TESTIMONY OF JIM WADE BEFORE SENATE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND HUMAN RESOURCES SUBCOMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND FAMILIES MAY 25, 1995 

I am a retired Chief Petty Officer in the United States Navy. I
proudly gave twenty years of my life and my family's life to defend
a way of life that I believed in and I repeatedly swore an oath to
support and defend the Constitution of the United States, a
document that I understood ensured the rights of the individual
against the kind of institutional abuses, in the name of my
Government, that my family has endured. On the morning of May 08,
1989, I was stationed aboard the USS INDEPENDENCE home-ported in
San Diego, California. I didn't know it then, but that was the
last sane day I was to know for a very, very long time.

On May 9, 1989 my eight year old daughter was discovered to have
been viciously sexually assaulted. This was discovered during a
medical examination at a health care facility that my wife and I
had taken Alicia to after she complained of pain. She said nothing
at the time that would have given any clue as to the true nature of
her injuries. The Child Abuse Division of the San Diego Police
Department was notified and we were all taken to the Childrens
Hospital, this was the last time we were allowed to see our
daughter for some time. Alicia informed the doctor and police
detectives that someone had taken her out of her brother's window
and had put her in a green car, drove to a secluded area and had
hurt her, threatening to kill her if she cried out. Alicia gave a
very detailed description of this individual including what color
clothes, hair and eyes he had, down to describing a pimple on his
lip. Alicia's injuries were such that she was immediately admitted
and was surgically repaired that evening.

Alicia was placed with a therapist who immediately expressed her
conviction that I was to blame and that Alicia was obviously
covering up for me. The therapist did everything in her power
(which is boundless) to convince the court that she had Alicia's
trust and that the only way to ensure Alicia's safety was to
severely restrict her family's access to her as much as possible.

When we first went to court the "attorneys" made us sign a piece of
paper that stated in part that we would be responsible for any and
all fees for attorneys and for foster care rising from this case,
even if the charges were dropped. We were then told that in
Juvenile court, you were considered guilty, until you could prove
your innocence. They seemed very proud of this distinction they
enjoyed.

By early June of 1989, Joshua had been added to the list of my
victims by the social worker on the case by submitting a charge to
the court that "Joshua had been sexually molested and that he was
in danger of being molested again."

Joshua was never interviewed or examined by anyone, the social
worker needed Joshua to be part of the case to ensure our
cooperation and compliance with their directives, the penalty being
that Joshua would also be removed from our home if we balked at
their authority. As a result of these additional charges concerning
Joshua the court ordered that I not be allowed to be alone with
Joshua ever, and that any contact with Joshua must be constantly
supervised. Additionally, we were not allowed to discuss or
explain this order or any other aspect of the proceedings with
Joshua.

In July of 1989 my wife and I were taken to trial on charges of
sexual abuse and failure to protect charges for both Joshua and
Alicia. They kept us there all day and finally at the end of the
day, they told us that a plea bargain had been offered and it was
put to us thusly:

(1) the prosecuting attorney admitted that they had no way of
achieving a conviction on any of the counts, but since they knew I
was guilty and that mywife was covering for me, they were willing
to go through with what would be as lengthy a trial as they could
manage. This would take up to as far as November 1989 and at that
time, since Alicia would have been out of the home for over 6
months, (6 months seemed like a long time then) it would require
another 6 month adjustment period, during which the family's
behavior would be closely monitored and evaluated and Alicia would
be slowly integrated back into the home ....

OR..

(2) My wife and I could plead no contest to a charge of neglect
and after complying with several conditions, (all of which we were
assured were onlyformalities) Alicia would be returned home. They
never intended to return Alicia to us, they blackmailed us into
submitting a plea of no contest, (guilty) by promising to return
our daughter, we did and they then told us that Alicia's therapist
had told the court that if they returned Alicia to us, I would kill
her. Alicia was not returned but the plea bargain stood, we lost
our day in court. The therapist was not required to justify that or
any other remark she cared to utter about me.

The therapist and social worker were finally successful in
isolating us from Alicia. The social worker violated court orders
by refusing us court ordered visits for a month. When we finally
got a court hearing to seek redress, the social worker, and the
therapist told the judge a series of lies and half truths which
ended with the judge severing all contact. My wife went for 11 1/2
months without seeing my daughter, I went from October 1989 till
October 31, 1991 without any contact with my daughter. During this
time the therapist and the social worker told the court that I was
trying to see my daughter, or that I had been making threatening
phone calls to the foster parents, or that I had so severely
frightened the social worker that she had a guard at the Juvenile
court escort her to her car. Any lie would do, and all they had to
do was utter it and the judge bought it.

Among the many unreasonable things that happened, the following
come to mind:

We had to get Joshua's tonsils removed, so we did, when we
mentioned it to the social worker we were severely reprimanded for
not seeking her permission first;

After that we had to get permission from the court to take Joshua
to Missouri to attend my maternal Grandmother's funeral, and we
almost didn't get it;

Joshua had to have ear surgery, we had to get court permission;

We wanted to take him to 70 miles away to Polomar Mt., we had to
get court permission; we couldn't take Joshua out of San Diego
County without permission;

We discovered early in 1990 that the therapist and the foster
mother had been telling Alicia that the only way she could come
home was to tell them that I was the one who had hurt her. Alicia
had complained to the social worker and asked for help, but her
plea fell on deaf ears. After 13 months of isolation and
intimidation in June of 1990, they succeeded in getting Alicia to
say, "Daddy did it" The hippocracy of those people. The social
worker called us down to her office and told us that Alicia had
identified me as the assailant, and that Alicia was going to be
adopted away from us, and that I was going to go to jail. The
social worker looked at me and told me with all sincerity that they
"had to believe the child." I asked her "what about the other story
Alicia was telling you, why didn't you believe her then?" She just
smiled at me. We left her office completely devastated and lost.

During the course of these proceedings I was required to attend
and "successfully" complete the following;

(*) individual therapy, twice a week, the object of which was for
me to admit my guilt;

(*) group therapy in what was called a Denier's Group, with other
men who had the misfortune to have been "accused" and found
"guilty" of molesting children, typically their own and not being
able to prove their innocence. The ground rules for this group is
for you to "act" as if you are guilty, the only acceptable
graduation from this therapy is for you to admit your guilt

(*) therapy with my wife in concert with other families who have
been accused of similar crimes, twice a week. Again the only
acceptable conclusion to this group is to admit your guilt.

Each of these groups required me to take a battery of tests, most
of them similar, except in the case of the Denier's Group, they
wanted me to take a penile plethismograph, a test which when
administered will measure your level of physical arousal to certain
stimuli.

All of this was court ordered by way of a Reunification plan,
which stated that if I did not successfully complete all of the
steps, we would lose Alicia. I hope you can see the predicament I
was in, I could stick to my guns and lose my daughter or I could
lie, say I did it and presumably get her back. Something that is
not without precedent according to my therapist. Hell of a system.

I was at work at the Air Anti-Submarine Warfare Headquarters on
the 13th of December 1990 when they came for me. I was handcuffed
and led away. I was hooked and placed in jail with the other
accused thieves, murderers and rapists of San Diego County. The
guard who hooked me told me that when the other prisoners found out
what I was in for, they would kill me, that after my arraignment,
I would be given a piece of paper listing among other things, the
charges I was facing. He told me that they would get that paper and
read it, so if I wanted to live, I had better either eat it, flush
it down a toilet or shove it up my ass, but just be sure to destroy
it.

At the court hearing in February of 1991 I remember the anger and
frustration at having to sit in the court room, the absolute
insanity of sitting there listening to my daughter tell a
completely fabricated story of her assault with me as the assailant
and not being able to say anything to her, or them not even letting
her look at me because it would "influence her, or terrify her."
The really sad thing was though, that even with her sitting in a
witness box, facing away from me, telling a made up account of me
raping her, this was the very first time in 1 1/2 years... 1 1/2
years that I had seen my daughter or heardher voice, she looked and
sounded great to me, it was heartbreaking. I wanted to tell her
that it was ok, I wasn't mad at her and that I understood why she
was saying what she was saying. I really wanted to tell her, it was
ok to tell the truth, just tell them the truth sweetheart, but I
was forbidden, by the very people who were actually doing all of
the things to her that they were accusing me of.

Throughout this nightmare we had to rely on my parents for
financial support and my mother specifically for emotional support.
Many times my mother would fly out from Missouri on literally a
moments notice to stay with Joshua. Remember I could not be alone
with him, and there were times that this would have caused them to
take him away also, if not for my mother . Once Denise had an
appendicitis attack and had to be hospitalized 'for surgery. I was
able to leave Joshua with some friends from our church until my
mother could get there; she always came. Also remember, we were
forbidden under pain of losing Joshua, to discuss or explain any of
this to him. Kind of makes you proud to know that this sort of
blackmail and intimidation is going on in this great country of
ours doesn't it?

When it became known to the Juvenile authorities that DNA
evidence was soon likely to clear me of this awful charges they
moved quickly. In August of 1991, we were summoned to Juvenile
court where the social worker, the therapist and the County Counsel
tried to have Alicia adopted away. If they hadn't made a small
mistake in their filing procedure they would have succeeded. Our
attorneys fought to have the case put on hold until the pending DNA
results were known, the Juvenile court judge refused. The judge
told them to file the proper paper work and the adoption could go
forward. The blood sample reports that we had back at that time
proved that it was not Alicia's biological father who had assaulted
her and that whoever had assaulted her was sterile, the county
counsel then said that it hadn't been proven that I was the
biological father and that it was entirely likely that I had a
vasectomy reversed, I had spent time in a hot tub, and other
equally ridiculous theories, ending with the statement thatit was
immaterial to them who had actually perpetrated the rape, Alicia
was being adopted out solely because we had pled guilty (no
contest) to a charge of neglect back in November of 1989.

With the intervention of the San Diego County Grand Jury, in the
person of an angel named Carol Hopkins, and the public support
generated by a series of newspaper articles written by Jim Okerblom
and John Wilkerson, Alicia was returned home. Even when it had been
proven I couldn't have been the one, they kept trying to adopt
Alicia out. The County Counsel said that I could have just been
holding Alicia down for a friend and that is why the semen didn't
match me. I was, by the way, proven to be Alicia's biological
father.

The price of this kidnapping into the compassionate world of
Child Abuse Prevention is difficult to calculate.

My wife tried to commit suicide and was hospitalized for 9 months
in a locked psychiatric ward.

My children are afraid of police. men and other's in authority,
they have learned to fear those whom they should most be able to
trust.

My maternal grandmother died in December of 1989, long before I
was proven innocent, not knowing how it came out.

My son lost all of his friends and was told by their parents that
he could not play with their children because his father raped his
sister. Joshua was 6 years old at the time he was told this. My
parents spent their entire life savings trying to keep me out of
jail, money they had no reason to expect to ever get back, much
less to be successful in the attempt.

We spent 2 1/2 years not knowing from one day to the next, what
they were going to take away next, just knowing and dreading the
inevitable fact that more was coming.

We were put through a literal hell of contempt and accusations by
evil manipulators bent on destroying me and my family, why, because
we had the misfortune of being the recipient of a random criminal
assault.

I could go on forever ..... but

Above all, and by God most of all, ..... I lost 2 1/2 years of my
daughters life and my families life, that we nor she will ever get
back, and nothing that is ever said or done will ever make up for
that.