What I am about to write, and share is something I have debated going public with for years for several reasons but for other reasons that will be obvious below I have held back until now. Everything below is factual and can be verified by documents in my possession such as police reports, recordings, and depositions. Currently I am at a point where I feel hopeless and I don’t know what else to do but to ask for help from my friends, family members, elected officials, and anyone who will listen to expose this absolute and egregious misjustice, while hopefully shedding a light on the laws that need to change here in Texas to protect our children.

My oldest daughter is battling things that most every one of us will never have to face, not even come close. She was sexually abused, photographed, and videoed performing sexual acts on her stepfather from the time she was three years old (beginning in 2012) until she was seven (almost eight) by Mark Ivicic. Mark plead guilty to these charges, was sentenced in 2017, and is currently serving a 40-year sentence with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for the continued sexual assault of a minor. He was married to my daughter’s mother (Dyana Buchanan) in 2012, and they divorced sometime after he was incarcerated.

An outcry is a term that is used when a victim makes a claim of abuse. My daughter’s outcry occurred in December of 2016. However, 15 months prior to my daughter’s outcry (in September of 2015) her mother and stepfather separated. The reason for this separation as I was finally informed by Dyana in early 2017 (in the presence of the Assistant District Attorney for Travis County Joe Fredrich) was that she had discovered child pornography on her husband’s computers in their apartment in Austin (but didn’t tell anyone until the outcry when she finally notified police). She also notified police at the time of the outcry that she had downloaded many of these pornographic images discovered on her husband’s computers to two thumb drives and kept them in her apartment, according to the police report: “Dyana described the images she downloaded onto the two flash drives as: 400-500 images in total, about half of which were under age victims (200-250)”, she gave these to police at the time of the outcry (again after keeping these images for 15 months without telling a soul). During that 15-month period Dyana allowed her then husband to continue to pick up my daughter from school, to watch her and be alone with her unsupervised countless times (where he continued to sexually assault her). Later during a deposition in December of 2021 Dyana stated the reason she downloaded and kept these images was “to black mail” her then husband Mark.

A few years after the outcry and after I pressured and pleaded with Assistant DA Joe Fredrich to fully analyze the contents of the thumb drives (which previously hadn’t occurred), it was discovered that on these very thumb drives (that were in Dyana’s possession for 15 months) there were indeed images of my daughter being sexually abused. These drives were never fully investigated (until I pushed that they be analyzed) as all evidence needed to bring Mark to justice was contained on his cell phone and by his own confession of the crimes.

However, even with all of this ironclad evidence, the Travis County District Attorney’s office elected at that time to not prosecute Dyana for these crimes and provided me no real reason as to why they would not. These were crimes that a local police chief and numerous individuals in law enforcement from around the state have confirmed were multiple felonies (including recently the Austin Police Dept. themselves), but because these crimes occurred in Austin (Travis County) it is the sole jurisdiction of the Travis County District Attorney on whether they be prosecuted or not. Fairly recently in a recorded conversation with a manager in the Williamson County CPS office she stated had these crimes occurred here in Round Rock or Georgetown just a few miles north that these felonies would have been prosecuted without question, she even went on to describe a similar situation outlining that.

I have fought for the last seven plus years to get justice for my daughter, to have everyone involved held accountable for their actions and inactions, and to limit the time my daughter has to spend with her mother. I have spoken with numerous law enforcement entities, child protective services, district attorneys, even the Attorney General’s Office of Texas’ sex crimes division, each and every one of them has tried to help and ultimately said that the sole discretion of prosecuting these crimes lies in the hands of the Travis County DA.

Additionally, working with the Texas Attorney General’s office since early 2023 a new investigation was launched in conjunction with the Austin Police Department to go through all of the digital evidence from this case and have it evaluated completely to determine if any additional crimes were determined to have occurred, as well as to have this evidence cataloged for the national database for missing and exploited children. There were even new warrants obtained to do this.

As a result of the most recent investigation from 2023-2024 as well as using information from the previous 2021 civil deposition the Austin Police Department referred this case to the Travis County District Attorney’s office for prosecution in March of this year. They felt that the crimes committed met the criteria to be prosecuted and requested they do so, though they were uncertain if they were able to be prosecuted still due to the statute of limitations. I was notified a few weeks later by our detective at the Austin Police Dept. that the Travis County District Attorney’s office (after a lengthy review process) is unable to prosecute these three crimes consisting of Possession of Child Pornography, Failure to Report a Felony, and Child Endangerment citing that the statute of limitations on these crimes has passed and there is nothing more they can do.

Finally, and most recently my daughter has revealed to her therapist(s), and CPS here in Williamson County that her mother disclosed to her in a conversation earlier this year (after confronting her about it) that she was indeed aware that there were images of my daughter on the thumb drives she possessed (disputing all previous claims made by Dyana), and she even shared with my daughter the location where she kept these drives. My daughter also has stated to CPS and her therapists that her mother knew the sexual abuse was occurring and did nothing to stop it. CPS is still working on their most recent investigation. However, with the previous statements regarding the statute of limitations it is likely they will be unable to do anything further.

Over the years (but especially recently) my daughter has battled all sorts of issues as one can imagine, as a direct result of the abuse she suffered. Most recently this year there is a long series of mental health issues that she is struggling to cope with and come back from. I truly believe in my heart had the Travis County District Attorney’s Office done their job back in 2017 and prosecuted everyone involved in my daughter’s abuse and for the undisputed felonies that were committed my daughter would not be in the mental health crisis that she is in today.

I am choosing to share this story now for two reasons:

1) to ask you to pray for my family, and my daughter because I don’t know what will happen next or how to even help her recover from the place she is now. Let alone know how I will continue to pay the amassing legal fees and therapeutic/mental health costs associated with this.

2) to make the general public aware our laws here in Texas need to change, and elected officials (District Attorney's specifically) here in Texas need to be held accountable and required to follow the law and prosecute criminals for their actions, especially actions that endanger and affect children.

Did you know that in Texas the statute of limitations for certain thefts and forgeries is longer than for possessing child pornography? The same for child endangerment. The Travis County District Attorney’s office and the Austin Police Department aren’t disputing that these crimes were committed or that they should have/could have prosecuted these crimes back when they occurred. In fact, by all accounts in the past 18 months the APD attempted to right this wrong by referring these items for prosecution, and deep diving into the previous case and evidence. Travis County even reviewed them to prosecute these crimes, but they say that the statute of limitations is what is prohibiting them now. Why weren’t these crimes prosecuted back when they occurred? Why didn’t the DA’s office direct anyone to look at the contents of the thumb drives until long after the outcry, and why did it take me demanding them to do it for it to happen? These are the things that need to change here in Texas, we need to demand statutes of limitations be increased, and that these elected District Attorneys be held responsible for enforcing the law.

If you feel you can help me to bring about this change, please reach out to me and share this story far and wide to anyone and everyone that will listen (including the media), specifically to your elected officials here in Texas so we can push to have legislation changed for the future. I have been in communication with our state representative’s office here and am working with them to try and put forth legislation in order to bring about some changes in these laws and encourage anyone reading this to speak with their elected representatives to do the same.

I have created this donation page so that if you feel so inclined to help us financially to help cover the continued ever-growing costs associated with this, I would appreciate it.

Here's the original new story that ran: https://tinyurl.com/KVUENEWS