Oklahoma Blog: Criminal Law Situations

While ease of accessibly to the worldwide web continues to grow, it seems that sexual predators are not the only reason to warrant a parent to monitor their child’s use of the internet. For Phillip Dwayne Lout, the crude humor in a music video called “Get a New Daddy” unleashed detrimental implications when his 13-year-old daughter viewed the video online and then accused him of sexual assault.

Lout was held on trial for 16 felony accounts including multiple accounts of rape, child molestation, and lewd acts with a child. It was Mark Bailey, criminal defense attorney of Atkins & Markoff, who was able to discover and bring to attention the parallelism between the girl’s allegations and the content of the video. He was able to get her admit to watching the video prior to her allegations, which allowed him to conclude that the video led her to the idea of making of sexual abuse claims to retaliate against her father. "It’s eerie how close it tracked to that,” Bailey says of the similarities between the girl’s accusations and the lyrics of the song. Furthermore, after asking Lout if there was any reason the girl might fabricate allegations against him, Bailey reports that Lout recounted his attempts to keep the girl away from an inappropriate relationship with an older man.

Based on the evidence brought to light by Mark Bailey, the jury could not reach a verdict and the judge was moved to declare a mistrial. However, there are still concerns about the possibility that “Get a New Daddy” and videos out there could lead to more illegitimate sexual allegations. Oklahoma City attorney Bob Wyatt says that such a video could have a big effect in criminal cases if there is evidence that someone watched it before alleging sexual abuse. Mark Bailey’s work on Lout’s case may have revolutionized how courts will look at sexual allegations from children against their parents by stressing the importance of evaluating credibility in these cases.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Comment

smaller | bigger

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment