Note: in the podcast, I interviewed Malinda Sherwyn who has advocated for people dealing with Child Protective Services (CPS) for decades, including many falsely accused of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Malinda has known me and {my former friend} Megan.
It was riveting television for the sort of folks who love reality tv. There was {my former friend} Megan Fox appearing with Jeremy Hales and his girlfriend, revealing “bombshell” information from an anonymous source. She was about to drop a very serious charge on Michelle Preston, Hales neighbor who Hales was suing, and her adopted daughter.
Megan developed an anonymous source from a Florida town where Preston used to live.
“When she {Preston} started telling everyone that the baby was very sick, and this person- who was with her all the time- saw the baby and said ‘I don’t think so. I think she {the baby} seems very normal and fine.’”
Megan then went on to claim that this anonymous source had a son with the same metabolic disorder- how convenient- and apparently Michelle did not have a nutritionist or special formula.
Michelle’s child, now older, was a baby at the time.
This anonymous source claimed the nutritionist and special formula were necessary with this type of metabolic disorder.
{My former friend} Megan didn’t use the term, but she was accusing Michelle Preston of Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP), sometimes referred to as factitious disorder.
MSBP is, “a form of child abuse. The caretaker of a child, most often a mother, either makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms to make it look like the child is sick.”
It was a jarring statement because MSBP is exceedingly rare, extremely difficult to diagnose properly, and a serious allegation (no one with MSBP could keep their own children, let alone adopt others).
I asked {my former friend} Megan to explain herself; she didn’t respond. The email I sent is below.
You flew to Colorado to cover Cyndi Abcug's trial, https://pjmedia.com/megan-fox/2022/08/26/the-people-vs-cynthia-abcug-guilty-n1624576#google_vignette
Here at about fifteen minutes in,
You use an anonymous source to suggest Michelle has munchausen (sic). Are you serious? You played Shaun McMillan's depositions over and over showing how hard it is to prove Munchausen and now you claim it based on an anonymous source. Am I getting this right?
Malinda called the evidence {my former friend} Megan presented in Hales’ video “hearsay.”
“That’s how people get accused of Munchhausen syndrome by proxy,” Malinda said of the hearsay evidence {my former friend} Megan used.
Even worse, for much of her career, {my former friend} Megan Fox viewed MSBP as a weapon used by Child Protective Services (CPS). Starting in 2019, she detailed how the State of Colorado falsely labeled Cyndi Abcug with MSBP.
When Richard Luthmann and I first interviewed Bruce Matzkin, Michelle’s attorney in the civil suit Hales brought, he told us that there had been nearly thirty calls to CPS, most by Hales’ fans who watched his show and called in allegations they heard.
In 2022, {my former friend} Megan travelled to Colorado to cover Cyndi’s criminal trial. Even after her son was taken and Cyndi was criminally convicted, {my former friend} Megan stuck to her guns and asserted that Abcug was falsely labeled with MSBP.
After an incredibly complex medical history of seizures in Florida that were witnessed by at least four other people, including the child’s physician, Abcug sought answers on the advice of doctors in Colorado. But when she got there, things took a disturbing turn, and she was accused of “exaggerating her son’s medical condition” by the child protective agency in Douglas County.
The allegations led to the removal of the boy from Abcug, and she has not seen him in three years. There were competing narratives. The state painted a picture of a malicious, lying abuser, while the defense drew a picture of a scared mom doing the best she could to navigate an incredibly complex medical condition that the best doctors in the country could not diagnose.
In order to prove medical abuse, the jury needed to agree on what the injury to the child was. The prosecution claimed it was the medical tests ordered by the doctors. The state alienated Abcug from her older children with a restraining order that said she could have no contact with them. During the three years when they had no contact, two of her four children agreed to testify against her, even though both of them contradicted previous statements they had made.
The prosecution’s own star witness, Hannah Abcug’s daughter, told the jury that her mom did not plan to go on any raid. It’s hard to understand how they determined there was even a plan for any “raid” when the only witness they had said she couldn’t remember what the plan was and didn’t think her mom knew where the foster family lived. Hannah was their only witness.
That’s not the only case she covered involving MSBP. Before becoming Jeremy Hales’ lapdog, {my former friend} Megan covered Take Care of Maya, a Netflix documentary about another mother falsely accused of MSBP. This mother, Beata Kowalski, committed suicide.
{My former friend} Megan covered the subsequent civil trial.
I joined {my former friend} Megan on one show about the Kowalski case.
Malinda noted in the interview that a deposition by California attorney Shawn McMillan was critical the deleterious nature of MSBP. McMillan won a landmark settlement for a woman, Rafaelina Duval, falsely accused of MSBP. ‘
{My former friend} Megan is a fan of McMillan and has written about his depositions.
Malinda told me she shared the video with everyone, including {my former friend} Megan Fox. In the deposition, McMillan deposed Dr. Charles Sophy, a medical director with CPS in California. Dr. Sophy acknowledged that MSBP is a disorder by elimination. All other possibilities must be eliminated before MSBP is considered.
“Is Munchausen syndrome by proxy a diagnosis of exclusion?” McMillan asked Dr. Sophy.
“Oftentimes, yes.” Dr. Sophy responded.
“Is there any empirical test you can do to determine if someone is suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy?” McMillan followed up.
“Not a real black and white clinical test; it’s more of things not being present,” Dr. Sophy responded.
McMillan then quizzed Dr. Sophy about a Medline article which argued that a problem with diagnosing MSBP properly is that “there is no set test you can use to identify or diagnose it.”
“It is what is known as a diagnosis of exclusion.” McMillan continued. “Only after we’ve ruled out all those potential illnesses are we left with the potential for Munchhausen syndrome by proxy.”
Obviously, {my former friend} Megan didn’t do anything like this before making her assertion.
Matzkin provided me a statement on behalf of Michelle Preston, denying the allegations.
Ms. Preston does not have Munchausen and has never been diagnosed with Munchausen. She of course had to pass a psychological evaluation in order to adopt her daughter. She was deemed fit.
Such rumors are part of the WhatTheHales fake reality storylines created to generate YouTube content using the lives of Ms. Preston and her child. That Megan Fox spreads such rumors shows she is completely co-opted by Hales. She's a fraud as a journalist and has no principles.
There’s another problem with Megan’s assertion. Dawn Bates-Buchanan is the attorney who handled the adoption for Michelle. Ms. Bates-Buchanan appeared with Lisa on Two Lee’s in a Pod in 2024. During a discussion about the adoption, Ms. Bates Buchanan noted, “The child has some medical issues.”
Video is cued up.
That assertion, made before {my former friend} Megan went on with Hales in January 2025, contradicts what the anonymous source told her. Here is that quote again.
When she {Preston} started telling everyone that the baby was very sick, and this person- who was with her all the time- saw the baby and said ‘I don’t think so. I think she {the baby} seems very normal and fine.’”
Who is the more authoritative source here: The adoption attorney or an anonymous source?
When Richard Luthmann and I appeared on Two Lee’s in a Pod, Richard noted that {my former friend} Megan is no longer a journalist- driven by truth- but a content creator who is driven by clicks.
{My former friend} Megan irresponsibly labeled Michelle Preston with MSBP based on an anonymous source. It was a smear, but as a result, she was watched by over sixty-thousand people on Hales channel and ingratiated herself even more in his favor.
This episode illustrates his point.
Post-script
This is the eighth article in the Hales series. Find articles one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven. Check out the fundraiser to help me create more articles.
Update:
Shortly after the post was published, Preston left a message, expanding on the anonymous source. Preston said she had no friends in Northport, Fl, where she previously lived with her daughter, who had a child with the same disorder as her daughter. {My former friend} Megan said her anonymous source claimed her son had the same metabolism disorder as Michelle’s daughter.
Michelle also provided a letter confirming that her daughter has a GI disorder.
I hope to interview Michelle for the rest of this shocking story soon.
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