ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. – An O’Fallon Police Department’s probable cause statement says it started as an anonymous hotline call, accusing a high school substitute teacher of sexual assault while naming alleged student victims.
St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney Joe McCulloch’s office is charging the caller with both harassment and filing a false police report accusing Missouri House District 108 candidate Max Calfo.
“I’ve never even heard of a false child abuse report being planted like this,” Calfo said.
Court records say the alleged false accusation was made anonymously to the child abuse hotline about Max Calfo as a substitute teacher at Liberty High School.
“It was an automatic suspension, so yes, I was interviewed, and they actually sent from the Department of Social Services, they sent investigators to this false claim instead of dealing with actual child abuse cases that were happening,” Calfo said.
The probable cause statement also alleges, “The investigation determined the voice recording left on the hotline belonged to Elizabeth Sparks” and that the alleged student “did not even attend Liberty High School.” The PC statement continues as the detective wrote, “(Sparks) disclosed she did in fact make the hotline call and had lied…”
McCulloch says the defendant then gave police another possible victim name.
“So, the officers went and interviewed that friend who said, ‘Absolutely not,’” he said. “This was just a completely false allegation that the intent as we charged was to cause emotional harm and in fact did cause emotional harm.”
Also in the PC statement, the investigating detective wrote that Sparks had motive as a political podcaster who “opposed the victim’s candidacy.”
“…a political individual who she does not support. She supports his opponent,” McCulloch said.
Calfo’s political opponent says he has nothing to do with this. Mike Costlow told FOX 2 by phone that he has no comment about the criminal charge and that he did not know Sparks beyond her once telling him, “Good luck on your campaign.”
Sparks did not answer FOX 2, but her attorney, Tim Lohmar, wrote to us, “My client strenuously maintains her innocence, and, out of respect for the process, she’s chosen not to make any further statements at this time.”
Meanwhile, Calfo is grateful to police for their investigation.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you to the O’Fallon Police Department,” he said.
McCulloch added: “I’ve never seen anything get this ugly in politics or, honestly, seldom do you see false allegations of this magnitude.”
