People Who Make False Child Abuse Claims Need to Be Investigated and Prosecuted

Child Protective Services and Prosecutors Not Telling the Truth when They Say They Can't Do Anything About It

The removal of more than 400 children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (FLDS) compound in Texas made front page news for several days in April. However, a follow-up Associated Press story revealing that the phone call that initiated the raid was a hoax got short shrift. Rozita Swinton, who has been arrested and charged with misdemeanors more than once for making false phone calls about child abuse, has been questioned by Texas Rangers and may be the person who made the phone call.

Few people are ever arrested for filing false child abuse reports even though it is a crime. In New York State it is a class A misdemeanor (Penal Code Subdivision 3, subsection 240.50). I am a news junkie, perusing several newspapers and blogs each day as well as monitoring many talk shows, and I have only heard of one person ever getting arrested for making a false report of child abuse. That was a Glens Falls resident, already on probation for another crime.

One reason why few people are arrested for making false claims of child abuse is that those in authority just don't take the problem serious enough. They don't even take it seriously when one man has had twelve false reports filed against him, apparently all by the same person.

A few weeks ago I listened with incredulity as Al Roney of WGY interviewed Keith Ferguson of Valley Falls in Rensselaer County. Ferguson has been investigated twelve times in the past two years by the county's Child Protective Services unit following reports that he had sexually abused his children. None of the investigations have turned up any abuse, and it's quite obvious that the anonymous phone calls to the child abuse hotline are stemming from one individual who, for whatever reason, has a vendetta against Ferguson.

The calls and resulting investigations have, as one can imagine, disrupted Ferguson's life. He has cooperated with Child Protective Services, even though he is not required to, and even took his daughter for a gynecological exam to prove that she had not been sexually abused.