Threat of False Charges

Using the threat of charging child molestation, rape, and/or domestic violence as tools for blackmail is becoming more and more common.

A man and his wife were arguing about money. They had been arguing about money since their youngest child was born, 9 years before.

The man remembered his wife as being frugal, for the first 10 years of their marriage. He told me sometimes she had been more than frugal but her habits enabled them to keep all of the bills paid, to have a big savings account and an almost paid for large home.

But when the youngest child was born she changed.

"Like day to night." He told me. "I hired a live-in housekeeper and babysitter. It's not like I thought she would hurt the kids. She just got so cold. To me and to the kids." He sighed and shuffled his feet. "And she started to spend money. Not for us, the family, but for herself."

A new car every two years was the big item. Beauty shops, clothes and things like turning the temperature on the hot water heaters up to the highest settings.

"It cost money to run the water heaters that high and with the little kids it was just too hot."

"I came home after working 13 hours, I am a driver. A relative was visiting us for the week. There were people running all over the house. Two of the little boys, 2 and 4 years old, were in my shower. I had to go to the bathroom. I went, as I stood up I automatically flushed the toilet."

"The boys screamed. I ripped down the shower curtain and snatched them out of the shower."

"They were screaming with pain and shock. The three of us were red and blisters were already forming on our body’s… My wife slammed open the door. She looked around, looked at my pants and under shorts around my ankles and grinned."

"She took the children to the kitchen and their parents. I dried off and changed clothes. My skin hurt, but the boys had been in the water longer than I. I was really worried about them."

"My wife walked into the bedroom. She threw a jar of salve at me, closed the door and leaned against it. She was gloating. She said 'the children were screaming. I ran into the bathroom and my husband was standing there, with his pants and under shorts down around his ankles, holding the boys by their arms. He left bruises on them.' and then she laughed."

"Move your things into the spare bedroom…when they leave. You will pay for… And she listed everything and then she told me…'if you complain even once…' and then she walked out."

I was scared. I went to the kitchen to check on the boys. My relative assured me they would be okay. He looked at me and said. 'You had better get some salve on those blisters.'"

"We walked outside. I told my relative what had happened, all of it."

"As long as you pay for everything she will not call the cops but you can not stay here."

"That night my wife went shopping and I moved out of the house. I moved onto the back porch of an elderly relative. For 9 years I worked every day, 12 to 16 hours a day. I paid every bill. I did not tell her when I paid off the house. That gave me money to eat off of and money to repay my relative, because he had been feeding me."

"I did not go near a child, not even my own. For nine years I lived in terror. I could not win."

A few months ago she served me with divorce papers. She was to get everything and $1,500 a month spousal support. That was only a third of what I had been paying and sick as it may sound I was grateful."

"I am only 49 years old and I knew I could never have a real life and a relationship again. Two weeks ago a policeman informed me she had died in a car accident."

"What could I have done different? Maybe if I had called the cops at that minute, the burns on the three of us… The setting on the hot water tank… Nine years and three months of my life gone. I do not even know my kids. I have lived in a prison of terror. I am afraid of being around children, afraid of people. And yet I am lonely. Tell me how to trust again."

Blackmail is ugly.

This man came from a culture where it was his duty to work and the children to stay with their mother.

If he had called the police at that moment, what would have happened?

They would have believed him, but then what? What charges could he have brought against her?

She was obviously unstable, maybe just hormonal, would she have gotten medical help?

Seriously, if he had called the police he could have gotten a field incident report and charged her with careless and negligent child endangerment. He had turned down the water heaters again that morning before he had left for work. He would at least have gotten things on record and filed for divorce and gotten sole custody of the children.

At least he would not have faced the 9 years of terror that he did live. But she probably would have found another way of making him pay.

Is there a way out?

Are you being blackmailed?

Document it. Write down everything you remember. The first threats, the time of day, any thing and every thing you can remember. As soon as possible have your writings notarized. Talk to some one. Talk to a policeman, tell them 'this is a hypothetical question,' tell them your story and ask them what they would do, if this happened to them.

Do not be surprised to find out they are being blackmailed also.

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