my friends and I were wrongfully accused of making sexual comments towards a girl during a small concert. What do I do?
Hello. I (F20) in Location: Tavares Florida, and two of my friends (M20) (F18) were approached at a local concert by two older adults who claimed and accused us of making lude or sexually explicit comments about their daughter (F18) who was at the concert that night. Not a single derogatory comment from myself or the people I was with was made about her or anyone else in the show. We were told to leave even after we tried to prove our innocence - they claimed we took pictures of their daughter without permission to make explicit comments about and we offered to show them all of our cameras or cellphone pictures but they kept accusing us of making the comments without letting us show that we never spoke of her other than to compliment her clothing style. There was argument and yelling from myself and the people who approached us, but I re entered the room to apologize for being disrespectful and they still did not allow myself or my friends to prove our innocence and continued to scream in my face until I decided to leave.
My friends and I never took photos of the girl without her knowing or made any sexual comment towards her or anyone else. As mentioned all that was said was a compliment of her style or appearance in a polite manner with no further comment or sexual detail included.
Is this situation qualified for "defamation of character"? If so how could this be resolved as the accusations made towards myself are not true or credible and they approached my friends and I with no proof. They also wouldn't tell us what we said which made it confusing since they claimed to have heard us say "disgusting, explicit comments" but didn't want to repeate or say what they claimed we comment.
Further comment - the concert was advertised to be an "emo hardcore" show at a small tattoo shop in Umatilla, FL. (Close to Tavares) It was promoted by the local bands playing but hosted by the two people that made the accusations against my friends and I. I'm not sure what other involvement they had other than owning the tattoo shop.