Suit Claims Brother’s Abuse Caused Multiple Personalities

In an unusual legal move, a Garden Grove woman sued her brother Wednesday, contending she has become a multiple personality because he raped and molested her repeatedly during her childhood and adolescence.

The woman contends in her lawsuit that her older brother molested her so often that her psychological defense mechanisms took over. She said the assaults continued from the time she was 6 years old until she was 16.

The woman “became subject to extreme psychological defense mechanisms including denial, repression and disassociation from her experiences to the point that she became what is termed a ‘multiple personality,’ ” says the lawsuit filed in Superior Court in Santa Ana.

Her “central personality became unconscious” during the assaults and she buried the incidents in her mind, developing other personalities to cope with the trauma, the suit says.

Her attorney, R. Richard Farnell, said while it is unusual for someone to take action against an assailant so long after the incident, the attacks were so emotionally painful that the woman repressed them and only unearthed the memories recently through psychotherapy.

The brother, who lives in Ventura, denied the allegations in the lawsuit and characterized his sister as “mad at the world.”

“She has threatened my life on the phone, threatened to sue me, extort money from me and kill me,” he said, adding that he hasn’t seen her since the summer.

The woman had no opportunity to press criminal charges against her brother because the statute of limitations on rape had expired by the time she realized what had happened to her, Farnell said.