forever ..... but
Above all, and by God most of all, ..... I lost 2½ years of my daughter's life and my family's life, that we nor she will ever get back, and nothing that is ever said or done will ever make up for that.