The People v. Cynthia Abcug: the Defense Rests

Cynthia Abcug has been on trial for more than three and a half years in the press. But this week, she has finally had her day in court. This week, the prosecution put on several witnesses who claimed they heard Abcug tell them exaggerated versions of what was going on medically with her son. The prosecution tried to paint a picture of a malicious liar who told different people different stories, stymied school officials, subjected her child to unnecessary tests, and more.

When the Department of Human Services got involved and removed her son from her care, the prosecution told a story full of accusations that included the claim that Abcug was connected to a shadowy “Qanon” group who planned to kidnap her son from foster care with conspirators. Except that the evidence for these claims is pretty thin. You can read about those in previous reporting.

The story the defense told, which has been so under-reported by the media, is one that needs a public hearing. Many facts that were kept out of the trial during pre-trial hearings came out on the stand when Abcug decided to testify. Specifically, the defense and the prosecution agreed to keep Qanon out of the trial except in describing the rubber cause bracelets the prosecution thinks are evidence of “Qanon” membership status. But Gary Dawson, the prosecutor for Douglas County, made it clear that if Abcug took the stand, he would grill her about it.

“QAnon was something I heard about in passing on the Twitter moms, and I didn’t know what it was, nor did I care, because I just wanted to get my son back,” said Abcug during cross-examination. She explained that the bracelets came from a “Trump lunch” she was invited to where she met a lawyer who helped her with her custody case. “That’s the extent of the QAnon bracelets,” she testified.

The “Qanon conspirators” the DA kept alluding to are not unknown to anyone, including the Douglas County police. “The Children’s Crusade” member Sarah Dunklin reached out to Abcug and offered what she thought was legitimate legal and financial help to recover her son from the system.

“I feel like a fool because I believed those people,” said Abcug. “I believed them, and I’m embarrassed, and I wish I never did. And I’m sorry for that, but I did.”

The Children’s Crusade, whose members include Field McConnell and Timothy Holmseth, both with criminal records, among many others, call themselves “advocates” for families who lost their children to CPS. Christopher Hallett was a part of this circle offering parents legal help through his company E-Clause. Hallett talked another mother, Neely Blanchard, into believing he was offering real legal help in her custody case. His advice got her arrested for kidnapping. When Blanchard found out it was a scam, she shot him dead. She is now set to be tried for murder.

For years, Ms. Petrie-Blanchard said, Mr. Hallett had been telling her that “any day now” a U.S. marshal would bring her back her oldest daughter, who is in the custody of her former boyfriend’s mother, even though there were no legal proceedings that could result in such an outcome.

This is a shockingly similar story to the one Abcug told on the stand.

Dawson then began to bully Abcug and asked her where she was after Sept. 26, 2019, repeatedly, raising his voice. That’s when a small part of how the Children’s Crusade tricked Abcug came out. Abcug, looking hunted said, “They took me across state lines and kept me in a burnt hotel room and did not treat me nicely,” Abcug responded.

PJ Media has been investigating The Children’s Crusade since Abcug was taken by them in September of 2019. The Daily Beast has also done a decent investigation into them as well.

McConnell and his allies in “E-Clause,” a fringe law group that deploys bizarre legal tactics reminiscent of far-right “sovereign citizen” groups, have focused on Abcug and other mothers who have lost custody of their children. In rambling YouTube videos, McConnell and his associates turn these mothers and their children into cause célèbre victims of the supposed deep state—while collecting donations and views along the way.

But no official police investigation of this group appears to exist. This reporter told the FBI about them in early 2020. The Douglas County police department knew who at least one of the members, Ryan Wilson, is because they made him a part of this trial while not charging him. The prosecution wants Abcug’s involvement with Wilson to be one of the “overt acts” they need to convict her of conspiracy, but Douglas County Detective Beverly Wilson admitted on the stand that she never even spoke to Wilson during her investigation into the Abcug case.

The verdict is in, and PJ Media is waiting to hear it. We will update you when it comes out.