Subject: Allen Wells -> George Paouris (Was Re: IMPORTANT - Write to congratulate "Current Affair")

From: [email-masked] (aaron.l.hoffmeyer)
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 13:32:04 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Mark Rosenthal) writes:
>Last night, the magazine format TV show "Current Affair" had a segment
>on false allegations of child sexual abuse in divorce.  Ken Pangborn,
>a men's rights activist and victim of such an allegation was interviewed.
>They also presented the case of a man who convinced the court of his
>innocence and won custody of his children.  His ex-wife, enraged at having
>lost custody, stalked him and gunned him down in cold blood on his front lawn!
>Now that she has gotten the father out of the road, this murderer is again
>suing for custody!

In November, 1992, _Texas Monthly_ magazine did a feature story on a
man who had been falsely accused of sexually abusing his child by a
malicious ex-wife in her efforts to get sole custody.  This father
fought long and hard, and even though presumed guilty and treated as
though he were guilty by the courts until a dramatic trial, was in the
end exonerated and was awarded sole custody.  The _Texas Monthly_
article was posted several times (once as an inclusion in the
Newsletter I post) in these forums.  Last night I received an email
message that told me that this man has been subsequently murdered by
his ex-wife.  The person sending me the email message had seen the
story on _A Current Affair Extra_.  Although the person sending me the
email message couldn't recall the last name, the other details
provided, including first names, makes me 99.9% sure this is the case.

This is the _Texas Monthly_ article....

Injured Parties
By Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje
 
George Paouris was accused of molesting his child. A civil court
disagreed, but damage had been done--to all involved.
 
Of all the destinies George Paouris might have imagined for himself
during the long trip from Greece to Texas a little more than two years
ago, none included sitting in a San Antonio courtroom, trying to
convince a judge that he did not kiss his young daughter's genitals.
 
"I have no way to protect myself, except to be saying the truth and to
stick with it," says the 32-year-old former Greek navy officer, a tall,
dark-haired man who now works as a mechanic in a grocery warehouse. "If
I am found guilty, it will affect my life forever. If I am found
innocent, the person who accuses me will just walk away--no punishment."
 
The person doing the accusing is his ex-wife, Dolores Lopez Markee.
Paouris maintains that he is innocent.
 
He and his present wife, Terri, say that Markee has fabricated these
charges to eject her former husband from her life. She is an unstable
woman, say the Paourises, who repeatedly has moved from place to place.
They fear she is poisoning Raquel's mind. In response to the sexual
abuse charges, last November Paouris and 37-year-old Terri filed a
motion in civil courts to gain custody of Raquel.
 
Paouris' tale is a dismal but by no means an isolated one. Talk to
family attorneys, and they will tell you that since the mid-eighties,
more and more frequently women have been using charges of child sex
abuse as weapons in divorce, custody, and visitation battles. And they
are using them effectively: "All you have to do is mention child sex
abuse," says 225th District Court judge John Specia, "and you never get
the smell out of the jury box."
 
A cadre of psychologists has devoted reams of paper to the subject,
and two researchers have even coined a term, SAID, or sexual
allegations in divorce syndrome.
 
Patricia Toth, the director of the National Center for the Prose-
cution of Child Abuse, is convinced that most accusations are well
founded and that the notion of an epidemic of false charges is
ludicrous. "These types of cases take up much more time and involve
many more people than those where sex abuse charges don't come up," she
says. "That's why people may be perceiving it as an epidemic, not
because of sheer numbers. They just aren't there."
 
Dan Price, family attorney in Austin who says he has seen an
exponential rise in revenge-accusations cases in the past ten years,
begs to differ. "I'm so god-damned sick and tired of `err on the side
of the child' business," he says. "An allegation may start out being
accidental or negligent, but once it's made, these women hold on to it.
You should see them sitting in court. It's all they can do to bite
their lips to keep from grinning."
 
What has happened to George Paouris could serve as a textbook case of
the phenomenon. First there's the timing. In almost all such incidents,
the charges arise *after* the separation or divorce, usually in the midst
of an unpleasant custody or visitation dispute. Almost always the
child--usually under six years old--has spoken only to the mother about
the abuse.
 
Once the child speaks up, the mother takes the youngster to a doctor,
where a thorough physical exam is performed and records are made. The
mother is told to contact the child protective services division of
the Texas Department of Human Services (now the Department of
Protective and Regulatory Services), where the child is then
interviewed by social workers, sometimes repeatedly. The case may end
up in civil or--less often--criminal court.
 
During the investigation, the father is not allowed to be alone with
the child; if necessary, a paid supervisor is hired from one of the
companies that have sprung up like mushrooms around the country in
recent years. In San Antonio one such company, called, strangely
enough, Fit for a King, charges $40 to $50 for a four-hour
supervision.  Today Paouris' Fit for a King supervisor is Marge, a
plump, pleasant-looking woman, who like almost everyone else who has
spent time with Paouris, says she is convinced that he did not sexually
abuse Raquel.

"My own daughter was molested by a relative, so if anyone would be
suspicious, it would be me," says Marge, watching Paouris as he stands
in front of Raquel while she swings. With each upward arc of her Little
Mermaid tennis shoes, he pretends to bite her toes, and she dissolves
into giggles.
 
George Paouris and Dolores Lopez married in 1984. They moved to Greece
and began a tumultuous relationship in which Dolores periodically left
her husband to return to the United States, according to George. He
eventually managed a discharge from the Navy and returned to America
to try to patch things up, but Dolores would have none of it. From that
point on, George found it harder and harder to see his daughter.
 
In 1991, the Paourises began divorce proceedings, the same year the
alleged abuse occurred. In May and October of that year, according to
her sworn affidavit, Dolores said Raquel had told her that George had
kissed her "koo-koo-pops"--a Lopez-family term for genitalia--during two
visits with him and had also engaged in various other sex acts.
 
After both instances, Dolores took Raquel to the hospital for pelvic
exams. In the first, the report came back normal; in the second, the
doctor wrote that Raquel's vulva was slightly irritated. Subsequently
Dolores contacted the DHS. Twice the agency conducted videotaped
interviews with Raquel; both times its finding was "unable to
determine" if abuse had occurred.
 
In the meantime, Dolores lobbied the Bexar County district attorney's
office, demanding action. That finally got results. The DA's office
presented the videotapes to a grand jury, which returned a criminal
indictment. On May 12, 1992, George was arrested. He was released the
next morning to await court proceedings in the fall. The civil case
was scheduled for July 16.
 
Of all tricky areas of dealing with child sexual abuse, perhaps the
trickiest is gathering evidence from the alleged victim. This is a task
that falls to the caseworkers, and it is one that critics say the
workers are unqualified to perform. To be a caseworker at the
Department of Protective and Regulatory Service, all a person needs is
a college degree. It can be in anything--music, botany, social work.
After nine to twelve weeks of training, workers are making decisions
that can change people's lives.
 
David Reilly, the director or regional operations, says that while
caseworkers are not specifically instructed in how to detect false
allegations, they are taught how to ascertain a child's credibility.
Austin family attorney Price, however, minces no words in his
criticism of the agency's procedures. Their goal, he says, is not
to determine if abuse occurred; it is to determine that it did.
 
"You ask a DHS caseworker how to detect if an allegation is false, and
their eyes glaze over," says Price.
 
One particular problem is that young children are susceptible to
suggestion. They also aim to please--especially their parents. If a
child senses that the mother suspects something happened, the child may
agree that it did. Couple this tendency with caseworkers who may feel
it necessary to ask very young children leading questions--"Who
touched your pee-pee?" "Did Daddy touch your pee-pee?"--and the waters
become irrevocably muddied. They get even muddier with the use of
anatomically correct dolls, essentially Raggedy Anns and Andys with
pubic hair, breasts, and penises.
 
The problem with the dolls is that both abused and non-abused children
play with them in the same way, as a spate of studies has shown. "You
give me anybody's three- to six-year-old child and some anatomically
correct dolls, and I'll have them accusing somebody of sex abuse by
midnight," says Price.
 
On a muggy morning in late July, the cast of players in the psy-
chodrama that had become Raquel Paouris' life assembled around wooden
tables in the 150th District Court of Judge Carleton B. Spears, 34,
who would listen to and decide on the testimony in the civil custody
case. At one table sat 30-year-old Dolores Markee. Next to her sat her
fourth husband, Richard, a construction manager with Sitterle
Home Builders. Denise Martinez--Markee's third and most recent
attorney--sat next to him.
 
At the next table were Paouris, his attorney--Shirley Ehrlich and Alma
Lopez--and Terri. Terri has championed her husband's case almost since
the day she met him in May 1991, after the sex abuse charges had
already been made.
 
Over the next six days, a string of witnesses flowed through the
courtroom. Terri testified that during the October visit, the only time
Paouris and Raquel were out of her sight was the few minutes when he
took her to use the bathroom. Markee's ex-husband Ralph Serrano
testified that Markee had an unstable life-style and that they had
battled over visitation for their son, Ralph Junior.
 
At one point, the trial was halted so that the attorneys and the judge
could view two DHS tapes of interviews with Raquel. In the first tape,
a caseworker John Garcia helped Raquel remove the male doll's pants. In
the second tape, Raquel lifted a doll's crotch to her mouth after being
prompted ceaselessly by another caseworker as to where, exactly, her
father had kissed her. That scene was, apparently, the nail that sealed
the criminal indictment against Paouris.
 
After the first tape, Garcia testified that he thought Raquel had been
telling the truth about being abused, even though the DHS report had
said that nothing could be substantiated. Garcia also said that after
viewing the tape, Markee had jumped up to give him a hug and a kiss on
the cheek. Most parents are not overjoyed if they believe their child
has been abused, he testified; they are upset.
 
Denise Martinez, Markee's attorney, sought to bolster the mother's
case. She called Dr. Maria Cruz, a clinical psychologist who said that
Raquel was a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder--a diagnosis
often given to sexually abused children. She based her diagnosis mainly
on statements given to her by Markee about Raquel's behavior, as well
as some brightly colored pictures Raquel had drawn, which the
psychologist said showed Raquel was afraid of her father.
 
The court-appointed psychologist, Dr. Joann Murphey, offered quite a
different opinion. From her investigation--which included a review of
tapes, DHS reports, and medical records, as well as interviews and
psychological testing on Paouris and Markee--she found nothing
significant to substantiate the sex abuse charge. To the contrary, she
suspected the charge was false, largely because of inconsistencies in
Markee's information. For example, Markee denied having romantic
involvements with other men, yet she would show up at Murphey's
office accompanied by various men. Also, according to DHS records,
Markee had said that doctors found evidence that Raquel's vagina had
been penetrated, when, in fact, there were no such records.
 
The psychological evaluations were also worrisome, said Murphey.
Markee's Rorschach test revealed her to have "repressed hostility" and
a "high potential for distortions in thinking." On a test for
empathy--the ability to feel for others and to form human bonds--she made
a low score. On the other hand, Paouris scored well on all the tests,
especially the one for empathy. Murphey's analysis was echoed by two
Fit for a King supervisors, each of whom testified that Raquel tended
to be timid and withdrawn at her mother's house but that she would
"open up like a flower" in the company of her father.
 
Martinez finally called Dolores Markee to the stand. She wept when
describing her daughter's behavior on the nights of the alleged abuse.
She said Paouris once threatened to kill her and to take Raquel out of
the country. She said he cursed in front of the child.
 
During cross-examination, Paouris' attorney, Shirley Ehrlich was
visibly irate. She picked at the inconsistencies--large and small--that
seemed to trail Markee. Why did she tell a worker from a child abuse
advocacy group that Paouris had been confined to a mental institution
in Greece, when he had not?  Couldn't the redness of Raquel's vulva be
explained by the fact that she had been wearing urine-soaked panties on
the day her father came to visit on October 12, according to the
testimony of one of her aunts? And, most telling, why did she claim in
her affidavit that she talked to Paouris on the two nights he dropped
off his crying daughter at the house--after having allegedly abused
her--when Markee had not been at the house? Couldn't Markee's fears for
Raquel, in fact, be connected to her own sexual abuse as a child--a
fact that had come out in the testimony of Dr. Cruz?
 
On July 28, fourteen months after he was accused of sexually molesting
her, George Paouris was awarded sole custody of Raquel. In a letter to
the two attorneys in the case, Judge Spears wrote:
 
It is the finding of this court that the sexual abuse did not take
place as alleged.... In comparing the mother and father ... the Court
looks to the actions of each parent. The father offers a much more
stable life than the mother ... [though] There is no doubt that the
mother loves the child....
 
In conclusion, the judge granted visitation rights to Markee.  Both
parents and child were ordered into counseling.
 
Source: _Texas Monthly_ magazine, November 1992

Rest in peace, George.

Aaron L. Hoffmeyer
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (aaron.l.hoffmeyer)
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1993 09:51:36 GMT

>provided, including first names, makes me 99.9% sure this is the case.
                                           ^^^^

Make that 100%....

HEADLINE: Man accused of sex abuse of daughter killed; ex-wife held

A woman who lost a bitter child-custody battle to her ex-husband whom
she had accused of sexually abusing their daughter was jailed Thursday
in the man's slaying.

Authorities said Delores Lopez Markee, 30, was arrested on a charge of
murder and was jailed in lieu of $250,000 bond.

Sheriff's department investigators said George Paouris, 32, was gunned
down by at least four bullets from a 9mm pistol at 4:49 p.m. CST
Wednesday in front of his home.

Capt. Kenneth Bilhartz said Markee went to Paouris' home and the two
were on the front porch when shots rang out.  Bilharz said that Markee
sat in her vehicle until police arrived and appeared "very passive,"
declining to give a statement.

Paouris and Markee both had remarried.

District Judge Carleton Spears awarded Paouris custody of the
couple's 4-year-old daughter last July after six days of testimony.
Statements by expert witnesses who supported Paouris were enough to
convince the judge that the sexual abuse allegations involving his
daughter were unfounded.

Markee had visitation rights, and at the time of the slaying the
daughter was with Markee's new husband at their home.  Bilhartz said
the child was placed in the custody of her mother's attorney after the
shooting.

Records indicate that Paouris was indicted in May 1992 on a charge
of an indecency with a child.  But Spears told the San Antonio Light
Wednesday that the evidence in the case did not show that Paouris had
done any of the the things Markee had alleged.

Source: UPI, January 7, 1993

Aaron L. Hoffmeyer
[email-masked] 

P.S.  Note that Markee's attorney has custody of the child.  Note the
tone of the headline ... Markee is being held because someone killed
George Paouris, a man accused of sexually abusing his daughter.