The Northwest Georgia Conference on How to Commit Perjury (and get away with it)

Despite the fact that Northwest Georgia is one of the most heavily-churched areas in the nation (and it even features a Christian college, Covenant College), it also is a place where the police and judicial systems are so utterly corrupt that they are beyond any repair. And when dishonest people get together for a conference, well, things happen that fall into the category of "You Can't Make Up This Stuff."

On October 3 and 4, the Northwest Georgia Child Abuse Conference will be held at The Colonnade in Ringgold. Not surprisingly, the Usual Suspects will be there and three men who are experienced in suborning perjury and lying to juries will be featured speakers. If you love perjury, then you don't want to miss this conference that will tell you how to lie in court, make up outlandish stories, and pretend you are "saving children."

In fact, this conference is aptly named, for people who coach children to lie under oath and to give false testimony against their mothers and fathers and teachers indeed are child abusers. So, if you want a career in legal child abuse, then this is the place to start.

Because this conference is one big howler, featuring child abusers from all over the State of Georgia, I will concentrate upon just one session, and it is self-explanatory: Overcoming Defenses in Child Molestation Cases. The presenters? Chris Arnt, Len Gregor, and Alan Norton. (I guess Buzz Franklin could not make it, as he must be engaged in something else, like writing stupid press releases.)

I will include the conference blurb on this session, which you don't want to miss:

Child molestation cases are outside the norm for the average citizen. Defense attorneys often will take advantage of the general public’s misperceptions concerning such cases. The presentation will to teach those who investigate child molestations cases to be cognizant of such defenses and properly prepare with such defenses in mind.

In case one does not understand the language of these "professionals," here is an interpretation:

Prosecutors are desperate to keep exculpatory evidence out of child molestation trials, and they also are desperate to keep the defense from exposing prosecution lies. Given that fact, this session will teach budding prosecutors how to lie to jurors, how to get judges to make outrageous rulings in order to deny the defendant a fair trial, and it will give demonstrations on how to bully witnesses. Of extreme importance in this session will be a segment on how to employ the non sequitur when the defense starts blasting holes in your case, in hopes that jurors will buy into your diversion tactics.

This session also will include interview techniques if you lose so that when you are interviewed by the media, you can continue to lie, blame jurors, and try to push your view that no accused ever should be allowed any kind of defense. The prosecutors also will show you how to lie about the credentials, testimony, and qualifications of the defense expert witnesses, and of special importance is the segment on trying to convince jurors that your own "experts," most of whom have no credentials or field of relevant study (except for taking a five-day course), really are more qualified than the other experts who have spent their entire careers studying this material, and who have doctorates and often have engaged in extensive post-graduate study.

The final part of the session will involve how to make false comments to jurors, how to lie about the testimony of expert witnesses, and how to disrupt the work of the defense, all with help from friendly judges. The sum total of this session will be teaching attendees how to make sure that truth never enters the courtroom so that you can get wrongful convictions and boost your careers. Len Gregor also will give conferees a demonstration on how to run to one's car following a verdict of "not guilty" and hide one's face from the media by using a notebook.

Lest anyone think I am exaggerating, do the following comparison:

On the prosecution side, we had Suzi Thorne, who at the time was studying for an on-line college degree with Kaplan University, a for-profit diploma mill. According to Arnt, Gregor, and Norton, Thorne (who did attend a five-day training class) was eminently qualified to testify as an "expert" in child sexual abuse. Furthermore, despite the fact that Thorne never has written about child sexual abuse in any publication, and despite the fact that she never has read any publications in any reputable journal, professional or academic, on this subject, Arnt, Gregor, and Norton believe she is eminently qualified to testify.

Furthermore, despite the fact that Thorne clearly committed perjury during the Tonya Craft trial (and there is no doubt about this), Arnt, Gregor, and Norton want people to believe that her testimony ALWAYS is true and perfect. Compare Thorne to a witness that Arnt, Gregor, and Norton claim is a "liar" and a "whore of the court," Dr. William Bernet of Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Bernet has his medical doctorate from Harvard University Medical School (which tends to have higher academic standards than Kaplan University's undergraduate program) and is widely published and widely respected in his profession. This is a man who has published in top journals and is asked to speak at conferences and sessions all over the world. (Yeah, he is not good enough to speak at the Northwest Georgia conference, but everyone knows that the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit is a world-class example of honest police, prosecutors, and judges.)

Lest one think I am exaggerating, let me remind readers of what Arnt and Gregor did during the Tonya Craft trial:

• Arnt lied to jurors about the testimony of Dr. Nancy Fajman of Emory University, telling jurors that Fajman said she saw evidence of sexual abuse when, in fact, Fajman said she saw NO physical evidence of sexual abuse. All of the jurors caught this lie, and maybe Arnt will tell conferees how to do a better job of covering up lies;

• Arnt and Gregor desperately tried to keep Dr. Fajman, Dr. Ann Hazard, Dr. Nancy Aldridge, and Dr. Bernet from testifying, and after their testimony, they told jurors that these were unqualified witnesses and that they were nothing but "liars" and "whores of the court" who lied for money. I am not kidding. They actually said that;

• They regularly had ex parte meetings with "judge" brian house before and during the trial, and reported none of them to the defense, despite the requirement by the Code of Ethics of the Georgia State Bar, which means that these are people who believe they are not bound either by law or ethics.

When Tonya Craft came into the courtroom for the verdict, Arnt and Gregor stood to the side snickering at her and making snide remarks. (No doubt, their presentation also will include how act professionally during a trial while at the same time trying to emulate the members of Delta House from the movie "Animal House.") There is a reason that "judge" brian house turned ashen when he read the verdict and Arnt and Gregor ran from the courthouse instead of acting like mature adults and talking to the media.

No doubt, these men will share with conferees why it is important for prosecutors to act like spoiled children, and why it is so important that the courts of the LMJC perform like the courts of bastions of freedom and liberty like North Korea. They also will stress the importance of teaming with the judge in order to have a rigged trial, although they might claim afterward that the judge was a "pointy-headed liberal" who was too lax toward the defense. They will give techniques in making improper and prejudicial pre-trial statements to the media and maybe they might REALLY go to the Dark Side and give tips on how to contact jurors during the trial in order to intimidate them into voting guilty. (I'm just imagining the last point, but given that these men already have demonstrated that they have no problem in suborning perjury and openly violating the Rules of Ethics that supposedly govern their behavior, I doubt seriously that Chris Arnt and Len Gregor would frown upon anyone on the prosecution side illegally contacting jurors. Prosecutors elsewhere have done it and, if anything, these men have demonstrated that they are willing to engage in extreme prosecutorial misconduct.

Will they answer questions about the Tonya Craft trial? If they do, I'm sure they will spout the line that they have been giving everyone:

• Craft was guilty and got away with it;

•  Defense objections were frivolous, as all defense attorneys really should expect prosecutors to scream in the face of witnesses, yell about someone's "boobs," throw books down on the table while the defense is making its case;

• The jurors were fooled by the idiot expert witnesses like Dr. Bernet and should have been impressed by experts like Holly "Roll Your Eyes and Make Noises" Kittle and Suzy "Perjury" Thorne;

•  The jurors were too stupid to recognize that Arnt and Gregor are brilliant prosecutors and that when jurors all caught Arnt lying about Dr. Fajman's testimony (and all of the caught it), well, they were so stupid that they could not recognize that Dr. Fajman was speaking in code that only a brilliant guy like Arnt could understand;

• The defense shamelessly carried on a campaign in the media and the blogosphere that prejudiced the case and "deprived the state of a 'fair trial'." This despite the fact that the defense operated under a gag order and the defense had NO contact with the "blogosphere," and that Tonya Craft was on trial, not the state, which is under the legal obligation to present a fair trial. (So much for the State of Georgia performing its obligations.)

What Arnt and Gregor and Norton won't tell the conferees is that some of the prosecution witnesses have admitted privately that they were lying, and that in the case of Sarah and Joal Henke, their testimony in trial conflicted 180 degrees from what they had testified under oath in depositions a year before. In other words, these men will tell conferees everything -- but the truth.

As an added attraction, Chris Arnt will give pointers on how to have fun on a cruise! Enjoy the conference!

Government "Expert" Witnesses: Fraud Abounds

One of the reasons that I am so down on the Children's Advocacy Center of the LMJC is that I see the real damage that so-called government expert witnesses can do. Perhaps we should not be surprised when Chris "Alberto-Facebook" Arnt and Len "The Man-Racist-Misogynist-Homophobe" Gregor claim that the CAC witnesses were brilliant, while people like Dr. Nancy Aldridge and Dr. William Bernet, both highly respected in their fields, were "liars" and "whores."

Yes, it seems that along with foisting lies and bad services, governments also like to provide us with fraudulent "expert" witnesses, and perhaps the worst offenders are the prosecutors of Mississippi. Now, Mississippi has been a study in injustice for a long time, given its awful civil rights history which, like that of Georgia, includes numerous murders for which there were no prosecutions, much less no convictions. Georgia and Mississippi both made it de facto legal for whites to kill blacks and people of both states seemed to take pride in the fact that murder was legal there.

Today, the politicians and the "justice" system players like to claim that things have changed, but I don't think so. In Catoosa County, the authorities still are trying to wrongly convict Eric Echols who the last time I checked still was African-American. Mississippi does Catoosa County one better: the state has a number of blacks on death row, put there due to the fraudulent testimony of Steven Hayne and Michael West.

This latest dispatch from Radley Balko is the kind of thing that should make one's blood boil, as Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood is trying to railroad a man to the execution chamber despite the fraudulence of the "expert" testimony that put him there. Mr. Balko writes about the upcoming execution of Eddie Lee Howard:

In 1994 Eddie Lee Howard was convicted of raping and murdering 84-year-old Georgia Kemp. Kemp was found dead in her Columbus, Mississippi, home by firefighters after a neighbor noticed smoke coming from the house. Investigators determined the fire was set intentionally.

Kemp's body was taken to controversial Mississippi medical examiner Steven Hayne, who would later lose his lucrative niche as the state's go-to guy for autopsies after years of criticism for sloppy work that rarely failed to confirm prosecutors' suspicions. Hayne concluded that Kemp died of knife wounds and said he found signs of rape, although the rape kit taken from Kemp turned up no biological evidence that the technology available at the time could test for DNA.

Three days after Kemp was buried, District Attorney Forrest Allgood, the chief prosecutor for the four counties of Mississippi's 16th District, zeroed in on Howard, who at the time was unemployed and living with a relative down the street from Kemp's house, as the culprit. Once Howard was identified as a suspect, Hayne suddenly recalled seeing marks on Kemp's body that could have been made by human teeth (Hayne's original autopsy report makes no mention of the bite marks). So Kemp's body was exhumed and given to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, dentist Michael West, a self-proclaimed expert in bite mark analysis and frequent beneficiary of Hayne's referrals. West confirmed that the marks were indeed bite impressions and that some of them could only have been made by Howard's upper teeth—a puzzling claim, since Howard's upper teeth were a mass-manufactured denture. Howard was convicted and sentenced to death in 1994. The Mississippi Supreme Court later gave Howard a new trial, ruling he was unfit to represent himself at trial. He was again convicted and again sentenced to death in 2000.

West's bite mark testimony is the only physical evidence linking Howard to the crime scene. (The other evidence against Howard includes incriminating statements he allegedly made to a police officer that were not recorded or written down and testimony from an ex-girlfriend that Howard smelled of smoke the day after Kemp's murder.) At the time of Howard's conviction, West was a star forensic witness, claiming to have perfected a method of bite mark analysis no other forensic specialist could duplicate. But since Howard's conviction, West has become the poster boy for forensic fakery.

West, who once claimed he could trace the tooth marks in a half-eaten bologna sandwich at a crime scene to a defendant while excluding everyone else on the planet, has had to resign from two professional forensics organizations due to his habit of giving testimony unsupported by science. In 2001 (as I reported last year) a defense lawyer caught West in a sting aimed at revealing him as a charlatan: West matched the dental mold of a private investigator to unrelated photos of bite marks from a crime committed eight years earlier. West even sent back a video in which he methodically went through his technique. Despite all this, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld Howard's conviction and death sentence in 2006. With respect to West, the majority concluded, "Just because Dr. West has been wrong a lot, does not mean, without something more, that he was wrong here."

Since then a wave of new revelations (described in more detail below) has confirmed that Steven Hayne and Michael West are not credible expert witnesses. Last month Howard and his attorneys at the Mississippi Innocence Project cited some of that evidence in asking the Mississippi Supreme Court for a new trial. In response, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood does not argue that Michael West is a credible expert or that his testimony in Howard's case had any scientific foundation. Instead Hood argues that because the Mississippi Supreme Court already has upheld West's testimony in the face of criticism, Howard is procedurally barred from again citing West's quackery in a bid for a new trial.

The argument may arguably be legally correct, but Hood is not obligated to make it. Hood, whose duty is not just to win cases but to pursue justice, should have the decency to review every case in which West has ever testified. Instead, in the face of growing evidence that the criminal justice system he presides over has been corrupted by unreliable expert witnesses, Hood is essentially arguing that Eddie Lee Howard should be sent to the death chamber on a technicality.

Now, if you think Jim Hood is a liar and a charlatan, you are right. But, replace his name with Thurbert Baker or Len Gregor, Buzz Franklin, or Chris Arnt, and you have the same kind of person.

More and more, we are seeing dishonest and venal people self-selecting into the office of prosecutor. For the most part, Americans are quite satisfied with this sorry state of affairs -- or they are satisfied until something happens to them and then they begin to understand what is happening.

Prosecutors are more likely to try to get fraudulent "expert" witnesses because they are more likely to lie, as we saw Suzi Thorne do during Tonya Craft's trial. When I asked Ione Sells about Nancy Aldridge having testified for the prosecution, she laughed and said, "She has not testified for the prosecution since 2007." My sense is that she is right, but if I understand the present mentality in the typical prosecutor's office, the last thing prosecutors want is an expert witness who is both competent AND truthful.

No, prosecutors are quite happy with people like Steven Hayne and Michael West. The LMJC is not alone in being Perjury Central.

The CAC's "Date with Destiny" Fund-Raiser!

Last spring, it was "Casino Night," although the "Vegas Girls" changed their outfits from thongs to leotards, in keeping with Len "Racist-Misogynist-The Man" Gregor's aversion to skimpy clothing (unless the woman wearing skimpy clothing is standing next to him). This fall, it is the "Date with Destiny Bachelor Auction" fund raiser to be held Saturday, September 18, at 6 p.m.

Maybe it is just me, but I find the CAC's appeal to vices and near-naked women, along with all of the sexual innuendo that goes with a "bachelor auction" to be pretty disgusting and supposedly out-of-character for an organization whose employees believe that there is a child molester behind every bush and tree. (I guess the molesters replaced the communists, who used to be hiding there.)

Now, I have an idea for the ideal "date." Yes, some "lucky" bachelor in that auction can be "bought" by...Laurie Evans! Yes, this is the same Laurie Evans who makes wild claims while under oath, the same Laurie Evans who made child molestation claims against her ex-husband during their divorce (and the claims, of course, were unbelievable and did not stick).

Yes, by the time that date is over, no doubt that "lucky" bachelor will be accused of rape, sodomy, child molestation, and Lord knows what else. After all, the CAC needs to keep those clients coming. I'm sure that Evans will be wearing a wire and "The Man" and Tim Deal will be listening in order to make an arrest.

According to the advertisement for this affair, the "date" will take place right at the "Historic Ringgold Depot," so it will be a real challenge for the CAC and the LMJC authorities to find a way to claim that the rape, assault, sodomy, and child molestation took place RIGHT UNDER THE NOSES OF EVERYONE ELSE! However, given the vast creativity used by police and prosecutors in Tonya Craft's case, including forging TWO documents DURING the trial, I am sure that the authorities will be up to the task.

By the way, not all CACs in the country depend upon showgirls, gambling, and sexual innuendo to raise money. I heard about one in another state that had a family-oriented carnival. However, THAT CAC actually has standards about who it hires, and I can tell you without a doubt that NONE of the current staff of the CAC in Fort Oglethorpe or the Greenhouse would be eligible to work at that place.

Oh, I am sure that there will be lots of photographs afterward, courtesy of Holly Kittle Photography. So, all you "eligible" bachelors, grab your place and then wait to be charged with a sex crime. All in an evening's fun, I guess.

On Demonizing and Other Such Activities

As readers know, I take no prisoners on my blog. This is not exactly a tack taken to win friends and make people happy, and I remember one faculty member from Covenant College wrote that the tone of my blog "saddened" him. Well, I guess he will have to be sad when he reads my stuff.

Nonetheless, every once in a while I believe I need to step back and take a hard look at what I am doing and saying, as the perspective of things when one is in the middle of things. As always, there are the regrets, but there also comes the realization that I don't regret what I have been doing.

I have seen a lot of dishonest, abusive prosecutions in my life, but I never thought I would see something on the level of what occurred in the trial of Tonya Craft. Usually, prosecutors and police try to be somewhat discreet when they try to frame someone, judges at least want to give the impression that they are being fair, and witnesses generally will try to hide their perjury.

None of that was the case during the Craft trial. In fact, I don't think I ever have seen a trial in which the prosecution's dishonesty was more blatant and such that prosecutors did not even try to hide what they were doing. They appealed to what they hoped would be the lowest instincts of jurors -- racism, resentment against "outsiders," and homophobia (although Ms. Craft clearly is not a lesbian, no matter what French Smith and his daughter, Sandra Lamb, along with the Stinky Henkes might have to say) -- and the reluctance to take a hard look at evidence.

More important, they not only lied to jurors (and a number of jurors pointed out that Chris "Alberto-Facebook" Arnt lied during his closing arguments), but they also encouraged their witnesses to lie, and especially Joal and Sarah Henke. Arnt and Len "The Racist-Misogynist-The Man" Gregor really made no bones about the fact that the Henkes were making up new stuff out of whole cloth, and I don't think they cared.

As I can see it, there is a real entitlement mentality with the LMJC crowd. First, they believe that they are entitled to do whatever they please, the law be damned. If it takes suborning perjury, forging documents, bullying witnesses, lying, or anything else that is dishonest and sleazy, they will do it. People like that should be given no quarter because as people in positions of authority, they are expected to maintain at least a MINIMAL level of integrity. However, when they decide that truth is whatever they wish to make of it, then I feel no obligation to hold back whatever it is that should be said about them.

If there was a "they will stop at nothing" moment, I think it was when Tim "Dirty" Deal insisted that the document that he and his friends obviously had just fabricated was authentic and had been in his files for nearly two years. That was not true and Deal knew it, and so did Gregor, who had the audacity to ask Deal if the "defense is lying." When that occurred, I knew that we were dealing with people who simply have no shred whatsoever of integrity or even human decency.

Yes, I am making a serious charge, one that if prosecuted could send people to prison, and I further believe that had "judge" Outhouse permitted the defense to have "Dirty's" computer checked and have the document's ink checked for when it was produced, the results would have demonstrated that the document was fabricated. However, I also believe that "judge" Outhouse knew that was to be the case as well and did what he could to protect his people. In other words, I am saying I believe that a judge was in on this whole caper, which is a serious, serious charge.

However, since prosecutors don't investigate themselves and the Georgia authorities and the feds refuse to get involved, nothing will happen to any of this band of criminals. And, yes, I believe that these people are as dishonest and venal as the worst set of lawbreakers that might be hauled into an LMJC courtroom. There really is no difference between someone who is charged with attempted murder and Chris Arnt, in my view, except I do believe that the person charged with attempted murder has a slim chance at being rehabilitated, while I believe Arnt is hopeless.

Furthermore, by putting an attack on the defense in his Facebook page -- something that Arnt KNEW violated the codes of ethics of his profession -- Arnt was letting it be known that he was above the law and had the right to do whatever he pleased. As for Len "Racist-Misogynist-The Man" Gregor, here is a guy who was screaming about a picture of a woman in an evening dress (claiming that made her a "narcissist"), but proudly had a picture of himself on his Facebook page standing next to a woman (who was not his wife) who was in a sexually-provocative pose. Again, we had a prosecutor saying that everyone else had to live to standards that he did not have to meet -- because he is a prosecutor, and prosecutors get to be "the man."

So, I have no problem at all making the statements I do about "judge" Outhouse, Arnt, Gregor, Deal, Steven Keith, and Alan Norton. None of them believe the law applies to them, they are willing to commit felonies, suborn perjury, lie, and generally piss on the law, all while claiming to be doing it "for the people."

As for the witnesses, I don't believe it is possible to demonize people like Sandra Lamb, Sherry Wilson, or the Henkes. Their words and deeds speak for themselves, and they knew exactly what they were doing when they lied under oath on the witness stand. Furthermore, all of them knew that "judge" Outhouse, Arnt, and Gregor had their backs, so they were free to lie, which they did.

This leaves the CAC witnesses. Readers already know the utter contempt I have for Ione Sells and her arrogant, eye-rolling crew. True, I am sure that Holly Kittle's husband, family, and friends have not appreciated my take on her performance either as an interviewer or as a prosecution witness.

Now, even though I believe that Kittle is a mediocre photographer, nonetheless I would prefer she do that job full-time and leave the CAC employment altogether. She has no business interviewing children, especially since she cannot tell the difference between legitimate statements and outright babbling nonsense. From what I can tell, she sees herself as someone whose job it is to help the prosecution make its case, no matter how dishonest or ridiculous it might be. Kittle is a good soldier, but that only puts her in the category of the Waffen SS, as those men also were very good soldiers for the Reich.

So, while I might be called out for "demonizing" certain people in the LMJC, nonetheless I believe my characterizations are not wrong. Yes, I am sure there are people who think Len Gregor is a great guy, but if they had to be on the receiving end of his dishonest and bullying tactics, I'm sure that their opinion of him would be much different.

Likewise, I am sure that there are people who believe Holly Kittle is a wonderful person and a good friend. However, they have never experienced Kittle interviewing their child or being in a situation in which Kittle was trying to get a child to say something against them that clearly was not true. Furthermore, no matter what one might say about her, eye-rolling, laughing rudely, and generally acting contemptuous is not behavior one expects from a real professional on a witness stand.

(Observers have told me that the difference between the CAC witnesses and the experts brought in by the defense, such as Nancy Aldridge, was night and day. Of course, Sells told me that those experts were a bunch of liars and her interviewers were superior. Yeah, in her dreams.)

In short, I will continue to take no prisoners. When the prosecutors, police, judges, and CAC personnel of the LMJC begin to act like professionals and honest, law-abiding citizens, I will look elsewhere on my blog. Until then, however, I am not going to back off an inch.

However, I have advice for all of the aforementioned people: just act in a manner that you demand from the rest of us, and then I won't have any reason to write the things I do. That is the deal I am offering to you, and it is much more fair than anything you have offered to others.

A Trip Down Memory Lane: The CAC and LMJC "Let's Celebrate Perjury" Party

The week of Tonya Craft's "not guilty" verdict also was a week of many parties. Of course, Tonya and the others got to party in the Big Apple while "Alberto-Facebook" Arnt and Len "The Man" Gregor had a pity party with their good friends at Channel 9.

But, there also was another party, what I like to call a "Let's Support Perjury" get-together for the Children's Advocacy Center, where the Willow Tree Farms hosted "Casino Night" so people could raise money to allow for even more wrongful charges against innocent people and more perjury. Yes, a most memorable party.

I must admit that in my circles, the notion of committing perjury would be anathema. If someone in our church lied under oath, he or she would be disciplined and likely excommunicated; at the Eastwood Church, perjurers are held in great honor. Likewise, they are proud of their lies at the CAC, and Perjury Central held a party to celebrate dishonesty.

Now, lest the people at Willow Tree Farms believe I am picking on them and holding them up to ridicule for hosting this wretched event, they are correct. I have no respect at all for people who celebrate lies and who raise money for people so they can commit more perjury and destroy innocent lives. As far as I am concerned, the Willow Tree Farms might as well host a party for Planned Parenthood and celebrate abortion on demand, as they would be less hypocritical and, frankly, less evil than they were that night of May 14.

First, let us not forget that after weeks of being told by "The Man" that Tonya Craft wore thongs everywhere, but at work, his partners-in-crime at the CAC were bragging about having a "Casino Night" fundraiser, complete with girls in...thongs. Yes, yes, after I showed the picture of our "thong girls" with "Elvis" (Can't you do any better than that, as this guy looks about as much as Elvis as I do), suddenly the "thong girls" were shown wearing pink leotards. Somehow, even the liars at the LMJC and the CAC realized that after Tonya's trial, thongs might be a bit much. (Take a gander at "The Man's" newest Facebook page image. Guess this guy is obsessed with females not wearing much clothing.)

Second, remember that this party was supposed to be a celebration of yet another innocent person thrown into prison. (Gee, I guess Tonya is sorry that she spoiled the Perjury Central party, but she had plans other than spending the rest of her life being incarcerated.) Instead, the people at the party claimed they were there "for the children," which is as believable as "The Man" claiming that he is an honest and decent human being.

Maybe people showed up to see the girls in thongs, and were gravely disappointed to see these ladies wearing pink leotards. However, if the prosecution had found a picture of Tonya wearing a pink leotard, I suspect "Alberto-Facebook," "The Man," and "judge" Outhouse would have salivated for the entire trial.

Now, lest we think that everyone at the party had a long face (because they had been unsuccessful in doing that the CAC does best -- destroy innocent lives), think again. Holly "Thumbs Up" Kittle, who apparently must have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express in order to qualify to be a "forensic interviewer," was the photographer of the evening. However, although "Thumbs Up" was the one taking pictures, at least she had her own photo taken with Elvis and the former "Thong Girls."

It gets even better. In this picture, we have not only the former Thong Girls and Elvis, not to mention "Thumbs Up," but we also have Laurie Evans and some others I don't recognize but I am sure have played an important role in promoting Perjury Central:

Nonetheless, their smiles hid the disappointment at their lack of success of destroying an innocent life that week, but no doubt there are more opportunities to do evil at Perjury Central. Stay tuned. I am not going away.

The Accusation and Conviction Machine, Part IV

In my final post on this series, I will lay out again how both the incentives provided in the sexual misconduct accusation machine and the attitudes of modern American prosecutors, along with a "Progressive" news media, have resulted in "witch hunts" and other examples of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct that have landed scores of innocent people into prison. Most "Progressives" love to think of themselves as intelligent and sophisticated, and not capable of repeatedly falling for the same nonsense, but the facts speak otherwise.

I suspect when Tonya Craft first started searching the Internet for information about being accused by child "welfare" agencies of child abuse and child molestation, she was stunned. So am I. There are thousands of websites out there including those run by lawyers and law firms, which means that there are a heck of a lot of people being charged with these crimes. For example, here is one with Dr. Demosthenes Lorandos explaining how to protect yourselves.

It is utterly tragic that Americans constantly have to be on the lookout to protect themselves against false child abuse/molestation charges, but thanks to the "Progressive" federal government, that is our lot in the 21st Century. What began with Walter Mondale's bid to "save the children" has turned into a legal hell that is comparable to the worst things that Stalin and Mao did to their people.

There are two things driving this holocaust of false allegations: (1) federal money, and (2) federal guidelines for states that want federal money. Of course, all of this was made possible by an ultra-expansionist view of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which "Progressives" believe is necessary for all sorts of good things to happen here.

Tracking the money is difficult, given that states and localities don't advertise how much money they receive from the federal government for each case in which authorities "determine" that someone was molested or abused. Obviously, we are dealing with a huge moral hazard, as the incentive to determine that children are abused or molested is huge because there really is no downside.

Why? The various state laws (which come from federal guidelines) proscribe punishment for people who do not report abuse that they allegedly see, but there are no legal punishments for making false allegations of child abuse or sexual misconduct. Furthermore, once an allegation is made, no matter how transparently false it might be, nonetheless authorities MUST investigate the matter as though it were true.

(Tonya Craft is suing a number of individuals plus Catoosa County for the ordeal they put her through with lying and false allegations. However, people like Sandra Lamb, Sherri Wilson, Joal and Sarah Henke, and Suzi Thorne won't be facing any criminal charges, despite the fact that all of them openly committed perjury during their trial testimony. Likewise, the people of the Children's Advocacy Center don't have to worry about having to pay for their lies and criminal conduct by losing their freedom.)

By setting into motion a whole process that is based upon the assumption that all the allegations of abuse/molestation are true, the federal government guarantees that people will be falsely accused, and I can say with confidence that few people in the government really care. Since they know that THEY won't be accused, and that they can intervene to save their friends (even if those friends actually are guilty), they could care less about the innocent.

Making things worse, according to attorney Paul G. Stuckle, is the fact that most wrongly-accused people really believe that the police and child "protective" workers simply want the truth. He writes:

Rule No. 1: Nothing an accused can say or do will convince a childsaver (Child Protective Service, child advocacy prosecutor, police investigator) that the abuse did not occur. NOTHING!

Rule No. 2: Talking to Child Protective Services or the police investigator, or anyone without an attorney present is the single worst thing a wrongfully accused person can do.

Rule No. 3: In most cases an experienced attorney will not allow you to talk to Child Protective Services or the police or give a statement. The attorney knows whatever you say will be used against you.

The violation of the above three rules by those falsely accused is commonplace. An innocent person believes sanity will intervene at some point, and decides to cooperate fully with the police and Child Protective Services. The accused gives written statements and videotaped statements to CPS and the police. In addition, the accused talk on the phone to detectives and caseworkers. They talk in the investigators offices without knowing whether they are being recorded. They often talk themselves into a corner that is extremely difficult to ever get out of.

Unfortunately, Child Protective Services and the police are not interested in conducting a fair and thorough investigation. The accused who walks into the child advocacy center without an experienced attorney to “tell their side of things” or “clear this all up” is doing exactly what the authorities want. The child savers know what they are doing. At this meeting they will obtain real or implied admissions and circumstances presenting opportunity for abuse coming from the accused’s own mouth.

It gets worse. Continue reading to find exactly how these people work, and how they manipulate the conversation to where literally anyone can be falsely accused:

The Child Protective Service investigator will start off by asking questions that appear to be innocuous but are intentional set up questions. The investigator may ask an alleged perpetrator if they have ever given their child a bath or changed a diaper. The accused will answer “Yes” as that is a normal parental function. Then the investigator will move in for the kill. The next questions will focus on other instances in which the alleged perpetrator has touched the genital areas of the child.

For example, the investigator may ask if you have ever touched your child’s bottom or genital area. If the accused says “No”, the next question will be whether you have ever wiped your child’s bottom after changing a diaper. This will be followed by whether you have ever applied medicine or a lotion for diaper rash. After the accused says “Yes”, the investigator will become more aggressive. “Are you now are admitting to touching your child’s genital area?”. The accused, knowing that any contact was done without sexual intent and solely for personal hygiene reasons is confused. The accused may say, “No, not in the manner that you are describing”. The investigator will follow up by saying, “ Are you now denying touching your child’s genital area?” The follow up questions will be to establish opportunity for abuse, such as: “Are you ever alone with your child? Have you given baths while alone with the child? “ Applied medication to your child without any one else around ? What about the date of the allegation, isn’t it true that you were alone with your child at that time?”

The falsely accused now will face an official investigative report which will read like this:

Alleged perpetrator at first denied any sexual contact with child, but then after questioning admitted such contact. When this inconsistency was pointed out by the investigator, the perpetrator attempted to limit admission of contact by stating that same was done “only while giving baths and applying medications”. Investigator finds alleged perpetrators answers to be inconsistent, evasive, and untruthful.

After observing prosecutor Chris "Alberto-Facebook" Arnt tell jurors that when Tonya Craft put medicine on the bottom of her daughter (when the child had a rash), that was a "bad touch," the previous section makes sense as to the attitudes of the police and prosecution. Now, I am sure that Arnt has done the same with his own children, but he is protected from such accusations, yet had authorities wanted to charge him with child molestation, they easily could have done it, using the same tactics that Arnt and Len "The Man" Gregor used. However, we can be assured that Arnt and Gregor never will have to face the same tactics they use on other people.

The problem is that authorities have the incentive to charge people with molestation even if they know or strongly suspect that the charges are false. Remember, there is no downside for those who bring false charges, and there is money and fame, as the press will declare anyone who goes after evil child molesters to be "heroic." Furthermore, as we saw with Channel 9, which sent reporters to Tonya's neighborhood in order to scream, "A CHILD MOLESTER LIVES HERE!!" people accused are considered guilty until proven...guilty. Stuckle writes:

What should you do once an allegation has been made?

"I'm innocent. This is crazy. If I talk to them and explain it will go away." This is the initial feeling of the wrongfully accused. They have done nothing wrong and therefore there should be no adverse consequences. Those in authority will quickly recognize their innocence, the mistake, the overreaction, and it will all go away.

For the self-proclaimed child savers though, no mistakes are ever made. "Of course the accused will deny it. Who among us would admit to being a child molester? Children do not lie. Adults lie. Molesters lie. You are lying." This is the mind-set of those who will prosecute you. Child protective services caseworkers and prosecutors believe the case is over once the child makes an outcry of abuse and that outcry is subsequently substantiated during the videotaped interview. No other evidence is necessary for them to submit the case to a grand jury. No physical evidence of abuse. No medical evidence of abuse. Nothing.

Now they may try to get such evidence. However, in their minds a failure to obtain it does not undermine their conviction that abuse has occurred. Hymen still intact? Well the hymen does not have to be broken in order for abuse to occur, or for digital penetration. Lack of semen? Well, of course, this offense occurred over the course of years and the child did not make an outcry immediately after the incident. Lack of substantiating witnesses? No matter, molesters work behind closed doors, in private, when no one else is around to witness. Lack of criminal record for the accused? The accused is a child molester, he is interested in secretly abusing children, not in committing adult crimes. Has the accused pass a polygraph test? Those are not admissible because a savvy adult can manipulate such tests.

What one has to understand is that the views of the "child protectors" come from the "experts" and, of course, federal agencies, and the federal government NEVER is wrong (at least when the "correct" people are in charge). Thus, it is rare indeed that a person charged with child molestation does not go to prison, and I am sure that Ms. Craft understood that point, as well as did Arnt and Gregor, who were laughing and smirking at Ms. Craft when she came into the courtroom to hear the verdict. (Of course, the Dishonest Duo was in full pity party mode in the infamous Channel 9 love fest, and the smirks were gone from our heroes who claimed to have been victims of a vicious defense led by Tonya Craft and her ruthless attorneys.)

Few Americans wish to admit or even to contemplate that this country no longer has a "justice" system. It is an accusation and conviction machine that once in a long while produces an outcome that is semi-compatible with justice. We no longer can count on police and prosecutors to be honest, as I suspect most cops, most "child protection" agents, and most prosecutors would just as soon convict an innocent person as a guilty one, just as long as there is a conviction.

No free society can withstand the kind of assault on truth that has accompanied the Mondale Act, the Violence Against Women Act, and the two Victims of Child Abuse acts. I suspect that we are left with three classes of people in this country: (1) those who have been accused of child molestation, (2) those who are going to be accused of child molestation, and (3) those who either make the accusations of child molestation against others or are protected from being charged because of their legal and political connections.

The Accusation and Conviction Machine, Part III

In the past two posts, I have laid out some reasons why there seem to be so many "false positives" when it comes to child molestation charges in places like the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, or, to put it another way, innocent people are convicted of heinous crimes. The main reason, I believe is federal policy, and the way that it is implemented.

One of my main areas of historical study has been the "Progressive Movement" that began in this country in the late 19th Century and has been with us ever since. Academic historians trend to treat Progressives as always being the "good guys" who helped save us from the "ravages" of big business. In reality, "Progressives" believed that the U.S. Constitution, with its checks and balances, was outmoded for a modern, "scientific" society, and that people needed to be ruled by a strong executive (President of the United States) who, guided by "experts," would be able to make important decisions without having to consult Congress.

Some of the "accomplishments" of the "Progressives" included World War I (or at least this country's entry into it), complete with the near-nationalization of the U.S. economy during that time, Prohibition, and, indirectly, the Great Depression. (Lest anyone angrily object -- and that usually is the case -- I would urge readers to look at the writings of prominent "Progressives" like Herbert Croly, Margaret Sanger -- especially her writings about eugenics and black Americans -- and Walter Lippman, at least in his early days before he turned against the New Deal.)

An important legacy of "Progressivism" has been the empowering of the executive branch and especially the federal bureaucracies. With every social movement, including the attempts by the Barack Obama administration to vastly increase the power of federal agencies, Congress has empowered the bureaucracies, and in the past few decades, have given the "family and children" agencies literal life and death power over American families.

Anyone who has dealt with the various "child protection" or "child advocate" agencies can attest to the bullying techniques used by people who enjoy near-absolute power over the lives of others. From what I can see, people who enjoy bullying others often self-select into working for entities like CPS or the CAC or some other agency which has near-dictatorial powers over families. Furthermore, as I noted in my last post, the sets of incentives that govern the workers in these agencies, plus the procedures as outlined by Congress, guarantee that these entities will approach EVERY case as though the accused were guilty, no matter how specious the evidence.

Furthermore, as economist Murray N. Rothbard noted, we can expect to see a deterioration in the system of justice over time. Hans Hoppe, writing about Rothbard in 15 Great Austrian Economists, says:

In particular, Rothbard scorned the idea of a "limited" protective state as self-contradictory and incompatible with the promotion of social utility. Limited government always has the inherent tendency to become unlimited (totalitarian) government. Given the principle of government-judicial monopoly and the power to tax-any notion of restraining government power and safeguarding individual life and property is illusory. Under monopolistic auspices, the price of justice and protection will rise and the quality of justice and protection will fall. (Emphasis mine)

Indeed, in cases where "child protection" workers and the police work to accuse people of child molestation and other acts of sexual misconduct, Hoppe's interpretation of Rothbard holds fast. Unless one is prepared to spend upwards of a quarter-million dollars, an accused person almost certainly will go to prison, with guilt or innocence being irrelevant. That alone should bother the heck out of people associated with the system of "justice," but, to be honest, very few of them care at all.

So, for the various child "protection" agencies, we can see that the sets of incentives favor the assumption of guilt. The real problem comes, however, when people who operate with an assumption of guilt join with people in the actual "justice" system, where "innocent until proven guilty" supposedly rules.

At this point, we have to understand that "innocent until proven guilty" is inconsequential because prosecutors now run almost the entire "justice" apparatus. There almost are no checks and balances with prosecutors, and many judges themselves are former prosecutors who see their job as helping make sure that the accused are found guilty, no matter what the evidence. We saw this in all its ugliness at the Tonya Craft trial (although "judge" Brian Outhouse was just a garden-variety attorney before being elected to his present post) when it was clear that there was a tag team of prosecutors and the "judge" trying to rig the outcome.

Now, people should have been shocked at this, and certainly many were, although my numerous conversations and emails with the people at Channel 9 demonstrated to me that they were just fine with the travesty that was going on before them. (The news director of WTVC-TV intimated to me in an email that Ms. Craft very well could have been guilty, although one surely could not tell that from the "evidence" the prosecution threw at the jury.)

However, we have to understand that when we have a marriage of prosecutors who see all of this as a game that they are trying to "win," and "child protection" agencies that operate on the assumption that everyone (except themselves and prosecutors, of course) is a child molester, then it almost is impossible to get justice in a court of law when one is charged with something like this.

As I see it, this is a pretty logical outcome of what we call "Progressivism." Instead of having to depend upon the "messy" and "unprofessional" "innocent until proven guilty" system, we can have the "professional experts" determine for us who is guilty and who is not. (Not surprisingly, few people are "innocent," at least according to these so-called experts.)

Thus, when Tonya's jury actually saw through the nonsense, the "professionals" were outraged. District Attorney Buzz Franklin called out the jury (and I called out him), and the Dishonest Duo of "Alberto-Facebook" and "The Man" had their own pity party with (Who else?) Channel 9.

What were these guys saying? They were declaring that THEY were the "professionals," and they knew Tonya was guilty, so anyone who got in their way -- including those jurors who wickedly and recklessly insisted on looking at the evidence -- was a friend of child molesters. If you wish to understand the end result of "Progressivism" and the attitudes it has spawned, I give you Franklin's press release and the ADA's Channel 9 interview. This "we are the experts" mentality that helped launch two world wars and the Great Depression is alive and well, and even thriving, despite all the damage and millions of lives it has cost.

The average person really understands Lord Acton's statement: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. However, the "experts" never will understand it, because they really want us to believe that they are beyond corruption. Anyone who has been tossed into the maw of this country's "child protection" machine knows full well the horror of absolute power.

The Accusation and Conviction Machine, Part II

The connection between economics and the study of accusations of rape and child sexual abuse might seem tenuous at best, but the current situation actually invites economic analysis. Why? Economist who look at public policies will examine the incentive structures that these policies create, and from there, it is relatively easy to analyze the behavior of the individuals who are part of that system.

Thus, as I noted yesterday, there are four federal acts that greatly have increased not only false accusations of sexual misconduct, but also have resulted in the imprisonment of perhaps thousands of innocent people, most of them men, but some females, too. For those people wrongly convicted, this has been a silent holocaust, and the damage it has done to the lives of families and especially children has been horrific.

How might a federal law contribute to false accusations? After all, I am sure that when then-Sen. Walter Mondale introduced his bill, he did not declare that what this country needed was an increase in the population of wrongly-convicted people, and that members of Congress eagerly agreed. No, Mondale saw that children were being abused, and he believed that if the federal government (using the U.S. Constitution's "Commerce Clause" as a hook) could rectify the situation by providing money to states and localities and also help "standardize" the process by which the authorities deal with these problems.

As a result of the Mondale Act and the two Victims of Child Abuse acts, a whole "child protection" network was set up, which includes Child Protective Services agencies in each state (CPS), the various Departments of Family and Children's Services (DEFACS), and the Children's Advocacy Centers. The law has given people who work for these agencies, and especially the CPS agencies, vast powers to seize children, take them out of homes, and put them into state foster care systems.

As the Rev. Dennis Austin has written, these laws almost guarantee abuse of the system, given the incentive structures that they have created:

Most states have what are called Child Protective Service Workers (CPS). These workers, along with law enforcement officers, investigate abuse reports. While the law enforcement officers have been trained to be objective, the CPS have not been and they even are called "validators" which raises a question to their role in an investigation. The CPS have authority to deny a parent the access to the children even if there is a court order which allows them to have visitation with the children. The CPS will send a child for an evaluation.

According to the Mondale Act, if an evaluator does not report suspected abuse and the child goes back to an abusive situation, the evaluator can be imprisoned. These evaluators are often either afraid of the consequences of imprisonment if they mistakenly place a child back in the home of an abuser or they may even be a validator as the CPS workers.

The indicators that these validators use to determine abuse are actually quite common behavior which even normal children sometimes exhibit. Some of these indicators include, bedwetting, acting out, nightmares, whining, temper tantrums, thumb-sucking, and compliant and fearful behavior. These validators often propitiate allegations of abuse because it puts food on their tables. It is their career and without such allegations, they could be without a job. Although this is a horrifying thought, this is a reason to ignore evidence that shows innocence and only present to the court "evidence" that substantiate the client's claims of abuse. (Emphasis mine)

To further understand how these incentive structures invite what we call "junk science" into a courtroom, one should examine how hypothesis testing works. In hypothesis testing, there is a null hypothesis and an alternative hypothesis.

According to the rules of scientific method, one should reject the null ONLY if there is a high degree of evidence that it should be rejected, with the evaluator then accepting the alternative hypothesis. In criminal court, the standard for conviction, is "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," and if one examines such standards from the standpoint of scientific method, one can say that the "null hypothesis" is the "assumption of innocence."

Defendants charged are supposed to be viewed as "innocent until proven guilty," and that standard exists precisely because our forebears from England wanted the "Rights of Englishmen" to govern the rules of the courts. People like William Blackstone demanded that the prosecution provide a very high standard of proof to keep innocent people from being convicted and thrown into prison or even executed. Thus, Blackstone famously declared, "Better 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man convicted."

That system "worked" to a certain degree in Tonya Craft's case, as even though the prosecution worked with a corrupt judge to rig the proceedings, nonetheless the jury did not believe that "Alberto-Facebook" and "The Man" had met the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. However, the "child protection" agencies are governed by very different standards, and because of the incentive structures that CPS, DEFACS, and CAC workers face, it should not be surprising at all that they have become a veritable false accusation industry.

Note that the Mondale Act proscribes punishment for these workers if they fail to act when a child is in an abusive system, or if they misjudge a situation and unwittingly place a child in danger, they can be prosecuted and even imprisoned. Thus, it is in their interests to assume that ALL allegations of abuse are true until absolutely proven otherwise.

In scientific terms, this would mean that the null hypothesis is not "innocence," but rather guilt, and overturning that hypothesis is almost impossible because there is no punishment proscribed for "child protection" workers who assume guilt when, in fact, the alleged abuser is innocent. Furthermore, you see the entire "child protection" industry accepting the notion that since one cannot "prove a negative," someone who is accused always has to be seen as guilty.

It works like this. I cannot prove that I did NOT kill JFK. If I present my birth certificate which shows I was 10 years old and I say that I was in a classroom at Boothwyn School during the shooting in Dallas more than a thousand miles away, someone can claim that my birth certificate is forged and that I am lying when I say I was not in Dallas. (Someone can claim that I really was on the Grassy Knoll.) In other words, a determined person always will have a rejoinder to whatever I might claim.

One can see the problem when these kinds of "guilty and never proven innocent" standards are brought into a court of law, and the courts accept them. We are looking at a meat grinder in which innocent people generally don't have a chance of being acquitted. Furthermore, we see prosecutors -- people who have sworn to uphold the law and the fairness of the courts -- accepting these "always guilty" standards and teaming with judges to run a railroad.

One could see this standard at work with the interviews of the three children. When Stacy Long interviewed Sandra Lamb's daughter, and when Suzi Thorne interviewed Tonya's child, both interviewers already had decided that Tonya Craft had sexually abused these children, and it was their job to make sure that the children "disclosed" such information. Neither person cared how she got the "disclosures," just as long as she was successful in reaching that goal.

Both prosecutors also displayed the same mentality. For example, when "The Man" asked David Craft if he "heard anything" that would signal that Tonya was molesting a child in another room, Mr. Craft said he had not. Gregor responded that the sound of a child being molested was not loud.

So, let us translate according to Len "The Man" Gregor's hypothesis testing: (A) David Craft did not hear any noises, suspicious or otherwise coming from another room; (B) if Tonya was quietly molesting a child, then David probably would not have heard anything; therefore (C) Tonya was molesting children.

This is not exactly a high standard of proof, which supposedly is required in a court of law in the United States, and one can say that Gregor's attempt at hypothesis testing was disgracefully bad. We saw the judicial version of "junk science," and it is nothing less than tragic that cowards and bullies like "Alberto-Facebook,"The Man," and "judge" Brian Outhouse are permitted to run proceedings using these counterfeit methods that really are nothing more than devices to create kangaroo courts.

Unfortunately, I am just scratching the surface of the damage that these federal acts have created. I'll have more on this issue tomorrow.

The Accusation and Conviction Machine, Part I

Even before I became involved in the Tonya Craft case, I knew that the legal machinery that accuses and convicts people of false rape and child molestation charges was powerful. I did not know how powerful it really was.

The obvious question is: Why? Why is it that a parent seeking leverage in a custody case can accuse the other spouse of child molestation, and even if the accusations are transparently false, there still is a good chance the other person will be charged with felonies and most likely convicted?

Why is it that a woman can charge a man with rape or sexual assault and no matter how ridiculous or self-serving the accusation might be, the man has a good chance of going to prison, even if everything the prosecutors and accusing witnesses claim is a lie?

The reason is that the United States has undergone a revolution in how the law and the provisions to protect the accused are seen not only by the authorities, but by the law professionals themselves. Perhaps the following passage by Jason Wool in a law journal article says it best:

The essential question is whether the system should be more inclined to protect innocent defendants, sometimes at the expense of women who have been date raped, or whether the system should be designed to ensure that more women's complaints result in convictions at the expense of some innocent men.

[Maintaining the Presumption of Innocence in Date Rape Trials Through the Use Of Language Orders: State v. Safi and the Banning of the Word "Rape," 15 Wm. Mary J. of Women & L. 193 (Fall 2008).]

In other words, according to some advocates, innocence really should be no defense at all, and I can say that many American prosecutors, judges, and their allies today share in that view. The presumption of innocence not only is met with scorn, but if they had their way, I believe I can say with confidence that most (but not all) prosecutors in this country believe that if one is charged with a crime, then guilt should be assumed, and there really should be no trial at all, just a plea and then punishment.

Lest one think I am being harsh, this is what Wendy Murphy -- who gave commentary on the Tonya Craft case on NBC's "Today Show" and was portrayed as a "legal expert" -- declared when asked about the presumed innocence of the defendants in the infamous Duke Lacrosse Case:

Stop with the presumption of innocence. It doesn't apply [at] Duke, as well as I'm really tired of people suggesting that you're somehow un-American if you don't respect the presumption of innocence, because you know what that sounds like to a victim? Presumption you're a liar.

One has to understand that the charges in the Duke case were unquestionably false, yet even afterward, Murphy continued to claim that the families of the accused had paid off Crystal Mangum (which would have been strange, given that Mangum said she wanted to pursue the charges, even after the North Carolina Attorney General declared them unfounded).

Murphy, however, is not a fringe character. She is a regular guest on TV talk shows and is close to Nancy Grace, whose guilt-assuming show on CNN reflects her attitude as a prosecutor who the federal courts declared to be "fast and loose with the facts." I would say that Murphy reflects the mainstream in American law today, or at least the mainstream among American prosecutors.

But it is not the Wendy Murphys who have brought about the sea change in U.S. law, especially in what we would call "sex crimes." It has been both the Congress and the federal bureaucracies that oversee the administration of federal law, and in the past few decades, federal officials have (purposely, I believe) changed the legal landscape to where the imprisonment of innocents is seen as nothing more than "collateral damage" in the crusade to make the country safe for women and children.

There are four laws that have done the most damage to the presumption of innocence, I believe. They are:

• The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), also known as the Mondale Act of 1974;

• The Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990, which gave millions of dollars to the Children's Advocacy Centers around the USA;
• The Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which made the federal government a major player in determining how states would prosecute alleged rape and sexual assault; 
•  The Victims of Child Abuse Act of 2003, which continued the federal relationship with the various CACs.

Not only did the federal government provide millions of dollars of funding for advocacy groups but it also set the procedures as to how local law enforcement was to respond to accusations of rape or sexual misconduct. Furthermore, the laws, with their mandated reporting procedures, practically guaranteed that there would follow an epidemic of false accusations.

The Duke Lacrosse Case

In the spring of 2006, an African-American stripper, Crystal Gail Mangum, accused three Duke University lacrosse players of beating and raping her at a party where she "danced." North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper dismissed the charges in April 2007, declaring the players "innocent" (a rarity for prosecutors in any kind of criminal case) after his office did an extensive investigation.

However, it was clear from the beginning that the charges were bogus, but they stuck for a number of reasons. First, the national media jumped upon the story and journalists threw all of their own prejudices (white on black, southern school, slavery, you name it) into their coverage and wanted the tale to be true. Second, the politics of Durham, Duke, blacks, and whites drove the "narrative," which turned out to be false.

However, the third factor was the most important of all: the role of federal law in getting the wheels of the case turning. Mangum was found drunk in a car and was taken to a mental health facility called Durham Access. A nurse there improperly asked Mangum, "Were you raped?" (Interviewers are not supposed to ask those questions.)

When Mangum answered that she was (she had not said anything about it before then), federal law mandated that she be taken to a medical facility where she would receive a rape exam either by a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) or other qualified medical professional. The SANE who would participate in the exam was a feminist ideologue named Tara Levicy, who later would lie and fabricate "evidence" to implicate the lacrosse players.

(After the charges were dismissed, the three players and their families settled with Duke University and Duke University Medical Center -- Levicy's employer -- for a reported seven million dollars apiece. Levicy no longer is employed there, but still works as a nurse in New England.)

One can see how federal policy set this disaster into motion, but this was not an isolated case, at least where the federal government and false accusations are concerned. In tomorrow's post, I will show how federal policies are driving false allegations of child abuse and molestation, and there is no end in sight to this American tragedy.

“Contaminated Testimony”

The blogger Kerwyn does not miss much when doing research, and during a conversation about our upcoming article in Reason Magazine, she and I went over transcripts of Suzie Thorne’s interview with Tonya Craft’s daughter at the Greenhouse on June 3, 2008, and she put together four items that apparently are closely related. The first was this paper written by Dr.Nancy E. Walker in 2002 that covers, among other things, “contaminated testimony” that often is the product when authorities investigate alleged child abuse/molestation. The other three items included Thorne’s “Who’s On First?” interview, Joal Henke’s April 23 testimony during Tonya’s trial, and telephone records of calls between Henke and other parents.

As we look over the materials in our possession, there is one thing that is front-and-center: the authorities had decided beforehand that they were going to find a way to charge Tonya Craft with child molestation. They had no real evidence of such, but it is absolutely clear that the police, the parents, and the “investigators” from the Children’s Advocacy Centers that they were going to find whatever they needed.

Such “investigations” are doomed from the start, should the supposed goal of an investigation be to find the truth. However, if the people guiding the investigation from the start have decided beforehand what the outcome is going to be, then “truth” is whatever they want it to be, and that is what we saw in the Tonya Craft case.

“It didn’t fit their theory”

When Dr. Nancy Aldridge testified for the defense, on May 3, she was asked about the interviewing techniques of the children, especially from Thorne and Stacy Long. At best, Dr. Aldridge note, they were “inappropriate” at best and misleading at worse. The interviewers broke all of the rules of forensic interviewing. In looking at what Dr. Aldridge said and what Dr. Walker wrote in her paper, the following things should be avoided if the goal of the interviewer is to wish to get at the truth:

•  The interviews should not be long, and there needs to be a lag of several days between interviews. The “rule of thumb” is five minutes for each of the child’s years. Thus, a six-year-old child would be interviewed at the maximum for 30 minutes;

• Interviewers should not ask the same questions repeatedly to a young child, as it sends the message that the child is giving the “wrong” answer; 

• An interview of a child should not be an interrogation, and the child should not be asked “leading,” “inappropriate,” or “suggestive” questions that either plant an idea in the child’s mind or attempts to do so; 

• Parents should not be asking their children investigative questions or be trying to plant ideas in their minds about alleged incidents;

• The interviewer should conduct the proceedings with an "open mind," as opposed to demonstrating a bias from the start.

Dr. Walker writes regarding these kinds of tactics that violate protocols:

An interviewer who completes an assessment using faulty or problematic techniques risks having the evidence thrown out of court -- and appropriately so. No interview is perfect, of course, and interview evidence should not be ruled inadmissible simply because of a few harmless errors. Instead, courts should use standards for evaluating the probative value of forensic interviews. These standards will assist the court in ruling on the admissibility of the interview evidence and in determining the weight to be accorded that evidence.

Anyone who followed the Tonya Craft case knows that the CAC/Greenhouse interviewers failed to follow any of the protocols. In fact, when the defense asked Stacy Long about suggestive questioning, she laughed and replied, “So what?” In fact, not one CAC interviewer even admitted to reading any of the current or relevant literature and Thorne told the defense she was not aware of the infamous McMartin case, which more than any other event was responsible for clinical psychologists to find ways of properly interviewing young children in these types of situations.

(I recently spoke to Ione Sells, director of the CAC in Fort Oglethorpe, and I was surprised at her arrogance and her belief that her organization really did not have to play by the rules. When I asked about Dr. Aldridge, she hinted to me that she believed that Dr. Aldridge lied on the stand, and when I reminded her that Dr. Aldridge mostly had testified for the prosecution, Sells replied, "She has not testified for the prosecution since 2007." The whole thing reminded me of the scene in the movie “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” in which the character played by Humphrey Bogart asks bandits claiming to be Federales to show their badges. One bandit replies: “Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges.”)

As for the interview process, a review of the transcripts of interviews that Long and Thorne had with Sandra Lamb’s daughter and Tonya Craft’s daughter demonstrate a number of conclusive things:

• The interviews were quite long and involved, and Lamb’s daughter was interviewed twice in the same day, morning and afternoon; 

• Both Long and Thorne repeatedly asked the same question, with Thorne asking the Lamb child 16 times, “Is there anything else?"

• Long, after a break, came back that afternoon and asked the Lamb child about Tonya giving the child a bath. No one had brought up baths, and certainly not the girl. However, once it became clear that the girl received affirmation for saying what the adults wanted her to say, she went along. As for the questioning of Tonya’s daughter by Thorne, it is clear, absolutely clear, that this was not an interview; it was an interrogation, and this fact is obvious just from a reading of the transcript. For example, on a number of occasions, when the child said something that disagreed with Thorne’s line of questioning, Thorne would ask, “No?” in a way that clearly indicated that the child was giving the wrong answer. 

• Numerous times during the interviews of both the Lamb child and Tonya’s daughter, the children would say that they got answers from parents, the Lamb girl her mother and Tonya’s child, her father, Joal Henke. Furthermore, during his trial testimony, Henke denies having told his daughter that Tonya “had lied to the police,” even though the girl stated firmly that she had received that notion from her father. To make matters worse, the phone records show conclusively that Sandra Lamb and Joal Henke had numerous phone calls clustered around the dates of the interviews, and that on several occasions, the parents would call the police or the CAC to say that the children “had more to tell.” 

• It absolutely is clear that Long and Thorne were doing everything to steer the children into making sexual abuse accusations against Tonya. They did not even have a “theory” about Tonya Craft’s guilt; to them, it already was an established fact, and it was their job to manipulate the children into making the accusations they wanted to hear.

(It should also be pointed out that Thorne wore an earpiece during her interviews which allowed her to receive instructions from the police, who were observing the proceedings. This also is considered a major breach of protocol in the interviewing of children, and one CAC director from another state expressed horror at what was done when Kerwyn spoke to her.)

Thus, anything that did not fit the “Tonya Did It Theory” was discarded or hidden, which was why prosecutors fought so hard to have every scrap of exculpatory evidence excluded from Ms. Craft’s trial. The testimony was, in the terms of clinical psychologists well versed in these matters, “contaminated.” It also explains why “judge” Brian House had one set of rules for the prosecution and another, more draconian, for the defense.

While defense attorney Dr. Demosthenes Lorandos was questioning Dr. Aldridge, he noted that Lamb’s daughter had said in an interview that her mother told her where she was “touched.” When asked why the police, CAC interviewers, and prosecution did not take a hard look at that statement and recognize the red flags it had sent up, Dr. Aldridge replied, “It didn’t fit with their theory.”

I have seen police and prosecutors do this before, and with tragic results. The infamous Duke Lacrosse Case is defined by the dishonest means that former (and now disbarred) prosecutor Michael Nifong used to hide exculpatory evidence.

At least no one went to prison in the Duke case. In Larimer County, Colorado, Tim Masters was convicted in 1999 of a murder he did not commit because police and prosecutors became convinced he was the killer and were willing to lie to prove it. Masters’ subsequent exoneration cost Fort Collins nearly $10 million in settlements and the lead detective in the case recently was indicted on eight counts of felony perjury for his false testimony in Masters’ trial.

The real tragedy here – and for the numerous cases like this nationwide – is that the authorities in so many situations no longer care about the truth. They have decided upon their own “truth,” and it does not matter whether the facts fit the situation. People in the United States go to prison now because the authorities either are too ignorant or too craven, or both, and for every Tonya Craft who goes free, many more are wrongfully convicted and imprisoned.

But Why Would Anyone Bring False Charges? Part II: The Police, Prosecutors, and "judge" Brian House

In dealing with the obvious question of, "Why would people bring false charges?" I noted that the parents of the accusing children had plenty of incentives to do what they did. Granted, they actually believed they would see Tonya Craft convicted and sent to life in prison, and are stunned that the tables now are turned upon them.

Why were they so sure of a conviction? They knew that the players of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit would do everything to grease the skids of the Tonya Railroad, as they have been quite successful in doing that for years. It is very difficult for someone to beat a tag team of police, prosecutors, and judges, and Sandra Lamb, Joal Henke and company simply bet on the odds.

The other day, I received an email from someone who has a friend with personal connections to the LMJC and the emailer told me that the people from the judges to the police are trying to say that Tonya really was guilty. To increase the intensity of this howler, they are claiming that they had evidence of "horrible" things Tonya had done, but were not allowed to bring it into the trial.

That, my dear readers, is a crock of you-know-what. As shall be done in a future post, we are going to deal with the "mystery fourth victim" and explain why prosecutors did not bring that into "evidence." This so-called disclosure was so ridiculous and so full of holes that "Facebook" and "The Man" understood that even under the "House Rules," the defense would shred it to bits.

Since when did "judge" brian house (from now on, his name is always in lower-case) not give the prosecutors what they wanted? They were permitted to add "I just remembered" testimony from Suzi Thorne and Joal Henke, they suborned perjury, and they also knew that house would prevent the defense from entering into evidence material that would demonstrate beyond a doubt that the prosecution's witnesses were lying.

The notion that house would prevent ANYTHING that he believed could help convince a jury to convict Tonya Craft is so laughable that I am surprised that even a perjurer like Tim "Dirty" Deal would be spreading that lie. Furthermore, the insistence of the LMJC players from police to the judges (yes, even the judges are trying to claim it was an "O.J. Verdict," from what my sources tell me) that Ms. Craft "did it" tells me that the ENTIRE "justice" and "law enforcement" apparatus of the LMJC is incapable of being able to differentiate between truth and lies.

If these people really, truly believe that Tonya Craft molested these children, and that the "I just remembered" nonsense and the sudden appearance of "documents" written to fill the holes and being permitted into "evidence" by "judge" house were true, then they literally cannot tell the difference between fantasy and truth. Now, I will say that I have no confidence at all in American "justice" and the government employees who work to throw people into prison, many of them innocent. However, I cannot get myself to believe that "Dirty" Deal, Det. Steven Keith, "Facebook," "The Man," and "judge" house are unable to differentiate between false and true evidence.

Furthermore, if they really believed Ms. Craft was a child molester, then why did they have to suborn and commit perjury? Why did "Facebook" and "The Man" lie to jurors in their closing arguments? Why did they not ask ANY questions of substance David and Tonya Craft when they were on the witness stand being cross-examined? Why was "Facebook" giving hand signals to "judge" house the entire trial to help direct him?

Why did "judge" house grant the prosecution almost ALL of its objections and almost NONE to the defense? Why did "judge" house sanction the defense for innocuous comments but permitted prosecutors to scream, throw down books on tables, roll their eyes, yell at witnesses, insult the defense counsel, and generally make a mockery of justice?

Why? They wanted to win. Winning brings federal money to the LMJC, and when Buzz Franklin came into office and declared that the LMJC was going to emphasize child abuse and molestation cases, he was not doing it for love of children. But, there is another reason besides money, although I am sure that greed partly drove this and other such cases in the circuit.

The LMJC players are the kind of dishonest people who manage to self-select themselves into the line of work in which they are protected by immunity. Think about it. Cops are notorious for lying on the stand under oath (cops like to call it "testilying" -- their term), yet it is a very rare thing when a police officer is indicted for perjury or even sanctioned. Prosecutors who suborn perjury receive at most a slap on the wrist, and the courts jealously guard the immunity of their own.

So, we are supposed to marvel when a serial liar like Det. Jim Broderick is indicted for perjury for giving false testimony that led to the wrongful conviction of Tim Masters in Colorado. Yet, at least Larimer County grand jury was willing to investigate wrongdoing by police and prosecutors; one can bet that a grand jury of the LMJC (with all its good church-going "Christians") would cover up lies and outright crimes of public officials.

I believe that the players of the LMJC have moved to the Point of No Return in which they no longer care about telling the truth. They just love to win; the whole thing is a game to them, a "heads I win, tails you lose" game that attracts the worst of the worst. For some people, that is incentive enough.

Henry Wade, the "legendary" prosecutor of Dallas County, Texas, was supposed to have coined the saying, "Any prosecutor can convict a guilty person. It takes a GREAT prosecutor to convict an innocent person," and his office had enough wrongful convictions to prove it. (The Oscar-winning documentary, "The Thin Blue Line," forcefully showed a wrongful conviction in action. It is worth seeing if you really are a True Believer that prosecutors would not purposely seek a conviction against an innocent person.)

I am sure that "Facebook" and "The Man" believe they are Great Prosecutors. After all, the LMJC has a 98 percent conviction rate, and they supposedly are the Great Heroes Saving Children From Child Molesters. The local press has treated them like gods, but they finally overstepped even their limits and came up against a determined defendant and a crack defense team that put those prosecutors in their places.

And it was not just the direct participants who worry me. We saw one judge of the LMJC being sanctioned, and she was the one who presided over the wrongful conviction of Brad Wade. (Yes, Brad Wade was wrongfully convicted, unless you want to believe that Stacy Long of the Children's Advocacy Center, and Len Gregor are honest people.)

For that matter, the original judge in the Tonya Craft case recused himself because at the time he was dating...Laurie Evans. Yes, Evans had him convinced that Ms. Craft was a sociopath (her explanation of why Ms. Craft passed two lie detector tests), as though Evans has any credibility herself.

So, we have an entire judicial circuit full of people who apparently see no problem in lying and suborning perjury, who chase after rabbit trails of "evidence," and who have no problem lying to jurors and then excoriating them when they acquit an obviously-innocent defendant. This is an utter disgrace, but it tells us something about human nature: If one gives people immunity from their actions along with nearly-unlimited power, then no one should be surprised when they gravitate to doing evil.

Holly Kittle and the Escalation of Charges

[Update, Friday, June 18, 2010, 5:45 PM]: While this update is off-topic, nonetheless it tells us that the LMJC is not the only place where the police commit outrages. This story from WRCB-TV should make your blood boil:

CHATTANOOGA (WRCB) – A patient believed to be having a stroke says a Chattanooga Police officer blocked her and her husband from entering the emergency room Wednesday night.

Aline Wright is a cancer survivor, amputee and a newlywed. Wednesday night she began to show signs that she was having a stroke.

That's when her husband of four days, and a nurse technician at Erlanger Medical Center, Jesse Wright, put her in the car and rushed her to the hospital.

On the way to the hospital, Aline says Jesse stopped at then proceeded through two red lights, as if they were stop signs. After Jesse ran the second stop light one block from Erlanger, a Chattanooga Police Officer turned on his blue lights and followed the couple into the Emergency Room parking lot.

According to Aline, the Officer caught up with the couple as they were attempting to enter the emergency room at Erlanger Medical Center. Aline says her husband was carrying her in his arms because she could not walk. According to Aline, the Officer blocked the entrance and demanded answers for running the red lights.

Aline says eventually the Officer allowed them to enter the hospital, but says he didn't stop there.

Aline tells Channel 3 Eyewitness News that once the couple was placed in a hospital room, the Officer attempted to enter their room to arrest Jesse for evading the police.

Erlanger medical personnel turned the Officer away at that point, informing him that since Aline could not speak Jesse was needed to answer questions for the doctors.

Thursday morning Erlanger security informed the couple that a warrant for Jesse's arrest had been issued, and suggested he turn himself in. Aline says Jesse went to the Hamilton County Jail to turn himself in that evening. According to Aline, Jail employees told Jesse that they had no record of a warrant for him and told him he was free to go.

So Jesse returned to his ailing wife's bedside at Erlanger Medical Center.

On Friday morning the police were back at the hospital. This time Jesse surrendered to Erlanger Security who arrested him on behalf of the Chattanooga Police Department.

Eyewitness News was the only crew there as Jesse was released on $7,500 bond, about right hours after being arrested. He is facing seven charges related to Wednesday night's events, including felony evading arrest. He's due in court on July 9th.

Eyewitness News contacted Chattanooga Police today for their side of the story.

lLt. Kim Noorbergen says the officer was just "doing his job".

Beyond that, the department will not comment until a formal complaint is filed with the internal affairs department.

Aline Wright says she plans to file the complaint. The couple has already hired an attorney to file a suit against the officer.

As for Erlanger, a spokesperson tells us by law their security guards are obligated to carry out an arrest warrant related to felony charges. An Erlanger spokesperson says once they learned the warrant for Wright's arrest was issued, and they learned he was in the building, they had to arrest him.

I guess all of us can be relieved that Chattanooga's "finest" are trying to keep people from receiving medical help so an officer can run around and try to pretend that he is king of the hill. How do jerks like this officer (who I am sure is being protected by the Usual Suspects at the CPD) ever wear a uniform, get a badge, and carry a gun?

A man's wife is having a stroke, and the cop is getting a stroke of his own because he is not considered the Most Important Person at the ER. Give me a break!
[End Update]

(This is the seventh in a series on the testimony of the child accusers)

Ten months after meeting with Suzi Thorne at the GreenHouse, Accuser #1 met with Holly Kittle of the Children’s Advocacy Center and gave much more graphic answers to questions than she had before. Perhaps it is appropriate that the interview took place on April 1, April Fool’s Day, for the answers she gave not only were contrived, but it is clear that she and someone else – perhaps her mother, Sandra Lamb – had been working on juicing up the account she would give.

As we follow this interview, remember that the interview process started in 2008 with “a girl has been mean to me,” and 10 months later escalates to outright sexual assault by “the evil one,” who (of course) is Tonya Craft. Remember that the bath idea did not come from Accuser #1, but rather from Stacey Long in the second interview on May 27, 2008. After stumbling a bit, Accuser #1 takes this story and builds on it.

There are other red flags as well. First, Accuser #1 never alleged “digital penetration” in her previous three interviews, so the fact that she suddenly remembers something that to a young child would have been a horrifying experience should make one suspicious. I am sure that the CAC crowd would claim that she had “suppressed” those terrible memories, but with the help of a “therapist,” she was liberated from that cage. All of this brings me to my second point.

She had spent nearly a year of “therapy” by none other than…Laurie Evans. Yes, this is the same Laurie Evans who was diagnosed with being mentally ill, the same Laurie Evans whom Judge Marie Williams had ordered to stay away from Tonya Craft’s children, and the same Laurie Evans who committed perjury in a deposition and on the stand during the trial of Ms. Craft.

Given Evans’ history, I only can imagine what “miracles” she managed to perpetrate on Accuser #1 and the other children during that time, and, apparently, continues to give “therapy” to at least two of the children that testified against Ms. Craft. However, given Evan’s vivid imagination and her utter lack of a moral compass, I am sure that she prepared Accuser #1 to go whole hog when the girl met with Kittle, and Accuser #1 delivered.

ACCUSER #1: We took tests...we took a test today and it was a test about perimeter and everything. And I went to P.E. I left because I didn't feel good.
HOLLY: Why didn't you feel good?
ACCUSER #1: Well, last night I told my mommy something that the evil one did that I call her.
ACCUSER #1: I told her one time I was taking a bath, well, she was giving me a bath and she stuck her finger up my butt.
ACCUSER #1: [re finger up butt] And she wouldn't say anything. She would always just not talk when she did it…
ACCUSER #1: [re finger up butt] and see, like, when her daughter Accuser #3 was in the bath she wouldn't do it because she would always wash me first and then Accuser #3 would get in the bath and she would do it... see like, if I was in the bath she would wash me until Accuser #3 would come in there and then she would give Accuser #3 a bath. Well, anytime me and Accuser #3 took a bath together, she wouldn't do it. So... I don't know if she did it to Accuser #3 because she would always wash me first. Anytime Accuser #3 would be in the bathroom she wouldn't do it. And so, and so, so I don't know if she did it to Accuser #3, but that's the thing she did to me.
HOLLY: Okay when was this [finger up butt]?
ACCUSER #1: I was like in kindergarten and first grade.
ACCUSER #1: Well, see I didn't...she just automatically started doing it. And so I don't know... and then that's... and she would sometimes also stick her finger up my private and that's all she would do to me in the bathtub, but that's all she used to do in the bathtub.

[Note: 5/27/08 interview AFTER Stacey Long leaves the room and then comes back in to ask out of the blue "did you ever take a bath over there?" .........
STACEY: Okay. All right. When she would wash you, did she wash, like, in between your legs too, on your private?
ACCUSER #1: Huh-uh. (Moves head from side to side)]

ACCUSER #1: She did this to my private and she stuck her finger up my butt with only this finger.
HOLLY: Okay. Was it that hand? Was it with that hand and that finger or was it…?
ACCUSER #1: I think it was this finger
HOLLY: And what do you call that finger? Do you have a name for it?
ACCUSER #1: Uh, index. [on pg 8 we see it was the left index finger]
HOLLY: Okay. Did that go inside your private or outside your private?
ACCUSER #1: Inside.
ACCUSER #1: I… I didn’t like it. Before she did it she said that you can’t say anything. And so…
HOLLY: What did you say when she said that?
ACCUSER #1: She covered my mouth. I couldn’t say anything. [states it was left hand a few lines down]
[Note: it is difficult to be both sexually assaulting someone and covering their mouth with the same hand at the same time.]

ACCUSER #1: And see, she told me if I told anyone she would hurt my mom. But when I started telling my mom, she said it was okay. I’m not the one who did it. And so it made me feel a lot better so I could tell everything I needed to tell. And that was the last thing I always kept inside because I was scared I would get in trouble.
HOLLY: Who were you scared you would get in trouble from?
ACCUSER #1: My mom.
HOLLY: Okay.
ACCUSER #1: My mom is the best mom ever, so I know…
HOLLY: Okay. When this happened in the bathtub, were you in her class then?
ACCUSER #1: Yes.
HOLLY: Okay. How old was Accuser #3 when this happened [finger up butt in bath]?
ACCUSER #1: I think she was four, five…
HOLLY: Okay.
ACCUSER #1: I was… yeah she was probably four or three.
HOLLY: Okay
ACCUSER #1: Because I was five then.
ACCUSER #1: The other day I sent Accuser #3 a picture of me and her...it was... her friend "childs name" cut it out and then a picture of me and her mom. I cut her [Tonya] out and threw it in the garbage and put us together. And I put best friends forever and I sent it to her.
HOLLY: Okay. You said that… you said that when you were taking a bath… where was Accuser #3 when you were taking a bath?
ACCUSER #1: Accuser #3?
HOLLY: Uh-huh
ACCUSER #1: She was… I think she was playing or jumping on the trampoline.
HOLLY: Was she [Accuser #3] in the bathroom?
ACCUSER #1: No she was never in the bathroom when it happened.

[NOTE: This is an important part of this interview. She will dramatically change her story later, although the huge change does not seem to faze Kittle. Accuser 1 starts off making small changes and later goes for the gold by having ALL the children in the bath tub at once while Ms. Craft molests them in front of each other. Laurie Evans claims Accuser 1 told her that story.]

ACCUSER #1: [Tonya’s house was] down in Chickamauga down this road in a subdivision.
HOLLY: Did what you told me happen in the bathtub. Did this happen more than one time?
ACCUSER #1: Yes.
HOLLY: … was Accuser #3 ever in the bathtub with you?
ACCUSER #1: Once.
HOLLY: Once she was.
ACCUSER #1: Well, she was but when Tonya did the bad stuff to me she wasn’t. But sometimes Accuser #3 took a bath with me but she didn’t do it.
HOLLY: Okay. Do you know if Tonya did anything like this to Accuser #3?
ACCUSER #1: No.
HOLLY: She didn’t or you don’t know?
ACCUSER #1: I don’t know.
HOLLY: Did she ever touch you anywhere else besides your private and your butt?
ACCUSER #1: No. Well, sometimes she hit me.
[Note: This is the first time the claim of Ms. Craft hitting had been brought out.]
ACCUSER #1: Well, she always said that I've been bad at her house and anytime my mom called and said she was coming to pick me up, before I even left when my mom pulled in the driveway she would always hit me. I don't know why she would ever hit me.
ACCUSER #1: She hit me on my neck and my face and that’s all. And she also slapped me on my arm. And that’s where all she hit me.
ACCUSER #1:…like she pulled her hand and she slapped me really hard.
HOLLY: Where did she slap you?
ACCUSER #1: On my face. She hit me hard on my face
HOLLY: Okay. Which side?
ACCUSER #1: This one.
HOLLY: Okay. Which side is that?
ACCUSER #1: My right.
[Note: Tonya is RIGHT HANDED]

HOLLY: Did she say anything to you when she hit you?
ACCUSER #1: She said that’s what I get for being bad.
HOLLY: Did anybody see this [hitting] happen?
ACCUSER #1: Uh-uh.
HOLLY: Where was Accuser #3 [during hitting]?
ACCUSER #1: She was in her room.
HOLLY: Where was he [Tonya’s son during hitting]?
ACCUSER #1: I forgot where he was.
ACCUSER #1: Sometimes…sometimes she did this [finger in privates] out of the bathtub.
HOLLY: … where would you be when that happened?
ACCUSER #1: Some… mostly in the kitchen
HOLLY: Was it on top of your clothes or underneath your clothes?
ACCUSER #1: Underneath.
HOLLY: Did that go inside your private or outside your private?
ACCUSER #1: Inside.
HOLLY: What did that feel like?
ACCUSER #1: It hurt just like the bathtub.
HOLLY: Did it ever happen anywhere else?
ACCUSER #1: Just in the bathtub and in the kitchen.
HOLLY: Okay. Did she only touch your privates in the kitchen or did she touch something else?
ACCUSER #1: She only touched my private in the kitchen.
HOLLY: And what happened in first grade?
ACCUSER #1: She would keep on doing it and doing it.
HOLLY: When was the last time that anything happened?
ACCUSER #1: I was in first grade and then when I started to get in second grade, I started telling.
ACCUSER #1: [talking about the last time anything happened. She was spending the night] And then… then she did the same thing that she would always do. Like, she would stick her finger up my butt. And stick her fingers up my private. And when I was going to leave the next morning she would always hit me when my mom was in the driveway.
HOLLY: Did she always hit you when your mom was in the driveway?
ACCUSER #1: Yes. Or when she was pulling up the road.

[NOTE: Like the phantom injuries that occurred with the faux "hand rape," we see that no one ever complained that this little girl had been slapped around while at Tonya's house. Certainly, a mother as attentive as Sandra Lamb seems to be would have noticed marks or something that would logically follow if Ms. Craft were hitting her daughter, especially since Lamb was in the driveway. Amazingly, this seemed to pass right by Kittle, who by this time was all ears.]

[NOTE: This next section that goes to the end of the interview has some of the most fantastic -- and contradictory "disclosures" in the interview.]

[The child now has anatomical dolls]
ACCUSER #1: [demonstrating on doll] She did this. She tried to put all of her fingers together and what she would do would she would stick it up in me.
ACCUSER #1: [demonstrating on doll] And then she would…she would turn me around and stick this finger up my butt.
HOLLY: Okay. Did she ever ask you to touch Accuser #3?
ACCUSER #1: Uh-uh.
HOLLY: Okay. Did she ever ask Accuser #3 to touch you?
ACCUSER #1: Uh, once but I said Accuser #3 you don’t have to do it.
HOLLY: Okay.
ACCUSER #1: So she didn’t.

[NOTE: Here is the conversation she had with Stacey Long on May 27, 2008:
STACEY: Did Miss Tonya ever tell you and Accuser #3 to touch each other?
ACCUSER #1: No.]

ACCUSER #1: Well, see, we were in the bathtub and Tonya told Accuser #3 to touch me. And she said anywhere she wanted to and I said...I whispered to Accuser #3, like, I went Accuser #3 you don't have to do that. You don't have to listen to her.
HOLLY: Uh-huh.

[NOTE: At the risk of repeating ourselves, here is what she told Kittle earlier in the interview:
HOLLY: Okay. You said that… you said that when you were taking a bath… where was Accuser #3 when you were taking a bath?
ACCUSER #1: Accuser #3?
HOLLY: Uh-huh
ACCUSER #1: She was… I think she was playing or jumping on the trampoline.]

ACCUSER #1: And then she said, I know. I'm not going to do it. And so, and so she didn't do it. And so her mom just made a face at me and didn't say anything and so she just gave us a bath.

[Note: Tonya's daughter would have been three years old at this time. Accuser #1 makes the claim that this three-year-old had that kind of language and moral skills.]

HOLLY: Did Tonya ever ask you or Accuser #3 to touch each other outside the bathtub?
ACCUSER #1: No.
HOLLY: So the only time it happened was inside the bathtub.
ACCUSER #1: Uh-huh. But one time Accuser #3 touched me and her mom told her to. I heard her mom tell her to. And she forced her to do some... she said she would do something and Accuser #3 came in there and she said my mom said to touch you. And I said well, Accuser #3 please don't and she said well, she said she would do...l forgot what and then I said but Accuser #3, you don't have to do it and she said well, my mom said whatever she was going...my mom said she would do that or. .. and so, and so Accuser #3 touched me on my private and she said I had to do it back or she would hurt my mom too, or she would hurt my mom.
HOLLY: Who said that you had to do it back or they would touch your mom, or hurt your mom?
ACCUSER #1: Accuser #3.
HOLLY: Accuser #3 said that?
ACCUSER #1: Because her mom… Tonya told her to say that to me and so…

[Note: The story has now morphed from Accuser #1 and #3 being caught playing "doctor" to Tonya forcibly making her child, accuser #3, sexually assault Accuser #1. From Tonya having never threatened anyone to her directing her child to make threats against Ms Lamb.]

[Note: Accuser #2 told a story to Det. Deal, where she claimed Tonya AND her daughter took turns molesting Accuser #1 and #2 and another child at the same time while in Accuser #3's bedroom after breakfast on one occasion.]

ACCUSER #1: And so Accuser #3 took my hand and stuck it down her pants to her private.
HOLLY: Did she [Accuser #3] touch you on top of your clothes or underneath?
ACCUSER #1: Underneath
HOLLY: Okay. Where were you when this happened?
ACCUSER #1: In her [Accuser #3’s] bedroom.
HOLLY: Okay. And then you said that she [Accuser #3] took your hand?
ACCUSER #1: Yes.
HOLLY: Okay. And what did she do with it?
ACCUSER #1: She stuck it down her pants.
HOLLY: When Accuser #3 touched your private, did she touch you inside...I mean inside your private or outside your private?
ACCUSER #1: Uh, she just touched and rubbed it.
HOLLY: The outside or the inside?
ACCUSER #1: Inside.
HOLLY: Inside?
ACCUSER #1: Well, no the outside is what I mean.
HOLLY: Okay. And then when she took your hand...
ACCUSER #1: Uh-huh.
HOLLY: Did you touch the inside or the outside of her private?
ACCUSER #1: The outside.

A few things should be clear to the reader. First, Kittle is utterly unqualified to be doing this interview, and it is clear that her job is simply to gain more incriminating “evidence” against Tonya Craft. Second, when a child is trying to make up things on the fly, even if he or she has been coached, there are going to be a lot of loose ends, and they are painfully obvious in this interview.

Was Tonya’s daughter taking a bath with this child or jumping on a trampoline or watching a movie, or whatever? Obviously, even in the LMJC, a little girl cannot be in two places at one time.

Why no mention of this alleged “digital penetration” in earlier interviews? The “suppressed memories” syndrome just won’t hunt here, as none of the children interviewed seemed particularly traumatized when they were interviewed in 2008. If you compare the three interviews you can see how the story changes from 2 girls caught playing "doctor" to not only Tonya committing sexual assault but her daughter as well at her mother’s direction.

This is not the product of children; it is the product of the adults, and the adults decided that the children were going to deliver one way or another – and they did. The parents and the principals of the LMJC had their agenda, and nothing – especially the truth – was going to stand in the way.