The question is, if you are being falsely accused of child sexual abuse, do you believe your attorney if they say, "Now is not the time," "You can't prove you didn't do it" or "Let's wait and see, before we get excited." Point in fact, several years ago, the wife of a doctor in a northeastern state, talked him into purchasing a new home. Immediately thereafter, she got a new car and a face lift, then told him to "leave." Stunned, he said, not unless he had "shared parenting" with his children, so an agreement was reached where the husband and wife would each have the children 50% of the time.

For the next 21 months, they were involved in divorce mediation and not once did anyone have a problem with the visitation arrangement regarding the children. At the end of mediation, the last issue was, the "value" of the doctor's practice. The wife wanted it. The doctor put his foot down and said, no way. He had his practice long before he was married and spent a small fortune educating her. She told him that if he refused, she would bring "skeletons out of the closet." He told her to do whatever she needed.

Several days later, a letter surfaced from the wife's 30-year-old son, by a prior marriage, advising that some 15 years earlier, the doctor had sexually molested him. At that time, the doctor was referred to us, but his attorney told him "now is not the time," and, retaining us would be a waste of time and money because "we could not prove something didn't happen that never really did happen."

The doctor listened to the attorney and, for the next 9 months, watched as his life all but crumbled. When a custody evaluator and a psychologist for the doctor's children got involved, the doctor suddenly found himself seeing his children only in a supervised capacity.

His attorney told him not to rock the boat and just weather out the storm, but the storm just kept getting worse. Finally, after 9 months of living hell, he did retain me. In discussions with him and, after going over everything, a plan of attack was developed. Megan's Law, the law that requires a sex offender to register, was our theme. Basically, that law states that we, as parents, have the right to know that a convicted child molester has moved in next door, but provides us no say so as to their being there. In short, a man and wife have 5 small children and, the man who just moved in next door to them was just released from prison, a true child predator, but there is nothing that couple can do except carefully watch their children and "hope for the best."

Based on that law, I developed a "form," in which the idea was to approach legislation and ask that parents have some safeguards to protect their children. The form asked many personal questions, such as name, address, telephone number, employment and then got into a basic family history with questions like, "Has anyone in your family ever been accused, charged or convicted of molesting a child?" "Have you ever known a child molester?" Have you ever been accused of child molesting?" "Have you ever been sexually molested by anyone?"

Once I had the questions properly prepared, I took my form to Kinko's and had them type set it, put it into "pad" format and then put onto a clip board. Once complete, I had two women complete surveys in various areas, so we could determine what questions we might be asked and assure that the responses we provided were accurate. Why did I use women? In most cases, people will not turn a woman away who is conducting a survey as fast as they might a man, and strategy is the key to success.

Once the women had become very efficient, they went to the west coast, where the accuser lived. They conducted surveys in his immediate neighborhood and then, finally talked with him. The reason for using two women was, California is a two-party recording stated and, legally, we could not audio tape the interview without permission from the accuser. Since that was not about to happen, I wanted to assure that there were two witnesses involved in the interview.

After casual introductions, one of the women read all the questions to the accused, after which he took the form and completed it, in it's entirety. He stated that he had never been molested by anyone and also said he had an uncle who had been accused of molesting a child, but that was just before he was born and he did not know what happened. Point is, he "discussed" molesting within his family and denied that he had ever been molested personally. In that the accuser's responses slightly startled the women, once he had completed the form, they re-read all questions to him again, to make sure he understood them and that his responses were accurate. Keep in mind, they read him the questions once, he personally read them when he provided his responses and, then the questions were again read, for a third time.

The survey worked like a charm. The accuser had absolutely no idea that the questions he was responding to had anything at all to do with his allegations, all the way across the country so, simply put, he told the "truth."

Once completed, I took the form, showed it to the attorney and said, "Do you remember when you said you could not "prove" something didn't happen that really never did happen?" Needless to say, he was shocked.

At trial, the accuser testified that my client had sexually molested him. On cross, he was asked if he had ever told anyone he had never been molested. He stated that he had not, because he had. He was then asked if he ever "signed" any statement where he said he had never been molested. Whoops! He remembered! He made two very weak defense arguments. One, he said he did not want to discuss something that personal and two, he was just trying to get rid of the interviewers. Neither held water. He had discussed molesting when he brought up his uncle and since all questions were discussed three times, there was hardly room for an argument that he was just trying to get rid of the interviewers. That form was admitted into evidence when one of the women took the stand and that ended his "false allegation."

The point here is simple. When falsely accused of child sexual abuse, "waiting" to defend solves nothing. Without question, it is possible to "prove" that something didn't happen that never really did, but it takes a little imagination. The word "can't" simply means "won't." Each case is different, but if you care about your client and are not simply "going through the motions," you will find a way to "prove" innocense. Just because someone says it cannot be done does not make it so. No, that survey form we used here certainly would not be the answer in most cases, but it does prove that something can be done when you honestly care about defending your client. If you are being falsely accused of child sexual abuse and your attorney tells you, "Now is not the time," "Don't rock the boat" or "You can't prove it," you have two choices. Believe the attorney or talk with someone who does have experience in providing a proper defense. The issue here really is simple. Who do you "bet" your life on?