False Allegations

'Oh yes. Tyler didn't call it that exactly. He said it was 'reparations' or some such garbage. He wanted money. And an apology. That apology, it was very important to him, he said.'

'Did you pay him?'

'I did not,' the man said. He drew a harsh intake of breath through his nose. 'So he got some two–bit publicity seeker of a lawyer and he sued me. But that didn't work either.'

'Because…?'

'Mr. Kite got it thrown out of court. Thrown right out. Tyler didn't have any evidence or anything. Just what he said. And it wasn't really him saying it anyway, it was that damn therapist.'

'So you never did speak to—'

'No I have not. I haven't spoken to him, his mother hasn't spoken to him, and his sister hasn't either.'

'His sister. Is she older or…?'

'Two years older. A fantastic girl. Married, with three beautiful children. He called her too. He tried to turn her against me, but she wouldn't budge. Brittany knows something about loyalty…'

'Maybe he thought she would be loyal to—'

'To him? Why? What kind of loyalty would that be? To a person who ruined an entire family.'

'But if…?'

'He did ruin our family,' the man said. 'Nothing is the same. Oh, his little scheme didn't succeed. He didn't get his 'apology' for something I never did. But my wife and I…it just shattered us. It changed everything we had. And Brittany, she has no relationship with him at all. He actually told her she could never leave her little boy alone with me. Can you imagine that? Can you feel what that must feel like? My own grandson…

'When you're an innocent man, an accusation like he made hurts worse than if it was the truth. A false allegation of child abuse is the ugliest thing one human being can do to another, I know that now. If it hadn't have been for Mr. Kite, I might have done something very stupid.'

'Such as…?'

'You don't know what it feels like!' he said, his voice breaking. 'You feel so lost, so alone. Tyler even tried to go to the police. To make a criminal complaint against me. But they wouldn't take it…'

'How long ago was this?'

'He said it happened when he was—'

'No. I mean, how long ago did he make that call?'

'More than seven years ago,' the man said. 'And I still wake up in the night hearing that phone ring. My heart still jumps. For years I couldn't bear to be around any place there was a telephone, afraid it would ring. My business…I've lost everything.'

'Did you ever want to get revenge…?'

'Well, I did sue the therapist. But it was a very difficult standard. We had to prove it was malpractice. And with Tyler sticking to his story…'

'And that was the last time you ever heard from your son?'

'I got a letter,' he said quietly. 'The most hateful letter ever written, I think. I'd show it to you but it's gone. I burned it. Mr. Kite was furious at me for that, but I couldn't sleep another night even knowing that filthy thing was in the world.'

He stepped back from the railing, hands still locked. 'It can happen to anyone,' he said. 'Nobody is ever safe from a lie.'

It's an industry,' the young woman told me, sitting with her legs crossed in a semi– reclined ergonomic chair behind a chrome–trimmed bleached–wood desk. 'Driven by a combination of ego and economics. The children may have been abused once, I don't deny that. But now they're being exploited. And the perpetrators are their own parents.'

'How does it work?' I asked her, watching her bright–blue eyes through the oversized glasses she wore perched on the end of a surgically small nose.

'It varies,' she replied, 'but not all that much. The ingredients are always the same. The child is molested— not by a family member, but not by a stranger either…someone in the 'circle of trust.' A drama teacher, a football coach, a religious counselor, a babysitter…whatever. Eventually, the child 'tells.' And it turns out that the abuse has been going on for a long time. The perpetrator is arrested. There's either a trial or a guilty plea, it doesn't much matter. The essential element is that the child goes public.'

'Why is that so important?'

'Because the child then stays public, Mister…'

'Burke.'

'Oh yes. I'm sorry. Forgive me. Mr. Kite sent you over on such short notice and—'

'That's okay. By going public, you mean press conferences and all that?'

'No. That's a different manifestation. That's when the parents are operating off their own egos. When they don't see the economics.'

'I'm not sure I—'

'The ego part is simple enough. The parents go on the talk shows. Or they talk to reporters. Maybe they're hoping for something like a book or movie deal, but that's not the real motivation. What they're really after is self– aggrandizement. Attention for themselves. Sympathy. A chance to be important. Of course, parents of molested children don't have the same impact as parents of murdered children. They get the most attention, those valiant symbols of bravery.' Her voice was so heavy with sarcasm it dropped from her mouth like a safe off a high building.

'You don't think much of—'

'I certainly don't. They run around lobbying for their little laws—always named after the child, of course—as though having a murdered child makes them experts on criminal justice. It's all a media thing. It has no substance whatsoever.'

'Okay, that's ego. You said something about economics…?'

'Ah, yes. Some of these poor children, they become a road show all into themselves. They travel with an entourage—their own makeup people, speechwriters, press secretaries. And of course, they each have their own stage mothers too. It's disgusting. I have some videotapes for you—Mr. Kite said you'd return them…?'

'Yeah, I will.'

'Well, the tapes speak for themselves. Canned presentations, as carefully rehearsed as a play. The brave little child standing up to the horrible abuser. Guaranteed to make you reach for your wallet. They produce so–called 'self–help' films, write their 'own' books for children, act as 'consultants.' Like I said, there's a fortune to be made. And there's plenty of these kids making it.

'What's this have to do with false—'

'With false allegations? Very little. But it's another form of child abuse, that's for sure. Most false allegations come from exploitation. Children being encouraged to lie. Rewarded for lying, in fact. And this business of making the children relive the abuse over and over again just to keep media attention…well, that's another side of the same coin.'

'She was out of control,' the Latina in the beige wool dress said to me. 'I had to do a Tarasoff warning—the first one in all my years of clinical practice.'

'What's a Tarasoff warning?' I asked her, watching her fuss with a pack of cigarettes on the top of her desk as though deciding if she was going to take a bitter pill.

'Mental Hygiene Law, section thirty–three thirteen,' she said mechanically, pushing her thick black hair away from her face in an absentminded gesture that rattled one of her gold hoop earrings. 'When a patient articulates a clear and present threat to another person, the therapist must break confidentiality and inform the potential target. She was obsessed with revenge.'

'On the guy who abused her?'

'No,' she said, a rueful smile on her face. 'On the guy who left her. It was a stormy relationship. She was a very needy, very demanding young woman. And, eventually, her demands strained the relationship to the breaking point. And all the pent–up hatred she felt for…her father got redirected to her boyfriend. He was in real danger.'