Houses Divided : The Woody-Soon Yi Romance Has Sparked Questions About the Complex Ties That Bind the Modern Family : Abuse claims: ‘In custody cases, it is the atom bomb, it is the final weapon,’ says an attorney who represents parents accused of sexual molestation.

At one time it was adultery. Then it was drinking, followed by drug addiction or domestic violence. Now, over the past half-dozen years, child sexual abuse allegations have come to be seen as the most powerful “J’accuse” in divorce battles. The accusations have become so fraught with overtones of sinister gamesmanship that Woody Allen, in fighting recent allegations that he molested his 7-year-old adopted daughter, turned around and charged his accuser, Mia Farrow, with having played “the child abuse card.”

“In custody cases, it is the atom bomb, it is the final weapon,” said Allen R. McMahon, a Santa Ana attorney who has come to specialize in representing parents accused of sexual molestation.

But such high-stakes charges, while sometimes substantiated, are also complicated by both honest and hate-fueled misperceptions, torn loyalties of children and lack of evidence. Many experts say judges have become more skeptical, that the charges can backfire on the accuser and--whether true or false--can cause lifelong emotional damage to the children involved.

Social awareness and mandatory reporting have increased estimates of the incidence of sexual abuse in the United States from 1.87 per 10,000 children in 1978 to 15.88 per 10,000 in 1984. At the same time, charges of molestation in custody and visitation disputes have also risen, although researchers say they represent a small fraction, only about 2%, of the total divorce cases.

Nevertheless, “They assume a dimension far beyond their numbers,” said Hugh McIsaac, manager of Family Court Services in Los Angeles County Superior Court’s Conciliation Court. “They are very emotional. They take a lot of time. It is very damaging to kids to be in that situation where allegations made are not true, and obviously, very damaging when they are true.”

Contrary to popular belief, custody-related molestation charges are no less valid than charges leveled by the general population, said sociologist Nancy Thoennes, of the Center for Policy Research in Denver. Her 1987 study of 169 cases involving allegations of sexual abuse in custody disputes in eight jurisdictions, including Los Angeles, found that about half appeared to involve some abuse, which is similar to the population at large. Most of the charges of the unsubstantiated cases were “probably made in good faith,” she said.

Researchers say many charges are based on a misperception of non-sexual behavior.

Said therapist Jay Lebow, an evaluator for Chicago Child Custody Consultants, “A young child can offer you a report of ‘Daddy took a shower with me.’ Given you have a mind-set that says, ‘I think this person has gone crazy and is doing all sorts of abnormal things,’ you can digest this information as being a statement of abuse when in fact it is only suggesting what might be very normal behavior. Or Dad sleeps with a 7-year-old daughter during visitation. It’s inappropriate, but not abuse.”

While the vast majority of those accused of child sexual abuse are men, it is believed that ex-husbands, new boyfriends or other male relatives make nearly as many accusations as do mothers.

“I hesitated because of the fear of being perceived as a vindictive parent,” said a 33-year-old Santa Barbara father of two who reported his brother-in-law to Child Protective Services in the midst of a custody battle. His children, ages 3 and 4, had repeatedly talked about mutual touching of genitals while taking baths with their uncle. “You don’t want to believe this,” he said. “But you have to do it. They’re your kids and they’re so small.”

The allegations were never substantiated, he said.

As with Mia and Woody, the allegations often arise in a emotionally charged atmosphere where both sides adamantly believe they are right. Attorneys say accusers often don’t realize the complex machinery they set in motion, that often involves repeated court appearances and interviews and an escalation of charges and countercharges. How long the dispute lasts often depends on “how much money they have and how much they hate each other,” McIsaac said.

Linda Fuentes Rosner, 44, had no idea when she accused her ex-husband of molestating one of her daughters that she would still be fighting eight years later, nor that after $60,000, scores of court appearances and countless therapy and mediation sessions, she would lose custody of her three children to him.

Denying the charges, her husband then accused her of physically abusing the children. Now, she says, “They claim I am a psychological danger to the children.” She hasn’t seen them in 20 months.

Rosner, who works as an interpreter for L.A. County courts, has begun a Pasadena-based support group for both mothers and fathers fighting for custody. “Even if I can’t have my kids, I can help others,” she said.

She has no regrets, even though she said her children’s lives have been “decimated.”

“I know someday they’re going to come to me. They’ll know I refused to cave in and roll over and play dead.

“If I’d just stayed quiet, they would have been decimated, too. These kids were doomed from the beginning. It’s a horrible thing. They’ll have to go through years of therapy to be freed from what’s happened to them.”

Another couple, McIsaac said, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and 12 years fighting over their four children. It began when a maid saw the father kiss his daughter good night. Their youngest was 6 when the battle began and 18 when it finished inconclusively. “It bankrupted each of them,” McIsaac said.

Evaluators admit the science of assessing child sexual abuse is far from refined.

According to Sacramento psychologist Herbert N. Weissman, there are no generally accepted profiles of victims nor abusers. A large percentage of children who have been molested may exhibit no symptoms at all, while unmolested children may have symptoms that can be misattributed to sexual abuse. Other recognized symptoms, such as fear, anxiety, depression, anger, withdrawal, sexual preoccupation and school or sleep difficulties can be traced to normal development. In some cases, the children are imitating behavior of adults they’ve seen at home or on television.

Children particularly are highly suggestible as witnesses and their memories easily distorted, he said.

In one Massachusetts case, a mother with shared custody was unable to prove the father had sexually molested the girl. In the course of numerous evaluations, the child repeatedly swung between total retraction and steadfast allegations of abuse. After five years, 27 witnesses, evaluations from Harvard Medical School, “no more of the single truth is known than was known in the summer of 1985,” wrote an appellate court judge who concluded any further evaluation of sexual abuse would place the girl at greater psychological risk.

Because children can be stimulated by the repeated questioning of psychologists, police and lawyers, some experts even suggest videotaping a child’s early testimony, as did Mia Farrow, to avoid the trauma as well as the distortions that the process can produce.

“I think it ruins them for life,” said researcher Ralph Underwager, director of the Institute for Psychological Therapies in Northfield, Minn.

“You have taught an innocent child about all manner of explicit and frequently deviant sexual behavior.”

He said he is testifying this week in the case of a father who accused his wife of sexual abuse, then when medical examiners found no evidence, took the child to Canada. “This father has persuaded this child that the mother was involved in all manner of Satanic and ritualistic abuse, forced her to drink blood, kill babies, the whole procedure. This child, I will testify, has been destroyed. She believes she is a victim of Satanic ritual abuse and for all practical purposes she is.”

Most observers agree the system is a mess--either for not protecting children enough, or by trying too hard to lay blame.

“The unspoken tragedy is how public this is and how damaging,” McIsaac said.

He believes the Mia-Woody dispute cries for mediation, not court proceedings. “It’s an interesting story, but think of the damage it’s doing to these children. Thirty years from now they will be known as ‘the Woody Allen children’ and will bear the label for the rest of their lives.

“That in itself is probably the greatest child abuse.”