Contacted by CPS or Police About a Child Sexual Abuse Allegation?

These situations rarely start with an arrest. They start with a phone call from a CPS caseworker. A detective’s card left in a door. Word through family that the child was interviewed somewhere. A request that you stay somewhere else for a while. If any of those has happened around an allegation involving a child, an investigation is already moving, and the decisions you make in the next few days will follow the case for as long as it lasts.

Kent Starr has defended sex-crime allegations in Collin County since 1997, and he takes these cases throughout Texas. The consultation is free and confidential, he takes it himself, and you do not have to explain anything on the phone to schedule it. Call (214) 982-1408.

Two Investigations Open at Once

An allegation of child sexual abuse in Texas usually triggers two separate tracks. CPS, part of the Department of Family and Protective Services, opens a civil investigation under Family Code Chapter 261, focused on the child’s safety and living situation. Law enforcement opens a criminal investigation, focused on whether to bring charges. They are different systems with different rules, and they share information with each other. Statements and documents given to CPS can be shared with law enforcement, and can come up later when criminal-case restrictions are requested or set.

This is why handling one track at a time goes wrong. Everything you say and sign needs to be weighed against both cases at once, and that is work for a lawyer who defends the criminal side.

The CPS Interview and the Safety Plan

CPS moves quickly. A caseworker may ask to interview you, interview others in the household, see the home, or ask you to agree to a safety plan, an arrangement that can mean staying somewhere else or having no unsupervised contact with children in the family while the investigation runs. Safety plans are presented as voluntary, and refusing or agreeing each carries consequences: refusal can push CPS toward court orders, and agreement can restrict your life and your contact with your own children in ways that are hard to undo.

You can consult and be represented by a lawyer in your dealings with CPS, and asking for time to speak with one is a normal, expected step. Before you give CPS a statement or sign anything, have a defense lawyer read it.

The Forensic Interview

When an allegation involves a child, investigators typically arrange a recorded forensic interview at a children’s advocacy center. In Collin County that work is done through the county’s children’s advocacy center, where a trained interviewer talks with the child while detectives and CPS observe as a team. The interview is investigative. It is designed to obtain and preserve the child’s account, it is recorded, and it often becomes the central evidence in the case.

Two things follow from that. You will usually not be told it is happening, and you have no right to be there or to respond to what is said. And because the interview carries so much weight, how it was conducted, what questions were asked, and what came before it get careful scrutiny from the defense later. If you have learned that a forensic interview happened or is scheduled, treat that as the clearest possible signal to get counsel now.

If You Are Told to Leave Your Home

Being asked to leave your own house is one of the most disorienting parts of these investigations, and it happens through several different mechanisms that carry very different rules:

A voluntary arrangement, where family members agree you will stay elsewhere while things get sorted out. A CPS safety plan, the civil arrangement described above. An emergency protective order under Code of Criminal Procedure Article 17.292, which a magistrate can issue after an arrest and which can bar you from the residence with criminal penalties for violating it. A bond condition, set by the court as a term of release.

Which one applies to you controls everything: what you can and cannot do, what happens if you go back for your things, and who can change it. Do not return to the home, even briefly and even with an invitation from someone who lives there, until a lawyer has told you which restriction you are under and what it allows. A family-court order does not authorize anything that an emergency protective order, a criminal-court order, or a bond condition prohibits, and violating an enforceable restriction can lead to arrest.

What to Preserve, and What Not to Do

Keep everything. Text messages, call logs, photos, calendars, location history, and any custody or family-court paperwork. Do not delete or alter anything on any device or account; doing so can create additional criminal exposure and become evidence in the case.

And do not investigate the allegation yourself. Do not discuss the allegation with the child, and do not ask anyone else to question the child or gather statements. Do not compare accounts with other people involved. Do not confront the person who made the report. Do not post about the situation or the family conflict online. Each of those feels like defending yourself, and each one hands the investigation something to use.

If You Are Calling About Someone Else

Often the first call does not come from the person under investigation. It comes from a wife or partner, or from parents calling about an adult son. That is a good first step, and a family member is welcome to make it and to help with fees and logistics.

Two ground rules protect everyone. If Kent is retained, the client is the person facing the investigation, regardless of who pays; the client decides the direction of the defense, and paying the fees does not entitle a family member to what the client and Kent discuss. And before going into details, Kent will sort out whom he can represent and check for conflicts, because in a family situation the people around a case can have interests of their own. The consultation works best when the person under investigation takes part directly.

What Happens Next in Collin County

At the end of the investigation, the detective sends the case to the Collin County District Attorney’s office, which decides what, if anything, to charge. When charges come, they are usually filed as sexual assault of a child, indecency with a child, or, in device cases, possession of child pornography, and each of those pages explains what the charge carries. Cases the District Attorney chooses to pursue as felonies are ordinarily presented to a grand jury and, if indicted, heard in the district courts at the Russell A. Steindam Courts Building in McKinney. Early defense work in that period can include preserving evidence, addressing interview requests, evaluating restrictions, and putting relevant information in front of the right people before a charging decision is made. The accused of child molestation and accused of sexual assault pages both start in that window, and the Collin County sex crimes defense page covers the charges themselves.

Making the Call

You do not need to explain the entire situation to the person answering the phone. Start with who has contacted you, whether any interview or court date is scheduled, and whether anyone has been asked to leave the home. Kent takes every consultation himself. It is free, it is confidential, and it commits you to nothing. Call (214) 982-1408 before you give a statement to anyone.

Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case is evaluated on its own facts.

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