Dolcefino: Are Abilene Police Taking Sides in Revenge Child Custody Case?

ABILENE, TX — The Abilene Police Department has spent the last three weeks trying to portray Stanford rancher Russ Baize as a monster, without providing a single piece of evidence against him. Abilene CPS has tried to take away his wife’s happy three sons.

This is the story they don’t want you to know.

In November 2013, the former principal of Bay City High School, Heath Koenig, lost total custody of his three children to his ex-wife, Kim Koenig, after a long trial in Brazoria County, Texas.

The boys were sent to live with their mom and her new husband Russ Baize in Stanford, Texas. The court orders made it clear that Heath Koenig was given a pathway to start seeing his boys again. He simply refused to comply.

Instead of doing what a court told Heath to do so he could see his children, here is what the Koenig family did instead.

The Abilene Police Department Facebook page includes a tell-tale post from Mandy Koenig, Heath’s new wife.

Mandy Koenig admits she tried to talk a law enforcement officer in Abilene into targeting Russ Baize — the man who helped take Heath Koenig’s children away. There is little doubt that this is exactly what happened. A detective from the Abilene Police Department reached out to Russ Baize on Facebook. Police later charged Baize with solicitation of a minor, while admitting he never once talked to or even met a minor — relying completely on comments allegedly made to this detective. That’s why Baize wasn’t charged with the same serious crimes as the three other men arrested that day.

Six weeks later, the Abilene Police Department refuse to make all these conversations public. They should do so immediately. The public deserves to know the full story, including all of the law enforcement contact with the Koenigs.

Law enforcement should be careful and ensure that they are not to being used to exact revenge in Texas child custody cases. The Abilene Police Department fell for the trap.

“If someone molests children they should be vilified, but we also live in a country where people are innocent until proven guilty,” says Wayne Dolcefino, President of Dolcefino Consulting. “Abilene police have falsely accused Mr. Baize of being a serial child predator — when in fact, they have no evidence he ever talked to an underage girl in their investigation. Shouldn’t that raise eyebrows?”

The Taylor County District Attorney should investigate, and he should start with the Abilene Police Department and CPS.

A day after this arrest, the Abilene Police Department fed the media the story that Baize was an accused “serial child predator.” The media promoted that story.

Here’s the problem. Sure, decades ago Russ Baize was accused of sexual misconduct during a bitter divorce and custody case. He was even charged with a crime.

You know what happened after that?

After the District Attorney investigated further, the charges were dropped because of a lack of evidence. A judge ordered the criminal charges expunged from Russ Baize’s criminal history record as a result. The old allegations were brought up in the Koenig divorce case and dismissed as well from any decision.

It is crime for any government employee to use, disseminate or release expunged information. It is a Class B misdemeanor. Yet it didn’t stop Abilene CPS from using this same discounted information in a move to take away Kim Baize’s children. It didn’t stop the Abilene Police Department from calling Baize a suspected serial child abuser.

It has been six weeks since the Abilene Cyber Crimes Unit boasted about their big bust. Since then the Koenig family has the arrest to try to get a judge in West Texas to change the custody arrangement.

We all know from the Abilene Police Department what Russ Baize didn’t do. He didn’t meet or talk to anyone who was underage, or even pretended to be underage.

What did the Abilene Police Department say in this targeted sting? Why was Baize picked?

It is interesting how quickly the government moved to destroy the Baize family in the media and in family court. It is also interesting that they haven’t released the information they used to label someone a monster.

What are they hiding?'

See also, "Dolcefino Weighs in on Developing CPS Case in Abilene".