Shooting Messenger In Child Abuse Cases
By JOAN MEIER
In a story headlined "Mom Gets Daughter, Dad Gets $3.5 Million" (July 14, 2008), the Connecticut Law Tribune reported on the "malicious prosecution" case brought by Ajai Bhatia against his child's mother, Marlene Debek, seeking damages for what he claims was her malicious allegation that he sexually abused his daughter. The story quoted Lisa Faccadio, Mr. Bhatia's lawyer, as saying: "It's one of the saddest cases I've ever seen. A father robbed of his daughter." That would be sad, if it were accurate. In fact, Mr. Bhatia voluntarily terminated his parental rights – after the court repeatedly provided him with opportunities to cultivate a relationship with his daughter.
But here's something sadder: Mothers "robbed" of their children, and children penalized for reporting parental abuse, by family courts that prefer to shoot the messengers than believe the bad news.
All over the country, and with stunning regularity, family courts are rejecting mothers' allegations of abuse or risk to their children. Instead, courts give credence to custody evaluators who rely on the scientifically unfounded theory of "parental alienation syndrome" (PAS). Rather than seriously investigating the abuse, PAS professionals often encourage courts to disbelieve such claims and to remedy the purported "alienation" by delivering the children to the alleged abusers.
Take the Georgia case of Wendy Titelman, whose two daughters were awarded to their father even though multiple experts in child sexual abuse were convinced that the children were being sexually abused. Or the California case of Karen Anderson, whose daughters and son were awarded to their abusive father. The son ultimately escaped — he reported that his father had repeatedly entered the girls' bedrooms late at night and stayed for long periods. The youngest daughter still lives with her father.
Stories like these are rampant; many can be found at CourageousKids.com, the web site that children abused through court processes have founded to provide each other mutual support.
Professionals Concurred
In the Debek case, rather than awarding custody to the alleged abuser, Connecticut's civil courts awarded him $3.5 million for "malicious prosecution." Yet Ms. Debek only did what any mother would (and should) do when her young child describes a sexual touching that makes her uncomfortable. She called counseling professionals for help and did what they told her, including calling the police.
A state Department of Children and Families social worker, a police officer, and experts from the Yale-New Haven Hospital Sexual Abuse Clinic all either interviewed the child or observed an interview and believed her, concluding that she had probably been sexually abused. On the strength of those assessments, the state's attorney's office decided to prosecute Mr. Bhatia. That case resulted, not in a "clearing" of his name, contrary to the Law Tribune's description, but in a hung jury on one count and acquittal on the other.
Whatever the actual truth of the abuse allegations, the fact that a national expert in the field, a social worker at DCF, and the police believed the child should have been more than sufficient to defeat a malicious prosecution claim against the mother. Indeed, the family court had previously found that Ms. Debek "profoundly believes" the abuse allegation.
Nonetheless, the Supreme Court said that Ms. Debek had "persuaded herself that what she knew to be false was true." Even though our brief hammered on this point, the court was silent about the other experts who believed — not Ms. Debek — but the child. If Ms. Debek was malicious, then so were a national sexual abuse expert, the police and prosecutors. The court declined to address this inconvenient truth, underscoring the invisibility of the very child whose well-being should have been the central issue.
Judicial debacles like this one are fed in part by the myth that mothers who raise child sexual abuse allegations in family courts are doing so out of malice — or pathology — rather than valid concern for their children. But the empirical research shows both that only 12 percent of child maltreatment allegations in custody cases are intentionally false. Notably, custodial parents (usually mothers) and children are the least likely to fabricate such reports. Non-custodial fathers commit more false accusations.
No Ballet
Here's a question: If you were a falsely accused father, how would you feel and behave? Even if you were outraged, would you seek to use money damages to hurt the mother and not care if she — and necessarily, your daughter — becomes homeless, as Mr. Bhatia has suggested to India New England news? Would you terminate all contact with the child, or would you do everything you could to maintain a loving connection with the child who surely would need you all the more, with such a sick mother?
The one silver lining to this case is that the child is back in the loving care of her mother and is no longer forced to see her father. Hopefully that will comfort her when she can no longer have ballet lessons or a working refrigerator, because her mother's meager income is being paid to the man she is certain abused her.•
Joan Meier, professor of clinical law at George Washington University Law School, co-counseled Marlene Debek's appeal on behalf of the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project.
HOME
