FALSE RAPE ALLEGATIONS
Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd Discusses False Child Sexual Assault Allegations and Defending the Wrongly Accused
In April 2008, after coming home late from a party, a Wunsche High School student told her father that she had been sexually assaulted at the party by a fellow student. The following day 54-year-old Ruben Cuellar-Romo went with his daughter to her school, and when the daughter pointed out a student as her attacker, Cuellar-Roma stabbed the male student in the chest, stomach and hand. Police quickly determined that the assaulted student, Joshua Chapa, had not been at the party and, therefore, could not have assaulted the girl. Cuellar-Roma was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and remains in the Harris County Jail under a $30,000 bond.
The case garnered extensive local media coverage, leading the evening television newscasts hyped by a number of pre-broadcast teases. The Houston Chronicle also gave the case prominent coverage. Then the alleged teenage victim, according Harris County Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. John Legg, started feeling guilty and recanted the false sexual assault allegation. The recantation story was buried deep in Chronicle. No charges have been filed against the victim.
“We are cognizant of the fact that she is young,” Lt. Legg was quoted in the abbreviated Chronicle article. “Unfortunately, the nature of her lie is very serious.”
To say that the “nature of her lie is very serious” is an understatement at best. False sexual assault allegations and “mistaken identification” influenced by police and victim misconduct are far more prevalent in this country’s criminal justice system than most people realize. Innocent men have spent decades of their lives in prison because of false or tainted mistaken identification in sexual assault cases. (more…)
