Jessica Gasser (provided).
A Texas mother accused of subjecting her then-3-year-old daughter to multiple unnecessary medical procedures and surgeries, a condition previously called Munchausen by proxy and now formally known as “factitious disorder imposed on another,” has been “fully exonerated” and the woman”s daughter has been reunited with her parents, attorneys for the family confirmed to Law&Crime.
Felony charges of injury to a child and medical child abuse against Jessica Gasser were dismissed after a grand jury declined to indict her last month and a Child Protective Services case was dropped after doctors “independently and repeatedly” diagnosed Gasser’s child with “gastroparesis and hypoglycemia,” both of which she was accused of faking, according to a press release from the Houston-based law firm Connolly Schneider Shireman LLP.
The release claims that the charges against Gasser stemmed from a “so-called epidemic of Munchausen child abuse” that Gasser’s attorneys say was steadily “cultivated in Tarrant County for years.”
The attorneys allege that the crisis was “enabled” by the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department, several physicians and high-level state child welfare bureaucrats, and the county’s purported expert in child abuse, all of whom “warned of hidden Munchausen cases everywhere.” The “so-called epidemic” allegedly generated consulting jobs, book deals, and podcast appearances for those involved —”essentially monetizing allegations like those made against Ms. Gasser.”
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“As we discovered later, their candid emails and texts show that these individuals boasted that they could become famous on a news program like 60 Minutes for ‘saving’ Jessica’s child, then evolved months later into angry and frightened acknowledgments that their actions had been uncovered,” Gasser’s attorney Mike Schneider said in a statement.
The releases claims that Gasser’s attorneys uncovered texts and emails sent between CPS, Tarrant County’s purported Munchausen expert, and at least one doctor showing that the group “clearly thought they could cover up their behavior with gaslighting news releases.”
“CPS deliberately made false claims about the child’s health to the court, oversaw her severe psychological decline, then sought congratulatory publicity in what became a botched attempt to cover their tracks,” Schneider said.
Earlier this year, an attorney appointed to represent Gasser’s daughter — independent from the parents and CPS — provided a sworn affidavit to prosecutors stating that “all allegations of abuse or neglect against Jessica Gasser and her husband are wholly false and without merit” and that “there was no evidence whatsoever that Jessica or her husband Austin had ever harmed [their child].”
The affidavit continued, claiming that the daughter’s attorney found “ample evidence” that the child’s medical records from Cook Children’s Hospital had been “repeatedly altered by someone to make it appear that [she] did not have medical conditions Cook itself had diagnosed my client with on many occasions, including gastroparesis and ketotic hypoglycemia.”
Gasser’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a message from Law&Crime inquiring as to whether she is planning to take any additional legal action.
