Don’t Go At It Alone in These Situations

Video Transcribed: What should you do if you were the victim of false allegations of either domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, or something else? My name is Brian L. Jackson. I’m a Tulsa dad’s rights attorney with dads.law. And I want to talk to you today about dealing with false allegations, both in terms of the protective order and also in family court.

I think the first thing to understand is if you’re served with some kind of a pleading where there’s a bunch of stuff that you know is nonsense, the first thing you really need to do is start gathering every little scrap of evidence you can come across. So things like text messages, social media posts, emails, and any written documents you have.

If it’s something to do with medical, anything to do with medical, get medical records together, school records, anything and everything you have, photographs, get it all together and try to keep it in an organized manner. Also, you want to try to put together a good timeline and do this in writing, a good timeline of the events surrounding the period of time for the allegation.

Many times, allegations can be disproven based on a good understanding of what actually did happen and being able to lay that out for the trier of fact, which would be the judge. So it’s important to put together a good timeline and be able to show where your pieces of evidence fit into that timeline.

Also, I would suggest to you that it would make sense to… Obviously, you want to consult with a good Oklahoma dad’s lawyer. Don’t try to go it alone in these situations. It’s very dangerous. False allegations can be made to stick, unfortunately. And even if you ultimately clear your name, it can be damaging in the meantime.

It can result in you not being allowed to see your kids or having other important rights constrained. So the long and short of that is absolutely positive do not try to go it alone.

Another last tip I’m going to suggest to you, and this goes off into the area of criminal allegations, if you get a visit from the police, do not cooperate, don’t talk, shut your mouth, and don’t consent to any search, shut your mouth.

Now, if you get approached by DHS, my suggestion is that you ask them for time to get an attorney involved and have an attorney present before you deal with the Department of Human Services.

It’s not generally in your best interest to refuse to cooperate outright because unlike in criminal court, in civil court, your noncooperation can be used against you. But it’s dangerous to cooperate with them without a lawyer present, especially if you have no idea why they’re there.

So again, have a lawyer present. Finally, and this is more of a holistic piece of advice, don’t panic and don’t do anything stupid and impulsive. It is not in your best interest to do things like, for example, trying to reach out to your ex and confront them about their lies, or getting on Facebook or some other social media and bemoaning your woes. It’s not a good idea. So don’t do anything impulsive, don’t panic, and do get a good lawyer. And one place you can find a good lawyer who supports dad’s rights in Oklahoma is at dads.law, where fathers are not disposable.