If police arrived at your front door on April 1, you might think it was an April Fool’s joke — especially if you weren’t doing anything wrong.

That’s what happened to Corey Chaney and April Rodgers in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

They were told that an anonymous caller had accused them of abusing their six-month-old daughter. As Chaney told the Courier-Journal:

“We asked if it was an April Fool’s joke. Then we realized it was serious.”

But the situation got worse for the engaged couple.

Several similar calls came in to an anonymous child abuse hotline over the next several weeks, each with allegations more horrifying than in the previous calls. Each time, police came to the home late at night as per state policy — and each time, state Child Protective Services social workers launched investigations.

As the Courier-Journal reports:

“{The couple became] the subject of six separate investigations of child abuse and neglect by cabinet social workers — all unsubstantiated. The couple underwent drug tests and repeated scrutiny by social workers and signed multiple ‘prevention plans’ designed to prevent further abuse, even though Chaney and Rodgers knew the reports to be false.”

Finally, the couple had had enough. They had detected a pattern as to when the calls were placed, so they took their baby and stayed at Chaney’s parents house when they anticipated the next incident. They also told Elizabethtown police about their plans.

Sure enough, two calls were placed to the hotline, one of which claimed that the couple’s baby was being thrown against the wall. Police were able to make an arrest a few days later.

Who was tormenting Chaney and Rodgers? Their downstairs neighbor — who also happened to be employed as a social worker with the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

Beth Bond was arrested on six counts of complicity to call in false reports. She reportedly resigned from her job on June 1. Bond reportedly made the calls after a “verbal dispute” with the couple, who deny that any such confrontation took place.

But the charges against Bond are all misdemeanors. In order to avoid further run-ins with her, Rodgers said that she, her baby, and Chaney decided to move out of the apartment:

“We moved that weekend. It took every single dime we had.”

Chaney says that no one with Health and Family Services has called to apologize.

Found at IJ Review