Ken Lewis Blog

Friday, April 18, 2008

Child Sex Abuse

It was almost two decades ago and was the first of dozens of child sex abuse case I handled. The two young boys on the videotape just kept fidgeting, looking at each other, and giggling inappropriately. My first thought was that they must be hiding something or were being dishonest. The therapist patiently explained to me that this was the way child sex abuse victims acted because they were nervous and did not know how to react to what had happened to them. The therapist encouraged me to just wait and watch. Soon one of the boys picked up the anatomically correct larger doll and then placed its penis in the smaller doll's mouth, while both boys were very quiet and upset looking. As we quietly watched the videotapes of two days of thearapy, the horrible nightmare the two boys had experienced over several years slowly unfolded. Only after watching all of the videotape and asking dozens of questions of the therapist did I talk with the young victims. Once the floodgate of their memories of abuse started, it did not stop for a long time and left me very upset.

The parents described the behavior changes of the boys: Declining grades, vandalism, cruelty to and torture of animals, withdrawal, moodiness. The molester convinced his therapist that only a single event of abuse with one boy had occurred and then the therapist convinced the prosecutor that was the case. The molestor kept his governmental job while he served a probated sentence for the plea bargained unadjudicated, non-final criminal conviction. Only when confronted with the intimate details of his conduct under oath in the civil case did he admit for the first time to the hundreds of incidences of abuse with each boy.

The trial was gut-wrenching for the jury but it did not take the jurors long to return a very significant verdict for the boys against the abuser. The defendant appealed the verdict unsuccessfully. In the meantime, the insurance company for the abuser filed a lawsuit to avoid paying the judgment but lost that case at the trial court level. Many years after the abuse occurred the abuser's insurance company finally paid a settlement in the case, but then worked to change the appellate courts and the law so that homeowner's liability insurance would no longer provide insurance coverage for sexual abuse. These boys had some good fortune in the end in their civil case but nothing could ever erase what a trusted adult had perpetrated on them. Lawyers, jurors, and everyone else involved in these type cases are forever changed.

Labels: Child Sex Abuse