Innocent until proven guilty.

We’ve heard this phrase so much it’s become a cliché.

But really listen to these words: Innocent until proven guilty.

Unfortunately, these days, all it takes is an accusation to paint someone guilty in ‘’the court of public opinion,” especially when the accusation appears in print with an accompanying photo.

Right now an innocent man sits in jail, wrongly accused of child abuse and awaiting his day in court. Many people will never know the outcome of his coming trial, and remember only the accusation.

I’m here to say: Damien Haugen is not abusive to children.

Certainly not to the 1-year-old and 3-year-old children of the girl he lives with, my niece. I’ve personally witnessed the way the children run to him. The many, many times they’re outside playing with the football with him, and other games.

They miss him. They want him home with them, and they don’t understand why he isn’t there. Do these seem to be the actions of abused children toward their abuser?

The so-called “bruises’’ on little Preston’s cheek consisted of a red mark, not particularly dark, not sensitive to the touch and (unlike bruises, which darken and yellow with time) went away in a day or two.

When the children were asked how Preston got the mark, his sister, 3-year-old Paisley said: ‘’Mia did it.’’ Mia is Damien’s daughter from a previous relationship and was playing with the children that day. No one believed her.

Worse, authorities dismissed the remark saying she could have been coached. So I assume no one bothered to ask Mia, far easier to assume Paisley was coached. She could have been coached, but wasn’t. Damien didn’t even see the children before being arrested to do any “coaching.”

Now an innocent man sits in jail, painted as a child abuser to the public. The good-paying job he was to start the very day of his arrest now lost to him.

I am Preston’s and Paisley’s great aunt. If anyone was abusive to them, I would be in the forefront to condemn anyone who would hurt them.

I know Damien is innocent of these charges and I am angry and outraged that a man who loves these kids as if they were his own can be wrongly accused and jailed on such flimsy evidence.

Yes, his day in court is coming, I know. But I write this to address any who have already convicted him in the court of public opinion.’’

Hopefully he will be cleared of these charges, but nothing will completely erase this stain on his record, or return to him these lost weeks of wrongful imprisonment.

I felt the public should know the truth.

Julie Anderson

Albert Lea