Letter to Pat Lykos 27

Middle of the month, time for another letter to Pat Lykos! Please join me in sending a letter this week; you can copy this one, write your own, or send one of the downloadable flyers to your right.
Thanks for helping to keep this case in front of her!

The Honorable Pat Lykos
1201 Franklin St
Houston, TX
77002

Ma'am,
I'm writing to you today about the case of Carlos Coy, #908426.
I recently read a story about a woman in Georgia who was acquitted of several counts of child molestation. It happened about two years ago, and her name is Tonya Craft. Three children were reported to have testified against her, one of which, after the trial, was revealed to have been her own daughter.

It became apparent during the trial that the state was engaged in all kinds of unethical behavior, including judicial misconduct, withholding exculpatory evidence, and failing to vet their 'expert' therapist. The children were bribed to 'reveal abuses', subjected to multiple interviews, and eventually seem to have come to believe that the testimony they were given was true. I can only imagine the years of therapy that await them.

As you may already be aware, the child witness in Coy vs. Texas was interviewed twice; the first was unrecorded, no statement was taken, and was completely hidden from any kind of oversight. The second was taken at the troubled Children's Assessment Center where, in hundreds of cases, nurse Ellen Taft engaged in evidence-gathering for law enforcement instead of conducting neutral assessment interviews.

In the Craft case, as in the Coy case, there were periods of time between interviews; these interludes seem to have been used by parents to coerce, bribe, and encourage their children to come up with a sufficiently horrifying story to justify continuing the investigation. While it may have been motivated by a loving parent's honest concern for their child, the end result was an innocent woman being dragged through the court systems, losing her children, her job, her entire life.

Ma'am, I believe it very likely the same thing was done to the child in Coy vs. Texas. I would ask you to review the first interview and compare it to the second one, but as I said, no records from that first interview were saved. Even her mother's written statement was discarded.

Tonya Craft was found innocent, but not because the system worked; the people working to convict her refused to let it. However because of her own preparation, the work of her defense attorney, blind luck, or a mix of all three, she prevailed. A case in which there was weak and conflicting victim testimony and no reasonable physical evidence was not enough to convict her.
For some reason, a case that makes even less sense sent Carlos Coy to prison. Please, consider appointing an investigator into his case. Justice is not served by using an innocent child as a tool to be manipulated, then tossed aside.

Thanks for your time,
Me, my address, blah blah blah