Father freed after a decade in jail as daughter admits she lied about him raping her when she was 11 as she was 'disappointed in him'

A 23-year-old woman has told police she lied about her father raping her when she was 11 - accusations that put him behind bars for nine years.

But Cassandra Kennedy, from Longview, Washington, will not be charged as prosecutors fear it could stop others from reporting sexual assaults.

Kennedy said guilt forced her to tell police she had lied about Thomas Edward Kennedy raping her at least three times in 2001.

False accusations: Cassandra Kennedy, 23, has told police she lied about her father raping her in 2011. Thomas Kennedy served nine years in jail (file picture)

'I did a horrible thing,' Kennedy told detectives in January, according to a police report reported in The Daily News. 'It's not OK.'

She added that she was bitter following her parents' divorce in 1991, and that she made up the rape story as her father had disappointing her.



After the divorce, Kennedy and her sister spent one weekend a month at their father's home, where they slept on foam mattresses in his living room.

'I wanted him to love me, and I didn't think he did at that time,' she told the detectives. 'I took my own vengeance,' she added.



Kennedy told police she got the idea of setting up her father from a friend whose stepfather had been sent to prison for a child sex crime.

'I thought that is what I would do to make my dad go away,' she told police.

Holding back: Prosecutor Sue Baur (pictured) said she feared charging Cassandra might discourage other girls from reporting sexual assaults

She told a teacher about the abuse, using the codeword 'peace' to indicate when it had supposedly happened again.

Police said she repeated the stories with consistency and their details seemed beyond the sexual knowledge of an 11-year-old.



'I wanted my father to love me, and I didn't think he did at that time. I took my own vengeance' Cassandra Kennedy



Kennedy later told police she became sexually active in second grade and may have used what she had learned in films when talking to officers.



She also had trauma to her body consistent with a rape - but now police believe this could have been from sexual contact before her accusations.



Her father denied the allegation but a jury convicted him of three counts of rape of a child and he was sentenced to more than 15 years in jail.

' I just want him to be out and freed,' his daughter told police earlier this year. Then, 'I will be free on the inside'.

Home: Kennedy, who now lives in Longview, approached police in January

She called Longview Police Department in January and talked with two detectives three days later, the News reported.



Mr Kennedy, who is now 43, was released last week and the charges against him were dismissed. He told the News that he did not want to comment but is simply trying to get on with his life.

Cassandra Kennedy has been staying at Mountain Ministries, a Christian addiction treatment center, in recent months and is currently carrying out missionary work in Mexico, according to the organisation's director.



Of the false conviction, prosecutor Sue Baur said: 'This is the kind of thing that shouldn't happen.'

But she said that charging Kennedy might discourage victims from coming forward.

She added that it was not an indictment of the system, but simply a case of a person withdrawing their story.

Rehabilitation: In recent months, Kennedy, who is now 23, has been staying at Mountain Ministries, a Christian addiction treatment center

'Unfortunately, a man spent 10 years in prison before that happened,' Baur said.

Kennedy had a troubled school experience. She told police students at Kalama Elementary teased her and she began experimenting with alcohol.



A few months before she accused her father of rape, she was expelled from school for telling her teacher she was thinking about bringing a gun to school and shooting 'everyone', according to a medical report.

She dropped out of school in her junior year of high school and then became addicted to pills, she told police.