Family Forum / Parenting / Spanking / November 2006

Court records show the Mongars reported the Whites to the Department of

Human Services for "smacking (their children) on the knuckles with
butter knives" and for smoking cigarettes in the children's presence.
One of the Mongars' children has severe asthma and needed
hospitalization, partly due to inhaling the smoke.

         smacking knuckles with butter knives???
         couldn't stop smoking even for day care kids?

After the DHS confirmed child abuse for "denial of critical care,"
Juanita White forfeited her state child care registration, cutting off
the Whites' primary source of income, court records state.

         Daycare was their primary income???

Of all the privacy rights threatened everyday for security,
can't they track the pervs who download kiddy porn more?
What are the odds that a perv who downloads
kiddy porn also molested kids?

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061112/NEWS...

False sex-abuse claims leave cloud over family
By JENNIFER JACOBS      REGISTER STAFF WRITER
November 12, 2006

Osceola, Ia. - The photograph of a naked man about to rape a screaming
girl arrived at the state child abuse investigators' office in an
anonymous envelope five years ago.

A simple message was marked on the back of the photo: "Ashley Mongar,
Friendly Acres Trailer Park, Lot 20, Osceola, Iowa. Photographer:
Brandy Mongar."

During the police investigation that followed, Ashley Mongar, then 8
years old, was pulled out of school, shown the explicit photograph, and

examined by her doctor for signs of sexual intercourse. She tearfully
denied any abuse. But police, uncertain whether to believe her, put her

father in jail, interrogated her mother, and removed her three siblings

from their parents' custody.

Within two days, investigators uncovered the truth: Brandy and Bill
Mongar had been framed.

But a cloud of public suspicion has followed the Mongars for the past
five years.

Federal prosecutors later proved that Lester John White Jr., 51, a
Garden Grove man who had a grudge against the Mongars, searched through

pedophilia sites on the Internet until he found a photo of a child who
resembled Ashley Mongar. Then White made "a vengeful false child abuse
report" against her parents, prosecutors said.

White admitted in his trial last winter that five days before Christmas

in 2001, he anonymously mailed the downloaded image to the Iowa
Department of Human Services office in Osceola.

White insisted he did so out of concern for Ashley. His defense lawyer,

Nick Drees, contended that a conviction would deter others from
reporting suspected abuse if they could be held criminally liable for
handing over evidence that includes child pornography.

But a federal judge found White guilty of three charges for receiving,
possessing and distributing child pornography.

The photo he claimed was of the Mongars was actually part of "the
Heather series," a widely distributed collection of child pornography,
investigators testified.

White was sentenced last month to six years in prison.

With White heading off to prison soon, the five-year saga Bill and
Brandy Mongar lived through finally came to an end. But before it
ended, some of the Mongars' friends grew distant, both lost their jobs,

and they ended up moving away from Osceola for a while.

Accusations arise from care dispute

A feud between the Mongar family and the White family began in May
2001. Lester White's wife, Juanita, who provided child care for the
Mongar children, sued Brandy and Bill Mongar for child care fees.

Court records show the Mongars reported the Whites to the Department of

Human Services for "smacking (their children) on the knuckles with
butter knives" and for smoking cigarettes in the children's presence.
One of the Mongars' children has severe asthma and needed
hospitalization, partly due to inhaling the smoke.

After the DHS confirmed child abuse for "denial of critical care,"
Juanita White forfeited her state child care registration, cutting off
the Whites' primary source of income, court records state.

In November 2001, Lester White downloaded the image of "Heather" being
sexually abused, but he waited until Dec. 20 to mail it to the DHS,
investigators testified.

U.S. Postal Inspector Kevin Marshall and Osceola police investigator
Charles Beeker went to Ashley's elementary school to determine whether
she was, indeed, the child in the photo, court documents state.

Beeker knew the Mongar family and "believed it was certainly her,"
according to court testimony.

However, when Marshall met the girl, he was not convinced.

Police asked Brandy and Bill Mongar, who were then manager and
assistant manager at a KFC restaurant in Osceola, to go to the Osceola
Police Department. They arrested Bill on a warrant for failing to pay
traffic fines.

Brandy Mongar said, "They read me my rights and slapped this picture
down in front of my face and said, 'This is your daughter.' "

She said she reacted to "the horror of the photo," which showed a young

girl lying on a bed and a man, whose genitals were in full view,
performing a sex act on her.

"I started screaming. I kept saying, 'This is not my daughter! Oh my
God!' and I started crying, and it was just a horrible ordeal," she
remembered.

What was immediately obvious to the mother was that the girl in the
photo had crooked teeth, while her own daughter's teeth are "perfect,"
she said.

And the man in the photo had no tattoo on his hand or leg, while Bill
Mongar has tattoos in both places.

When she pointed these details out, the investigators told her
alterations were possible with a digital photo. She responded that she
didn't own a digital camera.

"I said, 'I want my kids,' " Mongar recalled. "My fear was my kids were

gone, and I didn't know where they were going."

Girl told, 'Your parents are sick'

Ashley and her younger sister, who police had taken from her
kindergarten classroom, were in separate rooms elsewhere at the police
station, Brandy Mongar said. It was 10 hours before the girls were able

to leave with their grandmother, whom DHS officials had asked to care
for all four Mongar children.

"I understand why they did it," Brandy Mongar said. "If something like
that had really happened, they need to take all the precautionary steps

they have to do."

The situation was no less painful when Ashley later told her mother the

questions the male officers asked her.

"She was scared because she's in this room alone with no one she knows
and these guys kept telling her: 'We know this is you,' " Brandy Mongar

said. "They said, 'Your parents are sick people,' and that we need to
be on medication. The medication would help us and she wouldn't have to

go through that no more. She kept saying 'No, no.' "

The investigators asked Brandy Mongar if they could search her home,
and she quickly agreed. Federal court documents show that the officers
did not find the blanket or girl's clothing that could be seen in the
photo. They confiscated the family computer, however, but found no
cameras or anything that would connect the Mongars to the photo,
according to court records.

Brandy Mongar said the officers told her not to talk to anyone about
the case - neither family nor friends who could possibly destroy
evidence for her. If she bumped into her family in town, she was told
to turn and walk away from them, she said.

"My whole world, in just a matter of minutes, came crashing down on
me," she said. "It felt like my mom, my sister, my kids were completely

out of my life."

The next morning, stinging from a killer headache, Brandy Mongar went
to the store for pain medication. By coincidence, she said, her four
children were there with her mother, Linda Hopkins.

"My youngest was almost 2 and he said, 'Momma!' I instantly started
bawling and the kids started crying. I went directly to them. I
couldn't stay away from my kids. My mom said, 'Brandy, you're going to
get caught,' and I said, 'I don't care, this isn't right.' "

Brandy Mongar went to the DHS office, told officials she and her
husband were innocent, and pleaded for their help.

"They did all the stuff they should have done - they questioned me,
they questioned my husband, they questioned my kids," she said.

The children were allowed to return to the Mongar home later that day.

Attorney uncovers origin of photo

Investigators told the Mongars they had identified the photo as part of

the series of "Heather" photos available on the Internet. But they did
not know who may have mailed it until a week later when the Garden
Grove city attorney, Monty Franklin, who was also acting as the
courtroom advocate for the Mongar children, recognized similarities
between the "Heather" photo and photos mailed to Garden Grove city
officials by Lester and Juanita White complaining about neighborhood
eyesores, court records show.

A warrant was issued and a search of the Whites' home uncovered more
child pornography, as well as swinger magazines and home movies of the
Whites having sex "with each other, and with other men, other women,
and multiple partners," court documents show.

Lester White told investigators - verbally and in a written confession
- that he had downloaded the "Heather" photo and other child
pornography, court documents show.

White later contradicted this at his trial, and in a motion for a new
trial argued that his son was to blame for the pornography being on the

family computer.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Peyton Gaumer said in court documents
that White, who was indicted in December 2003, falsely accused Bill
Mongar of "one of the most heinous crimes imaginable, namely the rape
of his own daughter."

The ordeal caused Ashley "extreme emotional trauma," he said.

Brandy Mongar said: "The public, the way they treated us, they acted
like we were really guilty of this. They saw Bill being taken away in a

police car and everybody said, 'What'd Bill do?' I felt like everyone
was looking at us."

In June 2004, the family moved to Des Moines, where Bill got a job and
Brandy went to school.

They returned to the Osceola area nine months later because their
children missed home, said Brandy Mongar, who is now a full-time
college student and works part time at a restaurant.

At White's sentencing, Ashley did not want to go on the stand to read
her victim's statement, so the prosecutor read it for her, her mother
said.

The family was "ecstatic" when the judge sentenced White to six years
in prison, she said.

Ashley, now 13, is no longer completely trusting of people, Brandy
Mongar said.

Ashley has had nightmares, including one where she dreamed she was in a

bathtub and White was staring at her through a window.

She gets upset if someone outside her immediate family tries to take
snapshots of her.

"She's seen what pictures can do," Brandy Mongar said.