SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - California officials shielded a child molester who contributed to a district attorney's campaign, and arrested a mother when she took the children to be examined in another county, the mother claims in court.
Barry and Jennifer Brown sued Del Norte County District Attorney Jon Alexander, the county itself and five other people, in Federal Court.
Jennifer is the mother of two co-plaintiff children Jane Does 1 and 2; Barry, her father, is a former investigator for the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office.
They claim Alexander refused to investigate claims that defendant Donald Crockett - Jennifer's Brown's ex-husband - had molested their children.
And, the Browns claim, Alexander et al. had Barry Brown falsely charged with kidnapping when the Browns took the children to Eureka to be examined.
This lawsuit is not the only challenge facing Alexander.
The San Jose Mercury News reported in May 2012 that Alexander faces possible disbarment for professional misconduct: allegedly taking a loan from a defense attorney working on a case he later dismissed.
The newspaper reported , in an Associated Press article, that Alexander was a recovering methamphetamine addict when he was elected in campaign using the slogan "death to meth."
Alexander also has been sued by Michael Riese, the former Del Norte County district attorney whom Alexander defeated in the 2010 election. Riese claimed Alexander tried to frame him for child endangerment and driving under the influence.
In the Browns' lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim that when Jennifer told a sheriff's deputy in June 2009 that her 2-year-old daughter said Crockett "had hurt her vagina with his finger" and that it appeared red and irritated, the sheriff took no action. A local hospital refused to examine the girl and neither she nor her daughter were interviewed by police about these or earlier complaints against Crockett, the Browns say.
Crockett is co-owner of a flower-growing business, which is one of the largest employers in the county, and has other business interests, according to the complaint.
The plaintiffs claim Crockett and his family contributed to Alexander's election campaign and "have exerted their personal and political influence throughout county agencies to effectively protect Crockett from criminal and child protective investigations and also to inflict harm on plaintiffs."
Crockett and Jennifer Brown divorced in 2009 after 4 years of marriage, after which they shared custody, with Jennifer the primary caregiver of their twin girls, born in 2007.
The Browns claim that sheriff's deputies in November 2011 destroyed a tape of a police interview with Crockett, after Jennifer Brown reported that her children said he had showed them movies of men and women "naked belly dancing on a bed."
When Brown asked police why they destroyed the tape, they told her that "showing pornography to children is not a criminal offense," according to the complaint.
Alexander and his co-defendants again refused to investigate Crockett after Sutter Coast Hospital Urgent Care filed a report against him for neglect and molestation after both children alleged that Crockett had molested them, the complaint states.
The Browns claim the defendants "were made aware of the claims of Jane Doe 1 and 2 and that the defendants decided not to investigate Jane Doe 1 and 2's claims about Crockett, whose family exerted political and personal influence over the defendants, whose careers rose and fell on the favor or disfavor of the Crockett family."