A Life Interrupted

After a False Accusation, Police and Child Services Forced a Family Apart for 7 Months

Sad story out of New Mexico.

Adam Lowther was a busy man, traveling constantly for his work as director of the Air Force’s Advanced Nuclear Deterrence Studies. But on the afternoon of August 30, 2017, he called his wife, Jessica, with good news: He would be home in time to take their two children—ages 4 and 7—to tae kwon do practice.

Little did Adam know that he was about to be forcibly separated from his children for half a year, and would spend more than $300,000 in legal bills trying to reunite his family after it was torn apart by the New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department (CYFD) on the basis of a false sexual abuse accusation. Now Adam and his wife are suing the police and child services officials for violating their rights, misleading other authorities about the merits of the case against them, and traumatizing their children.

“We never thought this kind of thing could ever happen,” Adam told Reason. “We assumed that law enforcement was competent and we assumed that they obeyed the law. That was a wrong assumption, but that was our assumption.”

Reason Magazine article by Robby Soave 4/25/19