When a Dream Goes Bad

There’s a cul-de-sac of pleasant people and well-kept homes in a relatively new tract on the eastside of Palmdale.

The neighbors are friendly, children play together and on certain holidays the street is roped off for block parties.

A couple I’ll call George and Linda moved there from L.A. a few years ago because it seemed to offer the kind of peaceful environment they were looking for.

Far removed from factories and freeways, the area is so quiet that even the wind sighs like a sleeping child in the deep tranquillity of the desert.

The couple bought a new, three-bedroom home at a price they could afford and settled into what seemed the fulfillment of a dream.

Then one day George, an electrical engineer, got a call at work. It was from his wife. The date was May 11, 1995.

She said the police were there and wanted to take away their 5-year-old son Kip (not his real name). A sheriff’s deputy got on the phone and said George had been identified in a crime and should come home immediately.

Once there, he was questioned about a children’s party held the previous autumn at a house across the street where Kip and a boy I’ll call Timmy had supposedly pulled down their trousers. George said he’d heard about it and told them not to do it again.

He was asked by the deputies to accompany them to the Palmdale station and, confused by the line of questioning, George was booked on suspicion of sexually abusing his son and Timmy.

It was the beginning of a nightmare.

*

“I was stunned, angry and depressed all at the same time,” George said the other day, sitting in an office-den of his tan stucco home. He’s a trim, handsome man who looks much younger than his 43 years.

“They set bail at $100,000, but I wasn’t going to pay it because I knew I was innocent. I offered to take a lie detector test and kept offering all through the ordeal.”

The accusation had been brought by Timmy’s mother; call her Michelle. She said Timmy had told her George sodomized both him and Kip.

The case was investigated by sheriff’s Det. David Fletcher. Medical and psychological examinations of both boys proved negative. Fletcher’s conclusion: “There wasn’t a shred of evidence. [George] was completely innocent.” He was released from jail after three days and never charged.

Subsequently, Fletcher said, Timmy admitted he’d lied, and Michelle’s husband said his wife had made up the whole thing.

A child abuse expert, Fletcher said Michelle had been molested as a little girl and needed help. Eventually, Michelle and her husband separated, defaulted on their mortgage and left the area.

The L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services had meanwhile removed Kip from his home. The boy could be with his mother, but only if they lived separately from his father.

The separation lasted 145 days.

*

Despite the lack of evidence against George, the county agency would not reunite the family.

“It was a classic example of the DCS refusing to let something go,” Det. Fletcher said. “They just never want to admit they’ve made a mistake even when the charge is proved false.”

Eventually, George was allowed to take a lie detector test administered by the Sheriff’s Department and passed without a hitch. The family was reunited two days later.

Acknowledging a complaint from George, Bill Lamb, chief of the children’s services operations bureau for the State Department of Social Services, said that although the allegations were unfounded, the removal of George’s son from the family home was justified.

DCS Public Relations Director Victoria Pipkin-Lane acknowledged “disruptions” in George’s life, but said sexual abuses charges are serious and must be investigated thoroughly. Pipkin-Lane added: “Some investigations take longer than others.”

What remains after exoneration is an uneasiness in the neighborhood that once seemed so tranquil. One neighbor says that a sense of guilt prevails because of a first impression that the charges against George might have been true.

He adds: “Down deep the feeling persists, did we do this man wrong?”

Many wondered if Michelle’s accusations were racially motivated. George is black, his wife white. George feels that bigotry did play a part, others doubt it.

The trauma in his life rests there.

Blessed with a family that loved him, friends who believed in him and a company that stood by him, George endured a nightmare that lasted five months. But the feeling of having been violated will last for years to come.

And it will take even longer for life to resume the sweetness he once knew on an island of paradise in the High Desert.