Two women in Oklahoma have been arrested for making false accusations and false claims about one woman’s husband to help her win an upcoming custody battle.
Law officers in Garvin County, OK, said one of the women and her friend tried to frame the husband by placing graphic sexual images of young children on his old cell phone.
Authorities said the women delivered the phone to the Wynnewood Police Department on April 18. Garvin County Sheriff’s Department officials then joined in the case.
The husband was soon arrested and jailed—but only for one night. Officers became suspicious when they found no images of child pornography on the man’s current phone—but only on the old phone his wife had brought them.
They questioned the women, and soon the wife confessed to the plot, saying she had made the false report of a crime as a way to protect their child.
In doing so, she and her accomplice only managed to subject themselves to felony charges. These charges include conspiracy to commit a felony and knowingly reporting a false crime. In addition, the charges include aggravated possession of child porn images and violation of the Computer Crimes Act, according to KFOR TV News in Oklahoma City.
In Texas as well as in Oklahoma, a conviction of such charges can bring high fines and prison sentences of many years.
Upon arrest, the women were placed in jail. The man was released. The wife remains in jail with a $250,000 bond. The other woman bonded out of jail.
Garvin County Sheriff Jim Mullett said he’d never “seen anything this detailed and this so thought out to try to get somebody put away. It was a big plot, but we unfolded it.”
He said the 2 women used the husband’s old phone last December to take over 850 screenshots of child pornography via the Internet’s dark web. They then rehearsed the story they would tell the police.
“To take the time to find all these screenshots, you know, it’s very disturbing. Very, very disturbing,” the sheriff said. “This is over the top.”
He said the wife’s story “was believable at first,” but not for long.
False claims of sexual abuse can be common
From schools to show business to couples’ relationships, false claims of sexual assault or sexual abuse can be common.
But innocent victims of such false accusations have legal remedies that begin with seeking the best criminal defense lawyer they can find. Along with defending the legal rights of a victim of false claims, a criminal defense lawyer also can provide resources for those facing false claims of a sex crime.
The award-winning Neal Davis Law Firm has years of experience helping persons in Houston or throughout Harris County, in Sugar Land or throughout Fort Bend County and in The Woodlands or throughout Montgomery County. Contact us today for a private consultation on your case.
Custody, divorce fights and vengeance spur many false claims
As research has revealed and the Oklahoma case substantiates, most false child sex abuse claims—perhaps as much as 70 percent—are made by adults who are attempting to gain leverage in a legal proceeding, such as a child custody battle or divorce settlement.
False claims of sexual assault or child sexual abuse also may be made by some adults to take revenge against the accused person. A lover or a spouse may have been spurned and then might take out their anger by making unsubstantiated claims of sex crimes against their ex.
Years of sustained and bitter attacks by actress Mia Farrow against former boyfriend Woody Allen and by Angelina Jolie against former husband Brad Pitt are widely believed to be cases of false claims made in order to exact vengeance. After investigations, neither man has been arrested or charged with a child sexual abuse crime.
Overall, a study reported by the non-profit Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence showed that up to 7.6 percent of all reports of child sex abuse are based on false allegations. Yet another study reported that up to 10 percent of all child abuse claims are false.
