I don’t want to do this.
My name is Stewart Dean. In October of 2019, in a quest for personal power and recognition, my ex-wife posted a 20-minute video to Facebook accusing me of domestic abuse and rape. As soon as I discovered the video, I contacted a lawyer to initiate a defamation lawsuit.
Then COVID struck. The case was delayed. My attorney had to quit practicing law due to chronic and ongoing health issues. I hired another attorney and, eventually, the case was assigned to a judge… But the judge’s wife was the boss of my ex-wife’s last attorney. Another judge was assigned… But that judge had an active interest in the law firm where our last mediation was held.
Two judges had to recuse themselves over a conflict of interest. By the time a third judge heard any arguments, nearly three years had passed and the video was still up. Three years of being falsely labeled a rapist and abuser. Three years of her controlling a false narrative.
I wanted to handle it in court. I tried to settle it in a way that would minimize her exposure and allow her to save face. And there was no small risk to me! If I lost the case, it could have exposed me to criminal charges. The statute of limitations for rape as a civil case is two years. There is no statute of limitations for criminal rape. If truth is a defense to defamation, the only way I could have lost the defamation case is if she could prove that I raped her. That proof would have been enough to open a criminal case.
Did she have proof? Did she prevail on the merits of the case?
No. She managed to get the case dismissed on a series of lies.
She argued that she couldn’t be sued in Alabama because she only had minimal contact with the state since she moved away in 2013. Her children still live in Alabama, much of her family still lives in Alabama, and she maintains a number of personal and professional contacts in Alabama.
She posted the video only to citizens of her small northern town, she claimed. Despite a demonstrated knowledge of how to set permissions on her Facebook account, she made no effort to restrict the viewership of her videos.
She claimed, through legal pleadings, that I brought this action against her “in some futile attempt to stay inserted in her life” now that the “conclusion of their divorce and custody battle is imminent”. There was never a custody battle. We agreed that I would have custody of the children in lieu of court and she never made any attempt to change that agreement. I raised our two children alone for a decade with little to no help from her. I also have no desire to “stay inserted in her life.” If she had not defamed me in and around Charlestown, Indiana, I would have had no reason to ever deal with her again.
My ex-wife’s name is Treva Hodges, and on the heels of her false claims of victimhood, she won her bid for mayor of Charlestown, Indiana by the narrowest of margins.
Why should you care?
According to the same court document that falsely claimed there was a custody battle and that I was bringing this court action completely unprovoked, Treva claimed that the “speech was made in the course of Hodges’s campaign to run for mayor of Charlestown, Indiana.” In other words, her claims of victimhood are a part of her campaign platform. If she can’t tell the truth about her own past, how can you trust in her plans for the future?
This website serves as an archive of her writings, text messages, and emails (along with my personal thoughts and experiences) to provide context for her claims and help the voters of southern Indiana judge her actions for themselves.
Please note: False accusations of rape are rare, but they do occur. I do not suggest that my experiences are common, and I have never wanted them to be used as an excuse to dismiss the claims of real victims of abuse. Marital rape is illegal in all 50 states and has been since 1993. No one should suffer in silence. If you or someone you love is in an abusive situation, please contact the the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or https://www.thehotline.org/.