Defense Against False Child Abuse Allegations

If you or a loved one have been falsely accused of child abuse and need an excellent team to get your life back contact us for a free consultation.  Meet National Legal Professional Associates (NLPA). NLPA is owned and operated by licensed attorneys. NLPA works with experts including Ph.D. trained psychologist and professors skilled in dealing with unreliable testimony and allegations concerning child abuse and neglect.

• NLPA is here to help all individuals
• Advocates for justice and is a proud supporter and ally with this agency
• Wesley Robinson, J.D., Director of Research & Analysis
• Research team of attorneys and experts who have helped overturn 1000's of cases
• Can refer you to attorneys in any jurisdiction
• Go to Contact Us or call 239-631-5352 for a free consultation.

In prosecutions of alleged child maltreatment, including alleged sexual abuse, the chief evidence typically consists of children’s eyewitness testimony. Though children can make competent witnesses in some situations, the dynamics that determine the reliability of their reports are complex. Children’s memory is susceptible to suggestions from forensic interviewers, but it can also be tainted by conversations with peers, caretakers, or other sources of external information (exposure to media or pornography). In addition, children’s developing cognitive and linguistics abilities mean their testimony is susceptible to other types of errors, such as source misattribution, confabulation, and spontaneous memory intrusions.  NLPA works with internationally recognized experts on children’s eyewitness memory who can help:

1.  Determine if best practices were followed during a child forensic interview.
2.  Determine if best practices were followed during the broader investigation, including whether proper corroborating and/or exonerative evidence was pursued and properly documented.
3.  Help identify alternative explanations for children’s allegations.
4.  Reinterview child witnesses and corroborating witnesses (outcry witnesses).
5.  Identify potential sources of error in children’s testimony, including suggestion that may have occurred outside of a forensic interview.
6.  Help determine if an expert witness on children’s testimony should have been called in your case.
7.  Help you retain an expert on children’s memory if needed.

Boost Your Own Credibility/Reputation

To beat the false allegation of child abuse, you may have to testify—to state your own case. It is crucial you be believable and your statement be credible. Here are some examples of ways you can demonstrate your credibility:

1. Obtain character witness statements.
2. Tell the truth.
3. Be consistent in your statements.
4. Pass a lie detector test/polygraph. This should not be performed by law enforcement.
5. Obtain statements from witnesses that corroborate your own (such as an alibi).
6. Pass a psychological evaluation. This requires hiring an expert witness, such as a psychiatrist.

Attack the Sufficiency of the Evidence Against You

We will focus a great deal of attention on the evidence gathered against you by child protective services (CPS), law enforcement, and any other state licensing agencies during their investigation of the false allegation of child abuse. Here are some specific things we consider to undermine the government’s case:

1. Inconsistencies and contradictions made by witnesses. Look for inconsistencies among multiple witnesses and also inconsistencies within a single witness’s statement.
2. Inconsistencies and contradictions made by the author of a report, such as the investigating social worker or a police officer. Do they make conclusions that are consistent with the evidence? Is their logic sound?
3. Gaps/holes in the investigation. Particularly, look for 3 things: a) Questions the investigator should have asked a witness, but failed to ask; b) Witnesses the investigator should have interviewed, but failed to interview; c) Evidence (such as photographs, video, documents, for example) the investigator should have obtained, but failed to obtain.
4. Evidence that undermines (attacks, weakens, disproves, etc.) the government’s case and the allegations against you. We’re focusing specifically on evidence we know would be helpful to your case. Look to see if the investigator made any effort to look for evidence in your favor. Did the investigator go into the investigation with a preconceived notion about what the result of the investigation was supposed to be (i.e., against you).
5. Bias (in favor of something/someone) or prejudice (against something/someone) on the part of the investigator or a witness. Also look for motive to lie or motive to not to do due diligence.
6. Alternate, reasonable theories of the case. One example of this might be an alternative explanation of what caused a child’s injury–something other than abuse, such as a sports injury, a fight with a sibling, etc.
7. Confirmation bias. Confirmation bias involves a tendency to interpret evidence as confirmation of one’s already-existing beliefs or theories. All types of investigators are subject to fall victim to their own already-existing theories, including police officers, social workers, licensing investigators, and forensic interviewers. One way to catch this is to see if the government is coming to conclusions without taking any steps to verify or confirm the conclusion.
8. Create a plan of action–specific steps you will take and specific people you will talk to and specific documents you will obtain–to follow to prepare your defense.
9. Chronology/timeline of events that you should write out. A written timeline can help you: a) more fully understand the story of what happened, b) tell the story better (which we may end up doing in your hearing), c) look at your case in a different way, that may cause you to realize there’s an issue you can exploit that you didn’t see previously, and d) remember important parts of the story that you had previously forgotten or not realized were relevant.
10. CSAAS: This stands for Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome. Many government agencies (especially prosecutors) like to employ experts to testify about this syndrome.

If you want to receive a review of how to correct the damaging allegations made against you, please contact NLPA.  We have been assisting clients for more than 28 years fight the false claims by the government.  NLPA incorporates the research prepared by its lawyers and experts in the field of the government’s utilizing false allegations concerning child neglect and abuse (See CV of Dr. Jason Dickinson & Dr. Elliot B. Oppenheim)