In August 2009, Jesse Huffaker was arrested and charged with aggravated sexual abuse of a child. The police arrested him after his child’s mother reported him for sexual molestation of their toddler daughter. She alleged that there was blood in the girl’s diaper and cuts on her genitals after she returned from a visit with her father.
The mother later used that accusation to get a restraining order against him.
The story sounds like so many others we read in the newspaper, but it was far from true. Investigators who reviewed evidence in the case found no DNA. Ultimately the charges against Huffaker were dropped. But in March of 2010, the father became suspicious that it was the mother who had committed the abuse, with the ulterior motive of swaying the judge’s decision in their child custody dispute.
The father approached the police with his suspicions and they began investigating the mother. Tiffany Petrossi confessed and was booked on April 9, 2011, on criminal charges of aggravated sexual abuse and giving false or inconsistent statements to law enforcement. She admitted to Provo police that she used her fingernail to injure her daughter.
Mr. Huffaker’s name was dragged through the mud for seven months before he was cleared of the false charges of child abuse. And then it took another 16 months before justice was finally served and this abusive mom arrested for her actions.
Source: Deseret News, “Police say girl deliberately abused in Utah County custody dispute.”