This week State Attorney Brian Haas opted to drop the charges against Joseph and Courtney Irby, the Lakeland couple whose acrimonious divorce became a national spectacle.

Joseph Irby was arrested in June on a domestic violence charge after he allegedly bumped his car into his estranged wife's vehicle after an argument. Courtney Irby was subsequently arrested on a burglary charge after she went to her husband's apartment following his arrest, took guns and other property, and went to Lakeland police with the weapons in an effort to convince cops to go after Mr. Irby as a threat to her.

Courtney Irby's arrest generated substantial criticism of LPD, including from elected officials like state Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, and Democratic State Attorney Andrew Warren in Hillsborough County, who claimed police at best were insensitive, or at worst indifferent and hostile, to domestic violence victims.

Haas's office investigated further and in July reported that Courtney Irby had indeed been the victim in the bumper-bumping incident, but that by and large she concocted the rest of the tale in attempting to submerge her husband deeper in legal hot water.

This week, Haas's office announced the couple would participate in an intervention program in exchange for the charges against them being dropped. Prosecutors also said family court was better suited to sorting out the Irbys' "highly emotional" marital discord.

Yet prosecutors also reported additional investigation uncovered more lies by Courtney Irby, and that she broke other laws in executing her scheme. For example, she broke into her husband's car to plant a tracking device, and may have broken into his apartment before the incident that got her arrested for burglary. Given the growing weight of her deception, prosecutors admitted that her credibility as a witness was shot, and therefore the case against Joseph Irby was tanked.

Meanwhile, no one who blistered LPD for its actions has bothered to admit they were wrong and apologize, or atone for turning a serial liar into a sympathetic poster child for a serious societal matter like domestic violence.

We're not trying to pick on one troubled family. But Courtney Irby helps illustrate a larger problem that threatens our ragged, and rapidly disintegrating, social cohesion.

In recent years we've seen the creation or evolution of certain "narratives" that purport to make society better. But whether for fame, fortune, sympathy, or old fashioned political gain, hucksters or ill-informed activists with an agenda actually undermine a cause they seek to further by spotlighting an alleged victim's plight.

With Courtney Irby, for example, some like Eskamani began clamoring for tougher restrictions on domestic abusers and guns. With actor Jussie Smollett and perpetrators of nearly two dozen prominently reported "hate crimes" over the past three years that turned out to be hoaxes, it's racial animosity and victimization of the LGBT community. With dubious, unverified accusations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh and comedian Aziz Ansari, it's sexual harassment.

Thus, legitimate causes for social concern suffer because the initial sensational claim prompts a rush to judgment that is rooted in faulty, or even false, information, as Courtney Irby's case demonstrates. Support for true victims in such cases is weakened by these bogus assertions — and the shaken confidence of many would-be allies and even neutral observers is further eroded when the original true believers fail to acknowledge the claims were spurious.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!" So wrote Sir Walter Scott two centuries ago. But in modern America, it seems the webs of duplicity are being spun out of control — and ensnaring us in them, until we become more discerning and more skeptical.