On June 27, 2012, Raymond Knutsen sat for a sworn deposition in the family court case he had initiated against me. By then, his allegations had already moved through police, DCF, CUSI, family court, a therapist, and a hospital examination that found no physical evidence supporting the claims.
None of that slowed him down.
Under oath, Raymond expanded the story. He portrayed me as capable of anything, recast ordinary childhood bruises and irritated lips as proof of prolonged mistreatment, described my entire family as participants in a multigenerational conspiracy, and insisted that even the most implausible stories must be true.
He Said My Family Had a “Tradition” of Hiding Abuse
Raymond was asked whether he believed it was plausible that I had tied up my son in a basement while my brothers and niece were present.
He answered:
“Yes.”
When asked what would make those family members willing to remain silent, Raymond responded:
“It’s a family tradition.”
His attorney was then asked to clarify what Raymond meant: a tradition of family loyalty and silence, or a tradition of tying people up in basements.
Raymond claimed my family had “covered up the father’s abuse forever.” He then agreed that a “good amount” of the Cegalis family was complicit in what he alleged was happening to my son, meaning they supposedly knew about it and said nothing.
With those answers, Raymond did not merely accuse me. He transformed my mother, my brothers, my niece, and other relatives into members of an imagined family conspiracy.
Transcript reference: pages 49–50.
Bruises Became “The Ropes”
Raymond also testified that my son had been restrained and taped for extended periods and then asked whether such treatment could have occurred without leaving obvious physical evidence.
Raymond insisted that physical signs existed.
He identified irritated lips and bruises on my son’s legs. Yet earlier in the same deposition, he acknowledged that my son was active, went skiing, rode bicycles, and regularly came home with the kinds of bruises commonly seen on an active child.
When counsel asked what Raymond now attributed those bruises to, he answered:
“The ropes.”
No rope burns were identified. No abrasions were identified. The hospital examination had found no evidence supporting the allegations. Raymond nevertheless converted ordinary bruises into retroactive proof of an extraordinary story.
Transcript reference: pages 24–25 and 49–50.
He Insisted Every Bizarre Story Was True
Raymond was asked directly whether he believed a series of increasingly bizarre stories.
Did he believe my son had been dressed as a wine bottle?
“Yes.”
Did he believe that two adults taped themselves together and kissed all day?
“Yes.”
Did he believe my son had been drugged?
“Absolutely.”
Was he suspicious that any of the stories had been embellished or fabricated?
“No, not in the least.”
Raymond offered no room for imagination, misunderstanding, suggestion, or coaching. Every strange account became fact the moment it supported his case against me.
Transcript reference: pages 46–48.
He Claimed I Sang and Paced for Hours at 3 A.M.
To explain why he believed I was capable of the acts he alleged, Raymond described what he called “bizarre behavior” from the brief period when we lived together.
He claimed that he once woke at approximately three in the morning and found me standing in the living room with my hands over my ears, singing at the top of my lungs. He said this continued for hours while I paced back and forth.
Raymond then used this alleged scene as part of a broader effort to portray me as mentally unstable and capable of anything.
Transcript reference: pages 43–45.
He Called Me the Angriest Person He Had Ever Met
Raymond testified that I was “the angriest person” he had ever met.
He claimed that while driving, I screamed at motorists who had done nothing wrong. He alleged that I shouted at pedestrians near a shopping plaza, calling them “fat, ugly people” and saying they “should be run over.”
He went even further, testifying that he had been afraid I might become angry enough to strike someone with the car.
These stories were not incidental. They supported the character Raymond was constructing under oath: irrational, dangerous, unstable, and capable of any accusation he chose to repeat.
Transcript reference: page 45.
He Said My Father Had Called Me a “Total Freak”
Raymond also invoked my childhood and my father.
He testified that I had supposedly told him my father had me “tested for everything” when I was young, called me “a total freak,” and predicted that I would someday “run off and join a cult.”
Raymond presented this alleged childhood conversation as evidence that I was capable of the allegations he was making decades later.
The connection was not medical, forensic, or logical. It was character assassination: take a degrading statement allegedly made by a parent, repeat it under oath, and offer it as proof that the target is fundamentally abnormal.
Transcript reference: pages 43–44.
He Admitted He Had Seen Nothing Sexual
For all of Raymond’s certainty, his own testimony contained a critical admission.
When asked whether he had ever observed anything sexual that he considered deviant, Raymond answered:
“No, not of a sexual nature.”
He had not personally witnessed the conduct he alleged. He had not independently verified it. He rejected the possibility that any story had been imagined, misunderstood, embellished, or created through questioning.
He simply believed all of it.
Transcript reference: page 46.
He Said No Independent Evaluation Was Necessary
Raymond was also asked whether anyone had recommended that an independent professional evaluate the truthfulness of the stories.
He answered:
“Oh, no.”
When the attorney clarified the question, Raymond responded again:
“No. This happened.”
That answer captures the entire deposition.
Raymond did not approach the allegations as claims requiring careful investigation. He approached them as established truth. Contradictions did not matter. The absence of medical evidence did not matter. The lack of firsthand observation did not matter. The extreme implausibility of the stories did not matter.
He had already decided what happened.
Transcript reference: page 37.
The Deposition Preserved the Story in His Own Words
Raymond’s deposition is significant because it records how far the allegations had expanded by June 2012.
What began as a supposed disclosure during a fishing trip became a sweeping narrative involving restraints, disguises, drugs, hidden witnesses, complicit relatives, family traditions, childhood pathology, mental illness, rage, cults, and an entire extended family allegedly willing to remain silent.
Raymond did not merely accuse me of isolated conduct. He constructed a world in which every bruise became evidence, every relative became an accomplice, every unusual story became literal fact, and every detail of my life could be reinterpreted to support the accusation.
The transcript allows readers to see that process in Raymond’s own sworn testimony.
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