Accused: My Fight for Truth, Justice & the Strength to Forgive

by Tonya Craft

  “Restate that, please?”

  He restated that someone who inappropriately touches a child’s genitalia is a child molester, and I agreed—looking right into his eyes: “If you do that, yes.”

  He then accused me of making a prepared “speech” at the beginning of that second day, when Doc had asked me how I was doing. “Absolutely not,” I told him.

  My attorneys had told me to keep my answers succinct during cross: “Keep it to just yes or no as much as possible,” they said. So that was what I did. I wanted to show them, “See, I can follow orders. I don’t go against everything you say!”

  Gregor then spent some time talking about some literature that he’d found on a website dedicated to “false allegations.” I wasn’t sure where he was going with it. At all.

  “We’ve asked people this, but, narcissism. Do you know what narcissism is?”

  “Um, I guess I’ve learned during this trial,” I said.

  After spouting off a long, dictionary-type definition of “narcissism,” Gregor then talked about the literature he’d found on that website, quoting the author of that literature and stating, “The number-one thing that he has found in research that links individuals to being pedophiles is being narcissistic,” he said. He paused. I just looked at him and waited. “It cites a study by ‘Lee-hee’ or ‘Lay-hee,’” he said, struggling with the pronunciation of somebody’s last name. And then he read from a printed page: “The most common diagnosis of the child abuser is the narcissistic personality disorder. They’re seeking intimate encounters with children as some affirmation that they are both loved and desired,” he said.

  He asked if I was familiar with that research.

  “I had not read that, no,” I said.

  “[The author] cites unsuccessful marriages as part of narcissists and relationships to narcissists and pedophilia.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He went on to keep talking about it, and Doc finally objected to his reading a study into the record when I’d already answered that I wasn’t familiar with it. Judge House overruled the objection, and Gregor kept right on going.

  “Interestingly … [the author] lists as one of the top links between child abuse [and] pedophiles is substance abuse. A history of substance abuse. And more often than not there’s alcohol issues with those who commit acts of pedophilia,” he said.

  He tried to insinuate that I fit both of those descriptions—of a narcissist and of an alcoholic—and Doc objected again and approached the bench. Finally, Gregor agreed to move on.

  “Now, we’re gonna go through a variety of things, but whatever the time period was, I can tell you I’m not going to keep you up there as long as Brianna was up there, okay?” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “And, um, as it relates, I bet you at $460 an hour you were pleased that he didn’t keep Dr. Bernet up there that long either, correct?”

  “I just wanted him to tell the truth. It didn’t matter how long it took,” I said.

  Doc called over to me and told me to speak up a bit more. My voice was definitely fading. I sipped some more water as Gregor went on: “I look behind me and to my left and it looks like people in support of a team out here with yellow. Is it a game to you?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “I look behind me and see spectators and ‘Team Tonya.’ Are they gonna do a wave here in a moment?”

  “No.”

  He went on about the Truth for Tonya website, talking about the pictures of me that were on that website and confirming that my favorite color is yellow. He then asked about our questioning of Brianna on the stand.

  “Did you instruct Mr. Lorandos to wear a yellow tie?”

  “No.”

  “Was it your idea for him to stick yellow stickies in Brianna Lamb’s face?”

  “He uses yellow stickies everywhere.”

  “Was it your idea to point out some yellow crayon being utilized when she was interviewed?”

  “No.”

  “Your defense is that this is a conspiracy, right?”

  “No.”

  “I mean, that’s what’s promoted on the website, right?”

  “It’s not my website.”

  “It’s not your website,” he said with a little laugh, making a reference to Diana (who created it) and going on for a bit about what else that website professed. “At the beginning of the trial we were told that this is a frame job, a setup, a witch hunt. Correct?”

  “I don’t recall hearing those words.”

  “Well, I do. I wrote ’em down,” he said.

  He then listed the “primary” conspirators, including Brianna, Chloe, “your own daughter,” he said. “And they all are conspirators and liars.”

  “No.”

  “Under your theory they have to be. Right?”

  “No.”

  The attention then turned once again to my attempts to defend myself, the hiring of my team, the “aggressive” civil action we took in my custody case in Tennessee. He talked about the “extraordinary number” of people I deposed in that case, and then asked me how many people we deposed.

  “Joal. Sarah. Laurie Evans,” I said.

  “That’s it? Because I’ve got boxes and boxes downstairs that’s just a part of what we have.”

  “I don’t remember anybody else,” I said, wondering whether he had read any of the “boxes and boxes” of material we’d sent him in discovery. He went on and on about the number of phone records we’d subpoenaed and said we had threatened lawsuits. We hadn’t threatened anybody with a lawsuit. It simply wasn’t true.

  “What about your investigator, Eric Nichols, and the charges of influencing a witness as it relates to Jerry McDonald?”

  “It’s Eric Echols,” I corrected him. “He talked to a willing individual and he was arrested.”

  He turned back to the “aggressive media campaign” and referred to a “five-part puff piece” I had done with Melydia Clewell, basically making a speech again until Doc stood up and asked, “Is that a testimony or a question?”

  “Overruled,” Judge House said immediately.

  “You engaged in the aggressive media campaign, right? Part of the strategy?”

  “No. I went on television and told the truth,” I said.

  “So the television dragged you, and you were on the television?”

  “No. I want to tell of my innocence.”

  Pounding his podium, he spoke at length about the “aggressive tactics” and asked whether it was all meant to try to make him “quit.” He asked who I had practiced my cross-examinations with, and I told him it was Dr. Lorandos. And then he asked me, “Is that where you learned to tell a Tonya truth?”

  “The truth is the truth,” I said.

  “When the jury wasn’t around, you seemed to like to catch my eye and stare at me. Was that part of what you learned somewhere, an intimidation stare?”

  “No.”

  “Did you talk about when the jury’s around, maybe not to do that because that’s sort of a mean face, and maybe cry at the appropriate moments?”

  “Did I what?”

  He asked whether I’d been coached on what faces to make. I hadn’t. I told him “no.” I didn’t deny the fact that I’d stared him down when the jury wasn’t there. I did stare him down. He deserved to be stared down!

  At this point, it seemed to me that Gregor had finally let us know why he asked so many witnesses about my “narcissism,” and he’d also managed to get in some good speeches about the “conspiracy” and the “Truth for Tonya” website, so I was waiting for him to bring up my “fitness pageant past” at some point, too. He finally did. He talked about my having to wear certain outfits and do certain poses and routines in front of judges.

  “How long have you been doing that?” he said.

  “I did for a number of years. I haven’t been, in a long time,” I answered.

  He asked an odd question about whether my first husband had hired Joal to be my fitness
coach. He hadn’t, and I said so. He asked if I had paid Joal to be my fitness coach. I told him that wasn’t true, either. “Nobody hired Joal.”

  He went on and on about the workouts and routines and what my diet was—for no apparent reason. He then stated something completely false: “[Your first husband] was married to you and caught you in the act with Joal Henke, correct?”

  “No.”

  “And you said it was just a ‘massage’?”

  “No.”

  As that whole line of questioning went on, it was certainly not difficult for me to discern where Gregor got his information. It’s classic Joal. I guess Doc was right. I guess it was important for us to bring up all of my history with Joal before the prosecutors questioned me about it. I hoped the jury believed me over him. I closed my eyes for a moment in the middle of this, just praying that the truth would win out.

  The next attack on the list was a bit of a surprise. He asked me about my trip to see that woman in Newark, New Jersey—the one who had shown up on Joal’s phone records so many times.

  “You got on a plane, you went up to New Jersey, and you accosted [this woman]—who was a real-estate customer of Joal’s—because her name was on his phone records,” Gregor said. “Right?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, explain it to me, then.”

  “I talked to her.”

  “At her home?”

  “At her office,” I said.

  “And at her home.”

  “I went to where her office was and knocked on the door. Her office is in a home.”

  “You hopped on a plane and went to New Jersey … because you saw there was 115 minutes of conversation between her and Joal.”

  “No, actually there was thousands of minutes,” I said.

  “So you didn’t bring up that there was 115 minutes over and over again, and you wanted to know who she was and why she was talking to Joal for 115 minutes?”

  “No,” I said.

  “She asked you to leave, didn’t she?”

  “No. I have it recorded,” I said.

  “Did you have anything recorded where she said, ‘I felt scared—a woman going to great lengths about getting information on me, harassing me, my friends, my office, I feel like she’s a stalker.’”

  “No. I have the whole conversation on tape,” I said.

  Chris Arnt called Len over and whispered something in his ear. Gregor then shot straight up and asked me, “So, when you went up to [her address] and you say you had the whole thing on tape?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you tell her you were taping the conversation?”

  “It’s a one-party state,” I said.

  “So you felt like you could be sneaky and tape the conversation and see what kind of dirt you could git?” he said in a greatly exaggerated Southern twang.

  “No,” I said, looking straight back at him. “I felt like something like this could happen and my words could be twisted.”

  Gregor seemed to stumble a bit after that. He asked me a couple more questions about the conversation, but I think he realized that he’d better be careful. Since he brought it up in court, I would definitely be allowed to enter that tape into evidence and play the whole thing, which would have shown how wrong he was about that whole line of questioning. I had never been so thankful for tape-recording conversations over the last couple of years than at that very moment.

  I wondered when, if ever, this ADA who was prosecuting me for offenses against children was going to ask me about the actual charges. He went on a long line of questioning about whether I was “holding hands” with Eric Echols when we ran into David at the Bonefish Grill and even made reference to us going into a hotel room afterward.

  “Was Mr. Echols getting his bonus for threatening Jerry McDonald at that point?”

  I answered his disparaging innuendos with a firm “No.”

  He asked about the details of May 30, using Tim Deal’s descriptions of me “turning purple” and “hyperventilating” and more. I said yes to what was true and no to what was false. He asked me to describe my “relationships” with Jennifer, Tammy, the Potters, and more.

  My voice kept fading. Doc asked me again to speak up so the jury could hear me. He asked the judge if he could place a piece of paper with the words “Speak Up!” in front of me on the witness stand so I wouldn’t forget. I took a deep breath. I drank some more water. I think my nerves were getting the better of me. I’ve never had trouble talking before, that’s for sure. And it wasn’t a problem with answering the questions. Telling the truth is easy. My mouth was just all dried out, and my throat felt tired. I felt like my exhaustion was catching up with me at the worst possible moment.

  During the questioning about the Potters, Gregor went back to the whole issue of whether Dee had helped me pay for a dress one time. The fact was she had paid for a dress. It was a different yellow dress than the one they kept showing a picture of, but she’d paid for a dress nonetheless. Gregor then said that Dee had also testified that she bought me some “Venus swimwear.”

  “No, she didn’t say that,” I told him. He’s misquoting something that we all heard directly from Dee on the witness stand. She didn’t say she had bought me “Venus swimwear.” She specifically said “no” to that whole line of absurd questioning. I was positive of that. I’m sure anyone who’d been paying attention was positive of that.

  If they put me in prison, if I wanted to appeal, I would have to fight about the mishandling of the trial and anything that looked like prosecutorial misconduct. So I was paying attention. To everything. Little things could make a big difference. I knew that.

  And yes, even as I sat on that witness stand being grilled about every intimate detail of my personal life, even as he went on about the “lesbian porn” and accused me of “borrowing it” from my father—disparaging my daddy in front of that whole courtroom—even as I sat there taking what felt like abuse, I was actively thinking about how I was going to fight for my freedom from inside a prison. I refused to be shocked and unprepared for a guilty verdict. I did not for one second believe that I was in the clear.

  I looked at that poker-faced jury. I knew I was running out of time.

  Chapter 63

  During a break, Doc, Cary, and Scott all told me that they didn’t mean for me to take their “stick to yes and no” advice quite so literally. They told me to go ahead and expand a little bit more in my answers to Len Gregor.

  In most cases, I didn’t have to explain. Especially when Gregor tried to imply things without actually saying them, like when he talked about my work as a fitness instructor and asked about an email I’d once registered that had the word “Kidfit” in the email address. Yes, at one point I gave some seminars about kids’ nutrition and exercise. I had an email address registered with a “Kidfit” address. Yes, I did. So what?

  Yes, I drank too much at the Walker County Gala in 2007 and danced with some other men. I wrote an apology letter to some friends and acquaintances because I was not proud of my behavior. But no, my zipper did not break and my “rear end” was not hanging out, as Gregor kept declaring in front of that jury.

  “You wear thong underwear, right?” he asked.

  I looked directly at the jury for that one: “Yes, I do,” I said.

  What does any of this have to do with this case?

  The ADA tried to attack the timeline we’d presented, saying there’s “no way” that I could account for everything I did and put “everything” on that timeline.

  “That’s correct,” I said. “There’s nobody that’s followed me around twenty-four seven.”

  “It’d be silly to think that! Correct?” Gregor said, rather loudly.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  When he finally got to talking about Brianna and Chloe, Gregor said that “depending on which of your witnesses we listened to, Brianna Lamb was either over there all the time, or she was never over there. Chloe McDonald, according to which witness of yours t
estifies, is either over there all the time, or she was never over there. Did you hear that?”

  Doc shot up like a rocket. “Object to the form of the question. That’s not the testimony. That’s not the testimony at all! It’s a rank mischaracterization of the testimony of the defense witnesses.”

  “That’s for the jury to decide if they heard that,” Gregor said, and he offered to rephrase things a little bit. Then he asked the same questions all over again.

  “I don’t recall hearing absolutes either way,” I said, but I told him that neither of those girls was over all the time. I was perfectly clear about how many times they’d been over. I felt we’d shown evidence throughout the trial to show that the number of times they were at my house had been grossly exaggerated by the prosecution’s witnesses.

  “What about some of the jurors”—I’m pretty sure he meant to say “witnesses,” but I let it slide—“who said that Brianna went home with you every day?”

  “I don’t recall hearing that Brianna went home with me every day,” I said. Where is he getting this from? Was he in the same room for this trial? Has the jury heard the same things he was hearing?

  He asked me whether I disputed the fact that Brianna had spent the night at my house numerous times. Of course I disputed that. He asked me if it was my assertion that Brianna had only ever stayed at my house one time. “Yes,” I responded.

  “You’re saying that you never gave Brianna Lamb a bath?”

  “That is exactly what I’m saying.”

  “How often did Chloe McDonald spend the night?” he asked.

  “Chloe McDonald spent the one night, in August, at the High School Musical party.”

  “Not at the after-Halloween party?”

  “No, sir.” There was no after-Halloween party.

  “And not on any other occasion?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Your daughter and Chloe were friends, though, correct?”

  This seemed to be an occasion that called for me to say more than yes or no, so I did. “They had gotten to know one another. After the incident between Ashley and Chloe, there was not as much. We would see them at the ball fields and things like that, but we wouldn’t get together.” I reexplained the whole friendship with Kelly and the kids’ friendships with Chloe and her older brother, and explained that we did keep running into each other at other people’s birthday parties and the like after the incident as well.