Our client was a cyber security engineer who was falsely accused of molesting his 12-year-old daughter.
He had previously gone through a bitter divorce with his ex-wife and the two of them shared joint custody of the kids. Our client was contacted by a detective with the Alpharetta Police Department and, shortly thereafter, we were retained to represent him.
First, we collected every bit of digital evidence in the client’s possession. This included all of his text messages, as well as the phone and iPad used by his daughter. We also scoured the daughter’s social media posts and found a wealth of information.
We learned that leading up to the day of the allegation, the daughter had been in trouble at school for a series of disciplinary issues. The most recent incident occurred two weeks prior and placed the daughter at risk of being suspended from school.
On our client’s phone, there were a series of text messages between he and his daughter that were sent before and after the allegations were made against him. These messages gave clear indications that the allegations were false.
From the daughter’s iPad, we learned that she had been spending a great deal of time on a website called wattpad—a site where people (mostly teens) write and share short stories. On the site, the daughter had recently written a story about a character who wanted her stepmom to die. She was also reading stories that contained graphic sexual details, as well as one that had a character who was abused by her dad.
There were also a number of Facebook posts and messages that showed a very close relationship she was developing with her mom’s boyfriend’s daughter. They referred to each other as “sisters” and talked about living together soon. We felt that this established another motive for the false allegation.
We also sent our client for a private polygraph exam, the results of which confirmed that he was telling the truth about his innocence.
Once we were able to gather all of this evidence, we presented it to both the police and the district attorney’s office. Ultimately, they agreed to dismiss the case prior to any arrest being made.
Categories | Child Molestation Cases,