Uncle Jailed My Dad; Twenty Years Later I Accuse

1: 1

Twenty years ago, my father killed a man while saving his younger brother.

That younger brother, to protect his own career, gave false testimony and accused my father of premeditated murder.

My father was sentenced to life.

Twenty years slipped by, and I made it into the law program at the school I'd always wanted.

But before I could finish my studies and clear my father's name, a lawsuit came for me first.

In the dean of students' office, Loretta Edwards kept wiping at her tears, and the look she turned on me was full of fear.

"It was him. He tried to assault me."

The spot she pointed to was a blind spot for the cameras. There was nothing I could say to defend myself.

Dean Finch sat with a heavy face, the look he gave me complicated. I was already a second-year student, everyone knew me as top of my class and clean.

He didn't believe I'd do something like this, but Loretta told it with every convincing detail.

When he pressed her, she said I'd only tried and hadn't succeeded, and to keep the incident from turning into something worse,

he wanted to bury it. He called both sets of parents to see how I should be dealt with so Loretta's parents would be satisfied.

Loretta's parent arrived first.

"Dad" She threw herself into his arms, sobbing as if she'd been wronged.

I froze where I stood. Her father was the uncle who'd put my father in prison.

In that instant I finally understood why Loretta had framed me.

"Lawyer Edwards, Loretta is your daughter?" Dean Finch shot to his feet.

Milton Edwards, the man who twenty years ago had put his own brother behind bars in the name of justice and made a name for himself doing it.

The line he'd used back then, that the law spares no one, was something everyone remembered, and now he was one of the biggest names in the profession.

Milton's face was cold. "Whoever's daughter she is, when something like this happens, I expect the school to hand down the correct resolution as quickly as possible."

Dean Finch said quickly, "Of course. Of course."

"But." He glanced at me. "This boy, Les, has always been a good student. Could there be some misunderstanding here?"

"Are you saying my daughter would sacrifice her own reputation to slander him?"

"That's not what I meant." Dean Finch bowed his posture even lower. Facing Milton, he was visibly on edge.

But he knew my record at the school well, knew plenty of girls had chased after me and I'd turned every one of them down.

He couldn't find a motive for me to do this.

As if he'd read the doubt on his face, Milton spoke again. "Les Edwards is my eldest brother's son. He's my nephew."

Dean Finch stared, stunned.

Milton's gaze had already settled on me. "Les, I know you hate me for what happened all those years ago, but like I said, the law spares no one."

"What your father did wasn't a mistake. It was a crime."

"Anyone with a sense of justice in his heart would have testified."

"You hate me. I can understand that."

"But using a disgusting tactic like this to get your revenge is against the law."

He turned to the dean. "Dean Finch, by any measure, of feeling or of reason, shouldn't I be calling the police to have him arrested?"

Dean Finch looked at me, and his eyes held blame, resentment, the disappointment of a man who wanted better from me.

"Lawyer Edwards, you're right. A person like this should be arrested and sentenced." The vice principal had arrived.

He clasped Milton's hand. "But Les is your nephew, after all. Break the bone and the tendons still hold it together."

"Besides, once the police get involved, it'll affect Loretta too."

Milton frowned, his face going a good deal colder. "Do you know why assault cases against women never stop happening?"

"It's because those criminals know that to protect their own reputation, most women won't go to the police."

"As a member of the legal profession, I will never allow something like this to happen."

"My daughter will set the example. This has to go to the police today."

"Milton Edwards, you destroyed my husband, and now you want to destroy my son too?" My mother had arrived. She glared at Milton. "Are you even human?"

"Margaret Edwards, it's precisely because I am human that I can't shield a crime just because we're family."

Slap

My mother's hand came up and struck me across the face. "On your knees. Apologize to your uncle."

I stood with my fists clenched, staring at Milton. I was certain the framing was something he'd orchestrated from behind the scenes.

He was afraid of me.

He was afraid I'd finish my studies. He was afraid I'd succeed in clearing my father's name.

"Let him call the police."

"I told you to get on your knees." My mother struck me across the face twice more.

I stood there and didn't move. It was my mother who dropped to her knees, kneeling in front of Milton. "Milton, I'm begging you, give Les a break."

2: 2

Milton frowned.

The vice principal spoke up quickly too. "Lawyer Edwards, let me say my piece as well."

"The school will expel Les. As for going to the police, maybe we can drop that."

"You can't expel him. If my son gets expelled, his whole future is ruined."

My mother looked at Milton. "Milton, I'm begging you. Just say the word. I'll pay whatever it takes. Just say the word, please?"

"Mom, do you actually believe I'd do something like this?" I stepped forward to pull her up.

She shook off my hand. When she looked at me, it was with heartbreak, with helplessness, with despair.

I thought of what my grandmother had said before she died, gripping my mother's hand.

"My girl, we can't win against him.

Let it go. Move somewhere else and start over.

Keep fighting him and you'll be the one who suffers. It'll hurt Les too."

After my father went to prison, my mother never gave up trying to clear his name.

But the result was that Milton's reputation only grew, while my mother became the one everyone wanted to spit on.

Still, she never stopped believing my father had been framed.

Just like the way she was looking at me now. She knew I'd been framed.

But she was also certain Milton had covered every angle, that there was no way to prove my innocence.

She didn't dare keep fighting. She only wanted to save me.

"Milton, say the word. Les will drop law. He'll transfer to any department you want, as long as he stays in school. Just say the word."

When Milton didn't budge, she came to pull at me again. "Kneel down and beg your uncle's forgiveness."

Milton spoke. "If kneeling earned forgiveness, then what would be the point of the law?"

"Milton, are you really going to drive a widow and her son to their deaths?"

"Les is your own nephew."

Milton's face stayed hard. "Being weak is no excuse for a crime."

"And family is no license to do whatever you please."

"Who called the police?" Just then, the police arrived.

3: 3

I was named a suspect and taken into custody.

The school wanted the whole thing to go away, to keep the public fallout as small as possible.

Milton Edwards turned down every offer they put on the table.

My mother went to his door again and again to beg him. Every time, she was turned away.

While all this was happening, Milton was setting his machinery in motion.

Loretta claimed the spot where I'd assaulted her was a camera blind spot, but her word alone wasn't enough to open a case.

They could only hold me as a suspect. Without more direct evidence that I'd actually committed a crime, they were required to release me in time.

Then Loretta's side produced new evidence.

A witness.

In that place with no cameras, a witness had appeared.

At the same time, my fingerprints were lifted from Loretta's clothes.

And skin tissue was recovered from under Loretta's fingernails, so the police moved on me at once.

They did find the scratches on my arm.

"Les Edwards, do you have anything else to say?"

"I'm being framed."

"I've already told you. Loretta came to me for help with her coursework all the time. My classmates and my professors can all confirm that."

"That day she came to me for help again. I was walking her back to her dorm when she suddenly said she'd been learning women's self-defense lately and wanted me to be her practice partner so she could test it out."

"I grabbed her clothes the way she asked. When she scratched me, I thought it was just a reflex."

"Now I'm certain it was planned. Getting close to me was planned too."

"Milton Edwards is afraid that once I finish my studies I'll clear my father's name, so he wants to destroy me first."

"Les Edwards, how do you explain what the witness said? He saw you drag Loretta into the trees. Are you still going to argue your way out of it?"

"That's exactly what I want to talk about." I looked at the police. "I suggest you look into the witness, see whether he has any special connection to Milton Edwards."

"And another thing. Look into the witness's recent bank records."

"Les Edwards, you'd better think this through. If you confess voluntarily, the sentence can be reduced. You study law, you should understand that."

Seeing me stay silent, the officer went on. "One more question for you. If you were really being framed, then when Loretta screamed for help and other students showed up nearby, why did you run?"

"And there's this." The officer fixed his eyes on my arm. "According to forensics, you treated the injury on your arm during the time you were running."

"Before we mentioned that you'd been scratched, you said the injury on your arm was self-inflicted. How do you explain all that?"

4: 4

Because of the follow-up evidence Loretta supplied, and because I couldn't give a reasonable explanation for why I ran that day, I was detained.

Loretta filed suit. If I couldn't clear my own name in the time I had, I would face the full weight of the law.

My mother was out there the whole time, running from one door to the next for me.

She hired lawyers, leaned on friends, begged Milton. But against evidence this solid, she was close to despair.

"Les, Mom doesn't believe you'd ever do something like this. Don't worry. I will get you out."

When she came to see me, she looked years older.

Now she was the only person who believed I was innocent.

My mother was working every angle to save me. Milton was working every angle too.

He already had his own law firm, and a big name in the field.

Faced with his daughter being sexually assaulted, he didn't try to keep it quiet. He deliberately made it as loud as he could.

He forced the university to issue a public notice and to punish me before the case had even been tried.

Something like this would be a scandal at any university.

The school wanted it handled privately. Expel me, hand Loretta a graduate school recommendation, and pay out part of the settlement.

Milton refused. He wanted an apology and a public statement from the school.

Under the pressure, the school had no choice but to announce it and go through with my expulsion.

My university was one of the top schools in the country, so a scandal like this shot straight to the top of the trending lists.

And everyone connected to it trended right along with it.

Nephew, daughterthat relationship made the whole thing spread even faster, and for a while it sat at number one.

Milton, already a controversial celebrity lawyer, drew intense attention all over again.

Putting justice above family was one of his halos. This time it shone brighter than ever.

More and more people started following the case, and on the day of my trial, every seat in the gallery was full.

Milton had petitioned for the trial to be open, saying he wanted women everywhere to learn how to protect their own rights.

The hearing was public, and set up with a live online stream.

Just like my father twenty years before, I stood in the defendant's box.

And my own uncle wasn't just family to the plaintiff this time. He was arguing her case.

The trial began. Milton presented his evidence piece by piece, and the judge called the witnesses.

Everything was stacked against me.

The police had turned in their findings too, confirming there was no family tie between the eyewitness and Milton, and no financial dealings either.

There was also no prior conflict between the eyewitness and me.

"Defendant, this is your time to present a defense."

The judge looked at me.

I hadn't hired a lawyer. I was defending myself.

"Mom." I glanced at her.

My mother stood and submitted a video to the court as evidence.

I requested that it be played then and there.

The court verified the contents first, and only then played it in open session.

The spot where it supposedly happened, the one Loretta said had no camerasit turned out there were cameras after all.