ACGA Continued Part III

    First, I apologize for the break in sequence on Saturday's post. I spent my allotted computer time trying to fix the original website and had only a few minutes to upload the content of the corrupted third page before I lost it for good. This is actually a continuation of Friday's post (February 27, 2009), so please read that post in sequence with this one. Not that anyone as yet seems to be reading this blog, but I continue to hold out hope that someone will someday care...
     Okay, as I mentioned last time, after [*] began to recount the story to [*], [*] not only recalled the incident but began to fill in details herself that [*] omitted. It became clear that [*] recognized many similarities between what really happened to her when she was little and the alleged incident she had accused me of, including the fact that (oddly enough) that the two couches in question had the exact same pattern!
     After the recounting was finished, [*] asked [*] if she had had any personal recollection of the incident before she had begun talking about it, to which [*] said she had not. Then [*] asked [*] if she knew anything about repressed memories, which again [*] said she did not. [*], having personal experience with repressed memories herself from periods of childhood abuse, explained to [*] that a repressed memory occurred when something scary or traumatic happened and one's mind buried the memory as a means of self-defense, and that such a memory usually stayed buried until the mind felt the person was better able to deal with the pain associated with it. However, as [*] personally attested, such memories do not always return in one complete block and often it is easy to confuse an old repressed memory with something that happened recently since one only recently recalls the memory.
     [*] then posed to [*] that the two incidents (the one when [*] was three and the one she accused me of when she was thirteen) had many similar details. [*] asked [*] whether there was a possibility that the old memory could have been confused with some recent event, such as lying beside me on the couch being a similar enough incident to dredge up details (if not the full memory) of what [*] had witnessed when she was little.
     And [*] immediately responded that the incident with me had not happened. In [*]'s words, it could not have happened because the two memories were identical in every way. Once [*] recalled the full memory of the assault on her mother, she recognized that the memory she had of me doing something like that was a false memory!
     Again, keep in mind, this was all after the official investigations had been completed - there was nothing to be gained by getting [*] to "change" her story at that point. In fact, the new version of events completely undermined the lawsuit [*] and I had filed against her parents ([*]) accusing them of coercing [*] to make up a false allegation; if [*]'s accusation was the result of a false memory, then this actually exonerated the[*] of such wrongdoing. So for myself and [*], there was nothing to gain by getting [*] to "change" her story in October, when all official investigations closed in September, and we had a lawsuit pending against [*]'s parents that was completely undermined by this information!
     I point this out to demonstrate that neither [*] nor I had any motivation to pursue this issue with [*] other than for [*]'s own benefit. Had [*] said the two incidents were not the same, there would have been no gain nor loss. [*]'s saying they were the same memory actually hurt our position against the[*], in fact. As one who read the original "Another Case of Gov Abuse" will know, this is a significant viewpoint to consider. And yet, that was completely overlooked late on down the line...
     Following this conversation with [*] (of which I had only listened), I asked [*] if she would be willing to write up a statement of what she had said to both create a record and to act as testimonial discovery in the suit against [*]'s grandparents. If my memory is correct, this occurred on October 15, 2003. [*] said she would do this, but after three days she still had not done so.
     On October 18, 2003 (again, if my memory is correct), I once again asked [*] if she had written up the statement. [*] responded that she did not really know what to write and asked me for help in doing so. I knew better than to sit down alone with [*] to do this (I still had some significant trust issues with [*], after all), and so we waited until later that day when Carrie Beth Mountjoy (a family friend, board member of both the youth program and business, and a shareholder in the business) came into the store. I asked Carrie Beth if she could act as witness for the preparation of this statement, and she agreed. And so the three of us ([*], Carrie Beth and I) went to the back office to prepare the Affidavit of [*].
     Okay, running out of time again - hopefully I will be able to write more on this tomorrow...

Ron Glick
Political Prisoner since 2004