Legal Question in Criminal Law in West Virginia

Re: child sexual assult

You would seem well advised to arrange for a consultation regarding this situation with a local criminal defense practitioner in the area where this crime was allegedly committed and who should be able to advise you, accordingly.

Re: child sexual assult

Well there are an enormous number of criminal defense attorneys who can help you, and the biggest question is how much you can afford and interviewing people you are comfortable with.

I work with a brilliant legal consultant who (teamed with a prominent attorney) has had an outstanding record of criminal defense. But he ain't cheap.

In the short term, I would recommend that you work on getting statements from anyone you can about what happened. Does anyone other than the accuser have any information or knowledge? Try to "lock them in" on what their stories are before they get pressured or influenced. Work on collecting whatever information you can.

Obviously you face the problem that

a) You do not want to stir things up and CAUSE them to take official action. So you are going to have to walk very carefully and be very diplomatic. You are going to have to be extremely sensitive and just talk loosely about things without provoking any conflict.

b) The main people who may have knowledge are probably those accusing you. So you may have limited options.

You should try tape recording any conversations you have with them and/or have a witness with you, so that if they change their story to make it even worse, you will have that locked in. (In Virginia it is legal to tape record a conversation if you are participating in the conversation, even without telling them.)

You will need to spend the time brainstorming and remembering what was going on and any evidence you can get.

20 years is a long time, but can you get any evidence that you were in a different place, cell phone records, credit card receipts, witnesses, etc.?

This is why it would help to get the details pinned down as to what they are alleging. Then you can see if you were somewhere else that day, etc.