Who Is Joal Henke?

When police and prosecutors attempt to frame someone for alleged child molestation, they need a lot of help. First, they need help from the "professionals" who conduct interviews with allegedly molested children. Second, they need help from the children, especially if it becomes clear to the child that telling lies will "please" the adults in their lives.

Third, they need help from outside parties who are more than willing to lie, something that prosecution witnesses in the Tonya Craft trial did in spades. In fact, lies defined much of the prosecution testimony. From the "hand rape" allegations that magically appeared in obviously fabricated documents to Sandra Lamb's denials that her daughter had received acting lessons to the false claim under oath by another witness that Tonya had NOT co-signed her power bill (to show a change of address) when "judge" Outhouse saw the document in front of him (which he refused to permit to be entered into evidence), the prosecution witnesses constituted a near parade of perjurers.

If one had to give an award for the Biggest Liar in the Tonya Craft Trial, it would be a tossup, given that the LMJC has turned into Perjury Central, but I think that Joal Henke certainly should be given consideration for First Prize. After all, here is a guy who describes himself as a "world class athlete," so I am sure that Henke would cherish being at the top of the list, given his ultra-competitive nature.

Because Henke's character is at issue in the continuing custody battle between Tonya Craft and her ex-husband, I believe that it is appropriate to re-visit Joal's performance in court when he was called to testify against his former spouse. Because the ramifications of his testimony were deadly serious, I believe that one cannot scrutinize his words or his character enough, and that is what I intend to do in this post.

Joal Henke is someone who is not easily shamed. For example, when Tonya was suing him for divorce several years ago, he denied her claims that he was having affairs with other women until he was confronted with strong evidence of him engaging in adultery. He had a "change of heart" when he realized he was caught.

Interestingly, when confronted with that material on the witness stand during Tonya's trial, he claimed to not have been aware that there was evidence of his adultery. That, of course, was perjury, but it was a minor instance to some of the other things he did while under oath.

Henke's greatest "I just remembered" feat of perjury, however, came with his allegation during his April 23 testimony when he claimed that on the way to court that morning, he had "recalled" an alleged "lesbian" incident involving Tonya and a friend of hers. (That and other whoppers are included in this media link from WRCB-TV for that day.)

First, one does not "just remember" something like what he had described. Such an event would be the kind that he would have told police and prosecutors up front. Second, it also tells us about the prosecutors and "judge" Outhouse that they would have let Henke enter this testimony in the first place, and that from the trial testimony, "Alberto-Facebook" clearly was anxious to make sure Joal made the allegations.

There was more. As the following exchange demonstrates, when Henke was caught in a lie, he claimed that it had to be a "typo." (I am not making up this point.)

Dad answers to inconsistencies in his statement, "I don't have a lot of experience with this"

Dad says he didn't include in statement that daughter was allegedly molested because authorities had not interviewed daughter yet.

Dad testifies what is in statement he gave is not true. Says it may be a typo.

Dad in statement says he was called by parents of "several" small girls about alleged abuse. Says today just parents of one girl.

Here is another jewel:

Dad says before allegations he barely knew parents of other accusers. Says, "that wasn't a circle I was welcomed into"

Phone records show dad talked to a mom of another alleged girl for 120 minutes.

Then there is this:

Dad says calls between him and other parents did not include details of the case.

Over 9 months records show dad talked to mom of other alleged victim more than 80 times, more than 200 mins total.

All of these are indications of what the ancients once called a "conspiracy," and that certainly falls under the legal standards set by federal law. Furthermore, I have not yet even dealt with the lies told by Joal's current wife Sarah Bass Henke, when she denied under oath on April 23 that she had shaved her own pubic hairs while showering with Tonya's daughter. (Bass Henke already had admitted to Dr. Ann Hazzard to having shaved while the child was in the shower with her, but because she was in the courtroom of "judge" Brian Outhouse and being questioned by the Dishonest Duo of "Alberto-Facebook" and "The Man," she knew that lying was permissible and even encouraged.)

For those readers not familiar with Henke, let us just say that he has some of the same characteristics of a former President of the United States who actively seeks sex from lots of women to whom he is not married. (No, he is NOT a "world-class athlete" under any circumstances. The only "world-class athlete" from Chattanooga is Phoebe Wright, who also is a person of much better character than is Henke.)

In fact, at one time his nickname was "Homewrecker," and I don't think that received that name from being in the building demolition business. No, Henke does not demolish buildings; he demolishes the lives of innocent people.

There are a few more things to add. First, he and Sarah are members of Eastwood Church, and I was told that at a recent hearing, Hamilton County Clerk Bill Knowles, who goes to Eastwood, sat in support of the Henkes. In other words, a man running for elective office, a person who is in a position of trust in county government, is supporting perjurers. I remember Knowles from my time in Chattanooga years ago, and always thought him to be a nice person.

However, if he is going to publicly support perjurers, I only hope he does not win any more elections. Voters need to make a statement that lying under oath in a court of law is not acceptable and that elected officials should not openly condone perjury.

Of course, what can one say about a church where its "respected" members commit perjury and lie in order to promote false charges against another person? Furthermore, what can one say when conviction of those false charges would have resulted in Tonya Craft going to prison for the rest of her life?

The Bible (which the people at Eastwood claim to believe) says some serious things about lying and false testimony. (The church's website claims to "place people above...man-made rules - whether they are cultural, traditional, or religious." I guess they consider the Ten Commandments to fall under the "man-made rules" category, and probably consider Proverbs 6:16-19 to be "man-made" as well.)

So, we have people who worship on Sunday, and commit serious crimes on other days, and no one at their church seems to bat an eye. We have Joal Henke's employer, Keller Williams Realty, willing to have a person on the staff who cannot be trusted in a legal situation. For that matter, Joal's current wife, Sarah, is a nurse at Parkridge Medical Center, and trust, truth, and the willingness to document accurately and truthfully are vital in that business, yet she could not even tell the truth about something to which she had admitted earlier because she was trying to have another person thrown into prison on charges that everyone knew were false.

Furthermore, like Joal, she "suddenly remembered" Tonya's daughter having "red" areas around her vagina, with the child waking up in the middle of the night claiming that "it hurts." Under cross-examination, Henke admitted that she had not told anyone in authority about this alleged situation, and never had mentioned it in any interviews with police, social workers, or in a deposition.

So, there it is: perjury on the record. And this is someone who signs medical records and attests to their truthfulness.

So, when you see Joal Henke and Sarah Bass Henke appear in court for the custody hearing (scheduled next week), know what kind of people they really are, and know that they are not people who can be trusted. Both of them were willing to lie to send an innocent woman to prison for the rest of her life, and they would do it again tomorrow if they believed they could get away with it.

I will add one more thing. I have the trial transcripts of both Joal and Sarah and have read them. There is much more I could have said in this post regarding their lack of truthfulness when testifying under oath.