In April 2014, former child actor, Michael Egan, spoke of sexual abuse allegations against a group of four Hollywood executives that occurred in Hawaii when he was a teenager in the 1990s. Egan hired two attorneys to represent him in a civil suit against the Hollywood executives under a Hawaiian law that allowed alleged victims of child sexual abuse to file civil suits. Shortly after the suits were filed, Egan’s story of the alleged abuse was beginning to fall apart. The attorney that was hired subsequently dropped Egan as a client two months after the suit was filed because Egan’s story just wasn’t adding up. In June 2014, Egan decided to drop the suits against two of the executives. At a later date, Egan also decided to drop the suits against the other two executives. It turned out that Egan’s allegations against the executives were false from the start and Egan was trying to collect settlement money.
Attorney Jeffrey Herman, former counsel for Egan, issued a formal apology, as part of a settlement, to two of the falsely accused executives. The letter stated in part: “Based on what I know now, I believe that I participated in making what I now know to be untrue and provably false allegations against you . . .Had I known what I learned after filing the lawsuits, I would never have filed these claims against you.”
While it is rare that the falsely accused get any apology, we applaud the attorney in this case. It confirms that false allegations are a reality and that just because someone claims something happened does not mean that it did. Our office firmly believes that false allegations common among criminal sexual conduct cases.
Our office is glad to see that the story of Michael Egan’s false claims against the Hollywood executives has been made public and is giving false allegations of child sexual abuse some publicity. A great number of people believe that if someone, especially a child, tells a detailed story of sexual abuse that it must be true, and that a person wouldn’t make something like that up. However, in our office’s experience, we have seen that many criminal sexual conduct allegations are false. We believe that those who make false allegations should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, particularly because the penalties that the wrongfully accused face include severe punishments including registration as a sex offender and long prison sentences.
If you or a loved one is facing false allegations of criminal sexual conduct in any degree, do not hesitate to contact The Law Offices of Shannon M. Smith. Our office almost exclusively handles Michigan sex crimes cases. We have considerable experience in handling criminal sexual conduct cases that involve false allegations.