>"By spring of 1984, it was claimed that 360 children had been abused."

All of these linked allegations later turned out to be complete fabrications, creations by the investigators invented out of whole cloth, and targeted against the same specific individuals.

In fact false accusations from multiple individuals are a common police tactic. Perhaps the individual has slept with several others, and the encounters ended non-violently but non-amicably. Suddenly consensual encounters retroactively become remembered as non-consensual after questioning by investigators, the very purpose of which is to elicit accusations. As a representative at these hearings, and student advisor, I've witnessed this happen to students many times.

See also the DSK trial, where a French author from years before brought charges that were similarly dismissed. The bandwagoning effect occurs regardless of whether the allegations are true or false. People want money, power, special treatment, and attention, and sadly, false allegations are often an easy mechanism used to get them.

So yes, both false allegations and true allegations are unlikely to be made independently. Not to mention the truly crazy people who are completely uninvolved and will jump in for no discernible reason whatsoever, or in criminal cases CIs who are transformed into additional "victims" to secure convictions.

This isn't a story of math to the rescue. It's a store of bad statistics and not paying enough attention in class, where they usually teach some variant of the prosecutor's fallacy, since this type of falsity comes up often enough to warrant consistent reinforcement that statistics aren't magic, and they can ruin people's lives.

Agreed that the statistics don't tie out.