Word: buckeye
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...horror stories in the McMartin Pre-School trial are chilling for a different reason: despite seven years of investigations and trials, it may never be known whether they are true or false. In a Los Angeles courtroom last week, the jury in the child-molestation trial of Raymond Buckey, 32, a former teacher at the Manhattan Beach, Calif., preschool, declared itself deadlocked. With that, the state decided to drop the charges. Said prosecutor Joseph Martinez: "How long can you keep this...
Outside the courtroom, Buckey embraced his father with tears in his eyes and said, "It's all over." It was the second mistrial for Buckey, whose mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, had been acquitted of similar charges in January after the longest trial in U.S. history. That jury had been unable to reach a decision on all the counts against Raymond. Prosecutors then made their second attempt to convict him, this time on charges of molesting three of the children, girls who are now ages 11 to 13. Buckey spent five years in prison awaiting his day in court. The bill...
During 15 days of deliberation, the jury had leaned toward acquittal on seven of the eight counts against Buckey. It was split evenly on the last one. "We got more hung ((rather)) than less hung," said jury foreman Richard Dunham. Most of the jurors said they believed some of the children had been molested, but from the evidence presented they could not tell who had done it. "There were too many gaping holes, and too much time had passed," said juror Michael Carapella. Jurors also expressed doubts about videotaped interviews used as evidence in which therapists and social workers encouraged...
...January 1986 charges against five of those originally accused and jailed were abruptly dropped when a new district attorney, Ira Reiner, declared a "complete absence of evidence" against them. That did not stop a determined prosecutor, Lael Rubin, from relentlessly pursuing the case against Peggy Buckey and Raymond. There was little corroborating evidence. Child pornography, which prosecutors had suggested was the Buckeys' motive, was not proved: despite an international search for evidence by five government agencies, including the FBI, no pornographic photos of the McMartin children were ever found...
Although the Buckeys were acquitted, the case is still not closed. District Attorney Reiner must decide whether to pursue the 13 counts against Raymond Buckey on which the jury could not reach a verdict. Peggy McMartin Buckey has filed a $1 million suit against the city, county, CII, and others. In Manhattan Beach, parents of the children are outraged. "The anger is beginning to rise," says parent Mary Mae Cioffi. "Our justice system needs a revamp for kids...