Months before police arrested embattled public official Mike Caruso on child sexual abuse charges, a different child sexual abuse case wound its way through Florida’s court system.
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An Orlando mother hoped that system would protect her two daughters after they divulged horrific details about their father’s sexual abuse last year.
The girls, ages 5 and 7, spoke directly to the Florida Department of Children and Families, which found that one of them was sexually abused. Their therapist had testified that they had shown classic symptoms of trauma, such as nightmares, and should have no contact with their father. Detectives began investigating the claims. But instead of keeping the girls away from the man they accused of repeatedly assaulted them, a family court judge gave him full custody in May, and prosecutors declined to pursue criminal charges. DCF refused to investigate additional abuse allegations.
The mother, whom the South Florida Sun Sentinel is not identifying, has not seen her daughters in months. Her experience highlights a deeply entrenched pattern in the family court system in Florida and throughout the country: The existence of an active custody dispute drastically reduces the chance that a parent or child will be believed when they report sexual abuse, legal experts say.
It is the same systemic blind spot currently dominating headlines following the arrest on Aug. 18 of Caruso, the now-suspended clerk of the Palm Beach County courts.
Caruso is facing child sex abuse charges, prompting an outpouring of questions about how he managed to attain a high-level public office — especially given that accusations of him sexually abusing a child had emerged more than a decade earlier during his divorce from his former wife. DCF had investigated a sexual abuse claim about Caruso in 2012, according to a police report, though authorities concluded it was unfounded. Still other claims, including that Caruso had physically abused one of his children, had emerged as far back as 2001, according to a Delray Beach Police report, also determined unfounded. Since the arrest, Gov. Ron DeSantis has said twice in public forums that Caruso had a “clean vet” when asked about his history.
But the fact that Caruso went years without facing criminal charges — while maintaining custody of his children — is not a surprise, according to attorneys, family court researchers and parents who say they have had similar experiences. Only a small percentage of all child sexual abuse reports turn into prosecutions, studies show, and custody disputes add layers of confusion that make it even more difficult for police to investigate. Meanwhile, those within the family court system regularly dismiss the allegations, often going as far as to remove custody from the parent bringing them forward and giving full custody to the accused parent instead. The pattern is so entrenched that family attorneys often advise clients not to mention sexual abuse during divorce or custody proceedings, even if there is evidence.
“If it’s in a divorce or custody case, nobody believes it, even if there is proof,” said Susan Brown, a family attorney based in Plantation. “Usually the only proof is the child’s statements.”
A spokesperson for Caruso told the Sun Sentinel in an email that “Mike emphatically maintains his innocence of the current charges.”
“As to the prior allegations you reference, none of them resulted even in a finding of probable cause that Mike had committed wrongdoing,” he said. “I think that is important context when presenting allegations from different periods together as though their repetition establishes a pattern.”
‘The Wife is intentionally alienating the minor children’
Like many people accused of sexual abuse, Caruso repeatedly argued that his former wife was inventing the allegations against him and engaging in a behavior called parental alienation, according to police reports and court records.
In December 2012, DCF began investigating Caruso after receiving an anonymous call stating that he had been molesting and sharing a bed with the child, according to a Delray Beach police report. The anonymous caller also said that “the suspect had sexually abused another [redacted] in the past.”
Caruso was “distraught” and in “disbelief” over the allegations, according to the report.
“The suspect and [redacted] are currently going through a [redacted],” the report states. Investigators spoke with the child’s mother, who denied hearing about any sexual abuse of her child. The investigation was closed as unfounded due to the fact that there were no witnesses and the alleged victim did not say Caruso had sexually abused him.
Weeks later, Caruso filed a motion accusing his former wife of inventing sexual abuse allegations about him.
“The Wife has intentionally orchestrated and caused a false sexual abuse case to be filed and pursued against the Husband, accusing him of sexually abusing the parties’ minor son,” reads a motion filed by Caruso’s attorneys in his divorce case. “The Wife has full and complete knowledge that the allegations are not true. The Husband has been unable to see his son since the false sexual abuse report. In addition, the Wife is intentionally alienating the minor children and all of their other children.”
The couple has seven children, five of whom were adults at the time.
Though Caruso’s wife had sought to have majority custody initially, the parents ended up splitting custody of the two minor children equally.
In a probable cause affidavit released last week, when Caruso was confronted with the new allegations regarding a different family member that led to his arrest, he continued to suggest that the sexual abuse was a lie propagated by his former wife, characterizing her “as evil and as having possibly fabricated the allegations in an effort to poison the child against him.”
Parental alienation, or the undermining of a relationship between a parent and a child, is commonly cited in response to sexual and physical abuse allegations during custody battles. The theory first emerged directly as a response to claims of sexual abuse in the 1980s. Psychologist Richard Gardner coined the term Parental Alienation Syndrome, claiming that parents — particularly mothers — were regularly accusing their children’s fathers of sexual abuse in order to turn the children against their fathers and win custody. Gardner believed that 90% of children in custody cases suffered from the “syndrome.” He had stated in writings that sexual activity between children and adults is an “ancient tradition” and that Western society is “excessively punitive” towards pedophilia. In response to criticism, Gardner vehemently denied being sympathetic to pedophiles.
Gardner died by suicide in 2003. Since his death, the syndrome has been widely discredited. But his research has continued to influence the court system, where parents who allege abuse are often not believed due to parental alienation claims, according to advocates and attorneys.
The concept of parental alienation — separate from the syndrome — remains controversial in the research community, but is widely considered legitimate in family court. And it is still closely linked to child sexual abuse.
Judges are less likely to believe sexual abuse claims than claims of intimate partner violence or physical child abuse, despite the fact that researchers have found that roughly two-thirds of child sexual abuse claims are credible, according to Joan Meier, a professor at George Washington University Law School who runs the National Family Violence Law Center. In a study she conducted of family court outcomes in 2019, Meier found that courts rejected 85% of child sexual abuse claims, a pattern largely driven by arguments of parental alienation and the “stereotype of the vengeful ex-wife.”
“Courts don’t want to believe sexual abuse,” Meier said. “Alienation fuels that denial.”
Children are particularly vulnerable when they come forward about sexual abuse, Meier said, because adults generally find them less believable. Family court professionals or law enforcement might be more quick to assume the abuse allegations are the product of another parent’s influence or the child’s imagination.
Some of this skepticism is legitimate because false child sexual abuse allegations do emerge most often during custody disputes, according to family attorneys and psychologists who study child sexual abuse.
“When we know there are false allegations, the majority of them do happen in context of custody disputes,” said Elizabeth Jeglic, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies sexual abuse. “But it’s not the child that makes allegations, it’s one parent or the other.”
Brown, the attorney, said that she has personally represented clients who she believes were falsely accused.
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Police unlikely to pursue
Prosecutors and police are already more reticent to pursue sexual abuse cases due to the lack of witnesses and evidence, legal experts say. When those allegations emerge during a contentious custody battle, those within the justice system are even less likely to pursue them.
After the Orlando mother separated from the girls’ father, the children began splitting their time between the two parents. That was when they began telling their mother stories of what their father would do to them when they were in his care, according to DCF reports and court records. He would sexually abuse the girls and, among other allegations, tell the older daughter that she was his “wife” and her younger sister was their baby, the older daughter told investigators, according to a DCF report. The girls described severe abuse during forensic interviews with child services investigators. A 2025 DCF report concluded that there were “positive findings” of sexual abuse of one of the girls.
But the father told investigators that their daughters had been “coached” by their mother into making the allegations. A judge agreed, then sent the two girls to live with their father full time. Deputies with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office had also investigated the claims and sent the case to the State Attorney’s Office, which declined to pursue charges.
In an email in June, the chief of the Sex Crimes Unit told the mother that prosecutors could not proceed due to a lack of “quality, consistent and credible evidence.”
“I understand that you are disappointed in the State Attorney’s Office decision to not proceed in this case,” he wrote. “The family court system will continue to set the parameters of your shared parenting moving forward and will determine what is in the continuing best interest for you and your children.”
In response to questions about the office’s decision not to pursue the case, State Attorney Monique Worrell told the Sun Sentinel in a statement that “cases involving allegations of sexual abuse of a child are among the most difficult and sensitive cases a prosecutor can handle. We have a responsibility to protect children and pursue justice, but we must also ensure that every prosecution is based on reliable, admissible evidence and not assumptions or allegations alone. These cases can become especially challenging when there are concerns about a child being coached, influenced, or otherwise exposed to conflicting narratives. Our prosecutors must carefully evaluate the totality of the evidence, follow the law, and make decisions that protect the integrity of the justice system while keeping the best interests of the child at the forefront.”
The mother is not the only Florida parent to lose custody after alleging sexual abuse. In 2022, a Broward mother began fighting for custody after fleeing her former boyfriend, taking their daughter with her to another state where her parents reside. He was controlling and abusive throughout their relationship, she said in court records and to the Sun Sentinel. Toward the end of their relationship, she said, she discovered he had been sexually abusing their 4-year-old daughter as well. The Sun Sentinel is not identifying the mother.
Child services investigators in the other state forensically interviewed the daughter, at which point the girl described being sexually abused. Investigators concluded that findings of sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect were all “indicated,” according to a 2024 child services report.
The reported abuse had taken place in Broward County, where a detective with the Broward Sheriff’s Office had also been assigned to investigate.
The Sheriff’s Office sent the case to the State Attorney’s Office, but the father was never arrested or criminally charged. In a memo explaining the decision not to pursue charges, prosecutors wrote that what the girl was describing took place when her father was helping her go to the bathroom and “does not amount to a crime.” The father’s attorney had also emailed the BSO detective, telling him that the mother “has fabricated this case to use during her contentious child custody case or to cause harm to the Subject.”
Last year, a court-appointed psychologist who evaluated the family determined that the mother was manipulative and dishonest, according to court records. A Broward family court judge gave the father full custody, concluding that the mother had alienated the daughter and convinced her that she was sexually abused.
The mother can now see her daughter only during supervised visits at a visitation center, which cost her over $3,000 a month, more than her own salary.
“I can’t even afford to see my kid,” she told the Sun Sentinel.
Still, she does not regret bringing forward the sexual abuse claims.
“Everyone was like, ‘you are going to lose your kid if you say anything,’” she said. “I was like, ‘I know what’s right.’ I would be not doing the right thing if I didn’t say anything. As a parent you’re supposed to put your child first.”
If a family or dependency court has already rejected claims of child sexual abuse, the chances of criminal charges are exceedingly low, according to Danielle Pollack, a policy manager at the National Family Violence Law Center who has worked with Meier.
“If you can’t prove it in dependency court and you can’t prove it in family court, the likelihood that a prosecutor’s going to take it up and really think that they’re going to win the case with the highest burden of proof in the criminal court is even less likely,” Pollack said.
The number of child sexual abuse cases drops off at each stage of the criminal justice system, from investigation, to prosecution, to trial, said Jeglic, the professor, something known as a “funnel” effect. And that’s taking into account only the cases that reach law enforcement in the first place; research suggests that only 5% to 13% of child sexual abuse instances are reported to law enforcement.
Caruso was investigated by DCF and Delray Beach Police at least twice: in 2001 over allegations that he physically abused his son, according to a police report, and again in 2012, over the claims that he had sexually abused one of his children. Both times, officers determined the allegations to be unfounded. Such an outcome is common for child abuse investigations, experts say.
Meanwhile, parents in the middle of a divorce or custody battle are often discouraged from going to police with allegations in the first place due to concerns that they will lose their children, legal experts say.
Brown told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that she had a client who discovered sexual abuse allegations against the father of their young daughter well into her custody case in Palm Beach County. But by that point, Brown said, the judge had already determined that the mother was an “alienator.”
“I begged her not to bring it up until the case was over because I thought it would result in the judge ruling against her,” Brown said. “… I asked her to focus on non-sexual abuse allegations. Because they never believe you; they put on the alienator hat, and I’ve seen people lose their children for allegations that they made false sexual abuse claims.”
But the majority of sexual abuse takes place within families, experts say, and parents who become aware of such abuse often leave or file for divorce, meaning that allegations frequently come to light only during a family court dispute.
Adriana Alcalde, a former Broward prosecutor who now represents victims of sexual violence, said she regularly took on sexual abuse cases where the accusations emerged during a divorce. She recalled winning one such trial early in her career. As is often the case, the only witness was the child.
“People told me I shouldn’t go forward,” Alcalde told the Sun Sentinel, because it was an “impossible case.” But the defendant ended up making an admission while on the stand and is now serving life in prison.
Alcalde thinks prosecutors should be more open to taking on sex abuse cases. During trials, they should seek to place the focus on the children, she said, and, if possible, let them testify against their abusers. Law enforcement should also have a better system in place to keep track of patterns of abuse, Alcalde said, even if each isolated report is closed as unfounded. Detectives could make it a point to follow up with children again after a few years have passed, sometimes once they have become adults, when they might be more open to speaking.
“They can articulate more what happened to them,” Alcalde said. “When you revisit, reopen, now you have a better case. I can’t tell you how many times I had cases with adults who were like, ‘This is what happened to me as a child and no one believed me.’ That’s the standard, is to not believe them.”
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