It’s been one year since child-sexting charges were dropped against Scott Hounsell for lack of evidence, but his life is far from recovered.
“I live in constant fear that the person I attempt to work with or my new employer is going to enter my name into Google and then rescind any offer for work,” Scott told the Washington Examiner. “I constantly think of my children, and how their friends’ parents are going to view me in the future. I avoid situations like the plague where I could ever, even for a second, be thought of as having done something like what I was accused of.”
Scott’s struggles began in 2013 with an accusation that he had sent explicit Facebook messages to a minor. No such messages were found on her computer or in Facebook’s archive, and the District Attorney declined to file charges. But the Los Angeles City Attorney, a newly-elected Democrat, pounced on the accusation, charging Scott immediately — at the time, Scott was the executive director of the Republican Party of L.A. County.
A month later, the city attorney would add additional charges against Scott, claiming he had sent explicit messages to an adult he believed to be a minor. No evidence exists in any police reports or court documents that there was ever anything to substantiate them.
Nine months after first charging him, the city attorney finally dropped the charges against Scott, citing “no victim” and “no forensics.” In addition to the fact that no such messages were ever found, the girl who had originally been said to have received them (the accusation had been made anonymously by her friends) refused to testify. Scott is now suing the city attorney for defamation, false arrest and malicious prosecution.
Scott said that he was in an elevator a few months ago when a teenage girl stepped in. He immediately stepped out, even though he was still eight floors from his destination. “It literally made me so uncomfortable that in a matter of seconds I had a full blown anxiety attack.”
He said that even though the charges were dropped, there are some in politics who still won’t associate with him. Scott said that at a convention last year, one of his friends was “berated” by a political staffer for associating with him, even though the charges had been dropped four months earlier.
Still, Scott is not alone in his continuing quest to clear his name.
“I am grateful for my wife and kids as they are my motivation to keep fighting,” he told me. “I am grateful for two wonderful parents who have stood by my side and supported me during this time. I am grateful to my friends who have, in spite of advice otherwise, have remained my friends and were willing to make a stand on that.”
Scott’s wife, Sarah, sent the Examiner her thoughts on the situation as well, writing in an email that she has become more introverted as her husband has become more extroverted about the situation.
Sarah said that the two once “had dreams” about growing their family through adoption. But because of Scott’s arrest (even though the charges were dropped) they would not be able to adopt. “Growing our family was no longer an option and [it] made me bitter,” Sarah said.
But Sarah has seen a change in Scott that makes her proud. He has “reinvented himself” since the charges were dropped by finding new career paths, including speaking out about the prosecutorial immunity that may keep him from succeeding in his lawsuit.
“I hope someday I will feel comfortable letting my child answer the front door, when we are not expecting company, without the fear of their image being on the 6 o’clock news,” she said. “I have truly become the mama bear protecting her cubs, including my husband.”
