Subject: Injured Parties

From: [email-masked] (aaron.l.hoffmeyer)
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 08:18:21 GMT

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."

Paouris draws deeply on a cigarette and looks on, as Raquel, his
daughter, climbs on a jungle gym a few feet away.  She is a beautiful
child, with black hair in a thick braid and enormous pale green eyes.
We sit on a bench in San Antonio's MacArthur Park on a hot Saturday
summer morning, watching her.  Normally easygoing, Paouris become
agitated when he speaks of the ordeal that has consumed his life for
fourteen months.  His voice grows loud, his mannerisms jerky.  His anger
subsides, though, the moment his daughter races over, tweaks his jutting
nose, and clambers onto his lap.

This is the child--according to the criminal indictment--upon whom
Paouris committed a litany of sexual atrocities.  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 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."

How big is this wave?  No one knows for sure.  The only large empirical
study done to date, published in 1990, found that child sex abuse
allegations came up in only about 2 percent of contested custody and
visitation cases.  But whatever its size, the phenomenon is getting
national attention.  A cadre of psychologists has devoted reams of paper
to the subject,a nd two researchers have even coined a term, SAID, or
sexual allegations in divorce syndrome.

[Note:  This reporter didn't do much work on this statistic.  The study
she doesn't even quote was probably conducted by Nancy Theonnes and is
based on limited data collected from 11 courts.  However, many studies
put the numbers at around 10 to 15% of all divorces.  USA Today
recently stated that such allegations now come up in 25% of all
divorces, and the Denver Post stated the number was 30%.  What we can
be sure of is that a lot of different numbers are being bandied about,
although the most comprehensive studies have concluded about 15% of all
divorces now involve such allegations.  However, the percentage grows
every year....  Locally, according to Children's Hospital in Columbus,
they investigated and evaluated 6000 claims of child sexual abuse last
year, over 1500 of which were made during divorces.  There were about
6000 divorces filed in this county last year.]
	- Aaron L. Hoffmeyer

The issue at the heart of the matter is whether the wave is real or
not--and additionally whether the accusations are sincere or motivated
by revenge.  Patricia Toth, the director of the National Center for the
Prosecution 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 nonabused 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 psychodrama
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, wearing a conservative dress, a
gold crucifix, and glasses, her full lips and exotic features framed by
thick hair pulled back in a clasp.  Next to her sat her fourth husband,
Richard, a construction manager with Sitterle homebuilders.  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.  A pale woman with blond hair, 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 lifestyle 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 children.

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

Aaron L. Hoffmeyer
[email-masked]