But Why Would Anyone Bring False Charges? Part I: Sandra Lamb, the Wilsons and the Henkes

When Tonya Craft appeared on "The View" Tuesday, one of the questions asked of her was the standard: Why would anyone want to bring false charges against you? Indeed, that is a common question, one that needs to be answered.

For the most part, people are incredulous when they ask it, for in their minds, they cannot conceive of the following things:

• A child testifying to things that did not happen;

• Parents pushing charges even though they don't believe their children were molested;

• Police conducting a phony investigation;

• Prosecutors gaining indictments for things they know never happened; and

• A judge purposely trying to grease the skids for a conviction.

Most people simply cannot believe that such a scenario would be possible, and from a distance, the claim might seem to be fantastic. However, there are two things that were in place that not only make the presented scenario possible, but also demonstrate the most important reason why people commit crimes in the first place: motive.

The Accusing Parents

First, the parents of the children involved were looking for revenge for various things, and in Joal and Sarah Henke's situation, they wanted custody of the two Henke children. Second, there were plenty of incentives abounding to encourage prosecutors Chris "Facebook" Arnt and Len "The Man" Gregor, along with "judge" Brian House. In this post, I will demonstrate why the accusing parents had reasons to bring false charges against Tonya Craft.

Let us look first at the parents, and especially Sandra Lamb and Dewayne and Sherri Wilson. Lamb is vindictive, and her virtuoso performance in front of Eric Echols' cell phone camera demonstrates that she is a pretty violent and unstable person. Furthermore, she filed a false police report knowing that the video would show a very different set of activities than what she had reported, so she is not afraid to lie even when others clearly know the truth.

Lamb's friendship with Chris "Facebook" Arnt gave her a lot of cover, for she knew that no matter how big the lies, she always had her backside covered by the local prosecutor. She also is someone who does not like to have anyone hold her or anyone else in her family to account, and Tonya's admonishment of her daughter for misbehaving at a party at Tonya's house was enough to send her into a violent rage.

There is one other thing to keep in mind. Lamb's parents are both dishonest and vindictive, so she has had a "role model" that tells her that she can lie and get away with it. People who do not pay consequences for bad actions, and who already are prone to bad behavior, continue to push the envelope, and that is what Lamb did.

The Wilsons, on the other hand, wanted to get Tonya fired because she had recommended that one of their children be held back because Tonya believed she was not ready for kindergarten. Furthermore, the Wilsons are people who are going to have their own way no matter what, and they were willing to commit perjury in order to have Tonya thrown into prison.

Don't forget that Sherri Wilson, with her little "hand rape" testimony (that had not been documented ANYWHERE in the entire investigation) committed perjury, which is a felony. Like Lamb, she had her backside covered by the prosecutors and "judge" House.

The sense among my own people is that the Wilsons simply wanted to spread some rumors in order to get Tonya fired (and make it hard for her to find a teaching job elsewhere). Dewayne's original call to Det. Steven Keith was that Tonya had engaged in "inappropriate" touching, not an out-and-out hand rape. I doubt he and his wife believed that it would escalate to a legal crisis; they just wanted revenge, and they are people who usually get their vengeance.

A desire for revenge is a powerful motivator. No, the rewards are not pecuniary, but, as economist Murray N. Rothbard noted, there is the "psychic profit" that comes when one is successful in certain endeavors. Furthermore, the Wilsons are not the type of people who are likely to take the "humiliation" (at least to them) of their child being held back in kindergarten (and not promoted to first grade) and not want revenge. People who are used to having their own way are going to push the envelope, too.

I believe that it is instructive to note that the Wilsons did not involve their own child in the accusations, which would be strange, given that their daughter often was at Tonya's house. The whole selective nature of this case -- Tonya molested some children, but left most of the others alone -- does not fit the M.O. of a child molester, or at least the kind of molester that fits the larger profile of serial molesters.

My sense is that the Wilsons knew from the start that the whole thing was a lie, but they wanted their revenge and they knew that they could break the law and not have to face the consequences. I doubt they believed, at least at first, that the charges would escalate into what occurred, but they had underestimated Lamb and her child-actress daughter, as Lamb had her own agenda and was not afraid of using her child to get what SHE wanted.

I have another theory as well, and that is that Lamb believed that her daughter's "experience" of being "molested" would help expand the child's career as an actress. It never occurred to her that Tonya Craft would be acquitted, and the fact that a jury declared unequivocally that Lamb and her daughter gave false testimony also is a killer of the girl's movie career, as no director will take a chance with a child who committed perjury and her vindictive helicopter mother who files false reports and lies under oath.

(Of course, the fact that "One Last Call," which was the girl's "signature" performance, was a Really Bad Movie, rated one of the worst movies of the last decade (in a decade in which even Paris Hilton's "The Hottie and the Nottie" did not even make the Top Ten Worst Movies), was not exactly a resume booster.)

Then there are the Henkes. As I noted in an earlier post, Joal and Sarah are charter members of the Liars' Club, and they certainly had a huge incentive to lie: getting custody of the children from the previous marriage of Joal and Tonya. In fact, one of the most disgusting and reprehensible things done during the trial was Sarah having a Facebook page with a picture of her holding Tonya's daughter, and thanking God for "giving" her that child.

I did not make mention of that page (now taken down, although I have a copy of it) because I knew that Sarah did it simply to taunt Tonya in a most cruel and evil way. Again, here is a woman who put Bible verses on her page, yet committed perjury, which openly violates the Ninth Commandment (or Eighth Commandment, if you are Roman Catholic or Orthodox).

Joal, on the other hand, is used to lying under oath. His "recovered memories" act during his testimony fooled no one, including "Facebook," "The Man," and "judge" House, who somehow believed that the jury would buy Henke's perjury. It didn't.

During this whole affair, I have found out much about Joal Henke, none of it good, and he is and was perfectly capable of lying on the stand to further his own ambitions. It is true that spouses often lie during custody battles and "child molestation" tends to be the charge of choice. That is why Brad Wade is in prison, and Joal had no problem telling lies that he hoped effectively would end the life of Tonya Craft and deny her the opportunity of ever seeing her children while she was alive. Sarah was a willing partner in this reprehensible scheme, and one is sorry that neither she nor Joal really will meet the bar of justice for what they have done, given that "Facebook" and "The Man" were the ones who suborned that perjury, and that "judge" House sanctioned it.

(In my next post, I will lay out the incentives for the LMJC crowd in bringing what each of them knew was a false case. Because I will not have Internet access for the next few days, I will not be posting again until the end of the week.)