Dad freed after spending 9 years in jail on daughter’s false rape allegation

(Longview, Washington) In 2001, a disgruntled daughter, upset over her parents’ divorce and mad at her dad, told Washington State Police that her father raped her on several occasions back when she was 11-years-old. The dad, Thomas Edward Kennedy (now 43), denied the allegation at the time, but was convicted by a Washington jury and sentenced to more than 15 years in the slammer. Now 23-years-old, the daughter, Cassandra Ann Kennedy recanted her 2001 rape allegation – after her father spent more than 9 years behind bars.

According to tdn.com in Washington: “ … she made it all up. So after serving more than nine years in prison, her father was released last week and the charges against him were dismissed.”

"I did a horrible thing," Cassandra told detectives in January (2012), according to a police report.

"It's not OK to sit and be locked in this horrible place for something you didn't do. It's just not right."

tnd also shared that the County Prosecutor Sue Baur said Cassandra Kennedy will not be prosecuted for her apparent lies about her father, partly because prosecutors do not want to discourage people in similar circumstances from coming forward.