I am well aware that child sexual abuse does happen. I have family members that have been victims. In our passion to protect children, we can't throw all caution to the wind and let the chip falls where they may. As repulsive, and disgusting, child molestation/rape is, calm reason has to rule. I, for one, am NOT uncomfortable talking about it. But, I will view it from all angles and consider all sides.
Unfortunately, there have been false allegations made. This infuriates me because those that have truely suffered are then made to climb even a steeper hill in their quest for credibility.
I found the following. It's quite sobering.
Abuse Hysteria in America
A chronicle of cases
Bakersfield, California-- In 1980, Mary Ann Barbour insisted that her two young step-granddaughters were being sexually abused by the man now married to Barbour's husband's former wife. Barbour was a psychiatric patient, with a plate in her head as a result of a childhood accident. Alvin McCuan, the girls' father, promised to keep his daughters away from this man, who was not, however, charged with any crime. Then the girls implicated McCuan, who was arrested at once. The arrest came after the girls were interrogated by child-protection authorities, as Barbour's allegations persisted and widened. The girls were placed in the Barbours' care. In 1982, as the McCuan case approached trial, the girls implicated character witness Scott Kniffen, his wife Brenda, and their mother. Relentlessly grilling her two charges, Mary Ann Barbour reported that they had been used in prostitution and pornography, tortured, made to watch snuff films, and forced to allow animals to eat pet food out of their vaginas. She added Betty Palko, a social worker, to the list of perpetrators, along with Palko's boyfriend, various welfare workers, McCuan's grandparents, and others. Charges against these people were eventually dropped. In Palko's case, they were dropped in exchange for consent to the sealing of Mary Ann Barbour's mental health records. The McCuans and the Kniffens, however, were each sentenced to over 240 years' imprisonment in 1984. In 1996, an appellate court determined that in the light of the children's recantation and other findings, an evidentiary hearing was in order. After a review of the case, both couples were released.
Manhattan Beach, California-- In August 1983, an alcoholic woman (later diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic) became concerned about the bottom of her two-year-old son, who was pre-verbal. His bottom was too red, she thought, and she accused Ray Buckey, a 25-year-old worker at the McMartin Preschool, of child sodomy. Local police, without bothering to investigate, sent a letter to over 200 McMartin parents, warning them of "possible criminal acts," such as "oral sex, fondling of genitals, buttocks or chest area, and sodomy." Social workers began extracting lurid tales involving elaborate sexual rites, production of child pornography, and animal sacrifice. Panic spread, and accusations soon involved Buckey's mother and sister, as well as other teachers and the school's founder, Buckey's grandmother Virginia McMartin. The school grounds were excavated by archeologists in a fruitless search for "abuse tunnels." A nationwide kiddie-porn hunt produced no incriminating pictures. The ordeal dragged on for six years. In 1990, after the longest and most expensive trial process in American history, all defendants were acquitted. <
Jordan, Minnesota-- Twenty-four citizens of this town near Minneapolis were rounded up in the spring of 1984 and charged as co-conspirators in a Satanic sex ring that held intergenerational orgies, produced child pornography using their own children, and committed human sacrifice. Their children were placed in custody and rigorously prompted to "disclose" abuse.
Charges against all but three of the accused were dropped by the end of the year. According to Nathan and Snedeker's Satan's Silence, "In early 1985, the state attorney general's office issued a report placing the blame for an investigation gone awry on the relentless, unending interviewing of children." Veterans of this case including, Bob and Lois Bentz, formed an organization, Victims of Child Abuse Laws (VOCAL), that seeks to curb state intrusion into family life.
Country Walk, Florida-- Francisco Fuster-Escalona, a Cuban immigrant, was accused in 1984 of molesting children in the home-based babysitting service he ran with his 17-year-old Honduran wife Ileana in Country Walk. The charges included drugging children for use in production of (nonexistent) porn, and forcing them to offer prayers to Satan. Lacking evidence, the politically ambitious prosecutor held Ileana naked in solitary confinement for nearly a year. Accompanied by a quack Miami psychologist named Michael Rappaport, the prosecutor visited her cell at least 34 times, holding Ileana's hand while they led her in guided imagery and visualization. The prosecutor and Rappaport finally wore her down. She confabulated sensational testimony against her husband in exchange for her freedom and permission to return to Honduras. Francisco remains in prison. The prosecutor, Janet Reno, is now US Attorney General.
Pittsfield, Massachusetts-- Bernard Baran, a 19-year-old gay man, was working in 1984 as an attendant at Pittsfield's Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC). Affronted by the presence of an open homosexual, the uncle of one four-year-old boy complained to the administration. When Baran retained his job, the uncle and the boy's mother called police and accused him of rape. Tests (which have a high rate of false positives) appeared to show that the boy had gonorrhea of the throat. Baran, who tested negative, was charged with molestation. On the witness stand, the boy refused to testify against him. Baran was, however, convicted of molesting four children at ECDC. Evidence was virtually nonexistent; the prosecution's case was driven by homophobia. Serving two concurrent life sentences, Baran remains in prison pending his second appeal. (For more on the Baran case, see Bernie Baran's Story)
Maplewood, New Jersey-- In 1984 and '85, New Jersey prosecutors alleged, 22-year-old preschool teacher Margaret Kelly Michaels singlehandedly committed mass sexual assault at the Wee Care Day Care Center. The case arose when a four-year-old boy whose temperature was being taken rectally said, "This is what my teacher does to me at nap time." When his mother relayed this to the State Division of Youth and Family Services, the abuse machine was set in motion.
The case escalated until Michaels was charged with 235 counts of sexual assault on 31 children. Her alleged offenses included inserting flatware and Lego bricks into children's orifices, performing acts of sodomy on the boys, singing and playing "Jingle Bells" on a classroom piano in the nude, and organizing sex romps featuring kinky applications of peanut butter and jelly. In 1988, convicted of 115 counts of abuse against 19 children, she was sentenced to 47 years in prison. She served five before her conviction was thrown out on appeal. In an 84-page report, an appellate panel of judges wrote that the children's testimony against Michaels was inadmissibly corrupt and coercively obtained. Upon her release, Michaels married attorney Joseph Romano. She now lives in New York with her husband and infant daughter.
San Diego, California-- In 1988 and '89, Dale Akiki, a day nursery volunteer at Faith Chapel, a suburban church, supposedly kidnapped nine children for purposes of "Satanic ritual abuse." Akiki, physically challenged and mildly retarded, was easy prey. Therapists acting as investigators elicited sensational fantasies of blood-drinking, coprophagy, human sacrifice, elephant slaughter, and weird sex.
By the time Akiki was finally acquitted on all counts in 1993 following a seven-month trial, he had been held without bail for two and a half years. Community support for Akiki grew into the Justice Committee, which now performs advocacy work for similar cases nationally. Prosecutorial blundering in this case provided enough breaches of immunity to enable Akiki to sue successfully for an undisclosed amount, reportedly over three million dollars.
Miami, Florida-- In 1989, Bobby Fijnje, a 14-year-old part-time daycare worker at Old Cutler Presbyterian Church, was accused of molesting children in his care when a three-year-old girl mentioned being "afraid" of Bobby. Although the girl eventually made it plain that she meant his sometimes raucous games made her nervous, Fijnje was arrested for raping her. The charges multiplied and soon encompassed depredations, including forced devil worship, against other children. Fijnje was held without bail for 20 months and tried as an adult. He was found innocent on all counts. But by this time local rumor-mills alleged that Fijnje's father, a retired Dutch diplomat, might be a child pornographer. The Fijnjes moved to the Netherlands.
A second Dade County abuse case based on contrived and flimsy evidence involves former South Miami police officer Grant Snowden. Snowden remains in prison. Both cases were vigorously prosecuted by Florida state attorney Janet Reno.
Olympia, Washington-- In 1988, Deputy Sheriff Paul Ingram was arrested following allegations made by his 18 and 22-year-old daughters who, inspired by a charismatic Christian speaker at a church retreat, claimed to have recovered memories of cultic sexual assaults. Soon the entire Ingram family, including Paul himself, began "recovering" memories of bizarre sex parties and Satanic rites involving dozens of people. Ingram later retracted his statements regarding these purported memories. Despite the lack of corroborating evidence, Ingram was sentenced to 20 years in prison, where he remains today. This case is the subject of Lawrence Wright's extraordinary book Remembering Satan, which provides a detailed account.
Lowell, Massachusetts-- Ray and Shirley Souza, grandparents in their 60s, remain under house arrest while appealing a 9 to 15 year prison sentence for the rape of two granddaughters. The allegations came from the girls' mother, who in 1990 "recovered" memories of abuse in a dream and entered therapy. She then concluded that her parents must have been abusing her children as well, attributing such problems as bed-wetting to sexual abuse, and called in the authorities.
Edenton, North Carolina-- Forty-four-year-old Robert F. Kelly and his wife Betsy, co-owners of the Little Rascals Day Care Center, were charged in 1991 with a combined 429 counts of "crimes against nature," "taking indecent liberties," first-degree sexual assault, and conspiring to abuse. The case appears to have been touched off by a vindictive parent who objected to the Kellys' disciplining her child. On the aggressively cultivated and rehearsed testimony of 12 children ("They've been through more dress rehearsals than the cast of Cats," one attorney told the New York Times), Kelly was convicted on 99 counts sentenced to 12 consecutive life terms. A plea bargain secured Betsy Kelly a mere seven years. Five other adults were accused, two of whom the daycare center's cook Dawn Wilson and video store owner Scott Privott were tried and convicted.
In 1993 the gross inequities of this case were exposed in a powerful four-hour PBS documentary by Ofra Bikel. In 1995 the North Carolina Supreme Court, citing an array of corrupt and prejudicial elements in their trials, threw out Kelly and Wilson's convictions and released them on bail. Betsy Kelly and Scott Privott's sentences were reduced to time served.
In May 1997, prosecutors finally dropped all 99 charges against Robert Kelly and the seven charges against Dawn Wilson, ending the threat of retrials for both. However, prosecutor Nancy lamb announced that she would seek to convict Kelly in an unrelated abuse case involving one child.
Wenatchee, Washington-- This vast and complex case erupted in 1994, when after considerable coaching an 11-year-old girl known only as D.E., foster daughter of Wenatchee's self-appointed sex-crimes investigator Robert Perez, began making accusations that soon engulfed at least 80 adults. At one point, D.E. accused people at random as she was driven around town. Grilled by Detective Perez, other children began making accusations to corroborate hers.
At the center of this multi-ring circus was an alleged "Satanic ritual abuse" cabal based at Pastor Robert Roberson's Pentecostal church. Roberson, his wife Connie, Sunday school teacher Honnah Sims, and others were charged with conducting orgies involving vegetables, inflatable toys, perverted daisy chains, and devil-worship. The Robersons and Sims were acquitted, but bankrupted by their legal fees. Other defendants, mostly those too poor to hire legal counsel, remain in prison. D.E. eventually admitted to reporter Tom Grant that she had been pressured to lie. Following this disclosure, the girl was placed in a mental institution and remains inaccessible. Journalist Kathryn Lyon, who wrote the definitive report exposing this madness, narrowly escaped arrest. **
Editor's Note: from The Guide, July 1997
