Arrested During Child-Custody Hearing : Man Accused of Faking Injuries on Son With Makeup

A former Thousand Oaks resident was arrested in a Ventura County courtroom during a child-custody hearing Tuesday, accused of faking injuries with makeup on his 9-year-old son to win his permanent custody.

The man, Thomas Michael Haggerty, 37, of Carlsbad bragged to a former girlfriend that he had drugged the boy, had the makeup applied by a makeup artist, and then took photographs as purported evidence of child abuse by the boy’s stepfather, according to court testimony.

The boy, Micah Haggerty Graves, lives with his mother and stepfather in Orrington, Me., court records said. He had gone to stay with his father July 1 for summer vacation.

Haggerty’s former girlfriend, Avis Stahl, also of Carlsbad, secretly tape-recorded a conversation Monday in which Haggerty boasted of his scheme, Deputy Dist. Atty. Donna J. Walters said. That tape was played in court during the custody hearing Tuesday before Ventura County Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren, she said.

“It was a big surprise to Haggerty,” Walters said. “He had no idea that we knew any of this.”

Stahl phoned the Ventura County district attorney’s office early Tuesday to report the scheme, Walters said.

The boy told district attorney’s investigators that, on the day his father picked him from the airport, he had complained of an upset stomach. “He said his dad gave him two pills, and the next thing he remembers is waking up the next day,” Walters said.

Haggerty, at one time a chiropractor in Thousand Oaks, told Stahl that he had given the boy two tranquilizers and that, while the boy was sleeping, a friend used putty, grease pencils and makeup to create the fake bruises, Walters said.

The district attorney’s office is seeking the identity of the makeup man.

On July 28, Haggerty presented color photographs of the boy’s body in court, as well as a sworn declaration that the boy had told him the injuries were inflicted by his stepfather, according to court records. Haggerty was given temporary custody of the boy pending a final decision at Tuesday’s hearing.

Haggerty, who is being held in Ventura County Jail on $250,000 bail, was arrested on suspicion of perjury and submitting false evidence in court. He faces a maximum sentence of seven years in prison on the charges.

Canoga Park attorney Ronald M. Supancic, who represented the boy’s mother, Jeanette P. Graves, said that, because the injuries in the photographs appear so authentic, “he probably would have gotten away with it.”

The boy told district attorney’s investigators that his father had promised to take him to a Caribbean island if he told the judge that he had been beaten by his stepfather, Walters said.

Before his arrest, Haggerty said in court that he wanted to have permanent custody of his son before leaving the country Friday to attend medical school on the island of Dominica, Walters said.

“He had airline tickets, passports and all the shots,” Walters said. “Once they had left the country, we wouldn’t have had jurisdiction at all.”

The boy now, with his mother, is staying with relatives in Simi Valley, Walters said.

Haggerty’s arraignment is scheduled for Aug. 21.