Difference-Making Defense

False and vague claims of Sexual Abuse are some of the most pernicious and unfair uses of the Court system, where mere allegations are made without corroborating proof, often resulting in people being removed from their homes or even prosecuted criminally.

This happened to one of Mr. Corletta’s clients in Anonymous v. Anonymous (Seneca Co. Family Ct., 8/20).

Mr. Corletta was retained by an elderly person who allowed one of their adult children and grandchildren to live with them in a rural mobile home park.

Mr. Corletta’s client was divorced but still worked two jobs and supported the entire family. The adult child worked only sporadically.

The client and the client’s adult child had a contentious relationship, primarily due to the adult child’s failure to provide and failure to work.

Moreover, the grandchildren were often left unsupervised and were out of control. One of the teenage grandchildren falsely accused Mr. Corletta’s client of Sexual Abuse right after Mr. Corletta’s client refused to buy them something. The grandchild’s parents immediately reported it to Child Protective Services, but it was not corroborated. A Court proceeding was ultimately dismissed.

However, the adult child kept after it, and started still another proceeding at the urging of Child Protective Services, who also did not do their job properly, and then attempted to get this parent to do it for them by having the parent start a proceeding to get Mr. Corletta’s client out of the house.

They successfully obtained an ex parte Order of Protection without Mr. Corletta’s client getting a chance to be heard at a Hearing. The Petition contained vague, nonspecific, and conclusory allegations based upon hearsay.

As a result, Mr. Corletta’s client was removed from their own home, which they paid for, and forced to live with a friend in an adjoining county.

Mr. Corletta, reviewing this situation, decided to address it head-on by filing an immediate Motion to Dismiss, challenging all of the allegations as vague, conclusory, and based upon hearsay.

In a stunning victory in this rural county, the Court agreed with Mr. Corletta in a written Decision and Order without even requiring an Oral Argument, chastising the Complainant for their vague, conclusory, and nonspecific allegations. Mr. Corletta restored his client to their home.

Daily, we hear of allegations of Sexual Abuse. Too often, we do not hear the outcome, and many such “claims” are baseless and false and made for ulterior reasons. They cause great hardship and turmoil in people’s lives.

Here, despite the dismissal, Mr. Corletta’s client was removed from their home without cause for three months.

Mr. Corletta, in the past two years, has been able to vindicate at least three clients of false claims of Sexual Abuse, something he finds one of the most satisfying aspects of his job. It is far too often that people’s names are besmirched but not cleansed of the taint and damage to their reputation when the falsity of the allegations is revealed.