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"We were abused, tortured and humiliated by Arnold and Jesse Friedman in computer classes in Arnold's basement. Still, Mr. Jarecki has submitted an affidavit on his behalf to the court. Today it is probably impossible to know for sure when and where Arnold's sexual troubles began. "We never saw him really raise his voice or get angry," said a Great Neck neighbor who also taught with him at Bayside but did not want her name used. "Some people look at it and say he's trying to beat it on a technicality. They've filed court papers, citing a history of shoddy investigation and overzealous prosecution in the high-publicity case. "Arnold and Jesse Friedman violated my trust for them as educators by sexually abusing my classmates and I at their home," he wrote. " Arnold Friedman's attorney, Jerry Bernstein, declined to comment. The Friedmans were self-chroniclers before the camcorder era. "I had an awfully peculiar family," says Jesse Friedman. She's probably talking about the family's Super-8 home movies and videos, The oldest films, taken by Arnold's father, show little Arnold, his brother and a sister who died in childhood. Jesse said his parents fought a great deal. In state court proceedings, Friedman was granted bail in the amount of $ 250,000 cash, a sum he apparently can post by pledging his family home. He has hosted panel discussions all over the country. Like other pedophiles, he was too obsessed to stop. At least two headline-making cases, respectively involving the McMartin Preschool in California and day-care teacher Kelly Michaels in New Jersey, eventually fell apart when the accuracy of children's testimony was questioned. Some people say he's a better businessman than a clown; he's created his own company, with 20 other clowns working for him. Soon the children found that Arnold knew they'd discovered the racy pictures. Michael Bardy, 27, was getting ready for a Troop 960 Boy Scout meeting last June when the package of dirty pictures arrived. He pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison. -------------------------------------------------------. This is bad documentary journalism, at best. Despite the multiple charges brought against Arnold and Jesse Friedman, there were no traces of blood or semen in the basement. In the end, after the interview with Jesse, the questions still lingered. Imagine a champion of the wrongfully convicted. The new evidence shows that detectives used "a compendium of suggestive and manipulative interview techniques proven to encourage false accusations from children," according to the court papers, filed in Nassau County Court in Mineola. Based on the quality of the police work, I think the case should have been thrown out.". ELAINE WAS CONSCIOUS/ALERT BUT WAS IN SOME PAIN FROM HER INJURIES. The film leaves the viewer with the feeling that Arnold Friedman, a confessed pedophile, was probably guilty of at least some form of molestation. And "Strip Poker," in which a prone woman figure would shed clothing as the game progressed until she was naked. Another's stutter has grown worse. He can't live in a building with children or leave Manhattan or stroll through the park or a toy store. He's become a symbol for how truth can elude us, how humans can err, and how even the best of intentions can lead us astray. We are withholding the name of the other driver as no charges were filed. But what do you do when you feel you've found it? The family tries desperatelyto hold on to some sense of normalcy; Jesse talks about how they still have to pay bills and eat dinner, but life is visibly tainted. "Do you know of any sources? That, Jarecki and Smerling said, is because they were able to locate only one victim he appears in the film sitting on a dimly lit couch in order to protect his identity willing to talk about Jesse Friedman's alleged crimes. Documentary on the Friedmans, a seemingly typical, upper-middle-class Jewish family whose world is instantly transformed when the father and his youngest son are arrested and charged with shocking and horrible crimes. Indicted on 107 counts, Arnold Friedman pleaded guilty in 1988 to 42 sex crimes against children and was sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison. charges that Friedman and his father sexually abused children. When he initially refused to cooperate in interrogations, the police arrested him and charged him with being Jesse's accomplice. And that statement resonates today. He didn't just plead guilty either. And the family's home movies show. See United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 107 S. Ct. 2095, 2102, 95 L. Ed. With Arnold Friedman, Elaine Friedman, David Friedman, Seth Friedman. In an interview after two packed screenings at this year's Maryland Film Festival, Jarecki and Hankin explained how their commitment to get the Friedmans' story right prodded them to remake the film many times before it achieved its remarkably fluid final form. " But she said there was never any indication that her father-in-law molested his son. "I'm very suspicious," she added. He never saw any cameras. "The only way to resolve the conflicting claims is to have an open hearing before an impartial court.". Indeed, Hankin says that when he was trying to land the editing job, "I gave Andrew a black comedy I did in film school -- I thought it would be something he'd be interested in. . More importantly, Tarantino is pondering more chapters in the series. Jesse Friedman pleaded guilty Dec. 20 to 17 counts of first-degree sodomy; four counts of first-degree sexual abuse; one count of first-degree attempted sexual abuse; one count of using a child in a sexual performance and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Whatever. - Students who eventually provided testimony that they had been abused, had no recollection of such abuse until they had been subjected to up to five kinds of manipulative and suggestive questioning by the police -- questioning methods now proven to cause false memories in children. All these years later, he can still close his eyes and feel the haunting stare of the wiry young man who he said started fondling him a few weeks into computer classes when he was 10 years old. But Jesse Friedman believes the documentary speaks for itself, and says he has received only one critical email from audience members, compared with 500 supportive ones. I don't know if you would remember met but I remember you as one of the greatest teachers I have ever had. Jesse Friedman, who pleaded guilty to sexual abuse charges in 1988, was paroled after 13 years in prison. Looking back, she said she remembers thinking it was odd that parents were never allowed inside the classroom. Elaine S Friedman (1919 - 2006) - Walla Walla, WA "It's a shame with all this public attention on child abuse the system does not adequately punish it. In fact, they were showing them pornography and inducing them to commit various sexual acts. Hypnotic recovery is notorious for creating false memories. Many children also were questioned by parents, therapists and prosecutors, she said, who were told the same versions of events. "Capturing the Friedmans" asks: Were the wild charges believable? In fact, "Capturing the Friedmans" isn't principally about a child-abuse case, though that clearly is what set other events in motion. We do make our claim that the charges are not true, but the legal basis for the motion is not strictly that Jesse's innocent." Select this result to view Elaine Louise Friedman's phone number, address, and more. But I wanted people to make up their own minds. "You can't leave the film and think the police ran a tip-top investigation," Jarecki said in an interview conducted earlier this year. Two are included in the film, one on camera and another on audiotape. We remand so that the district court can set [**7] conditions for Friedman's release under 18 U.S.C. "On further questioning, we began to hear that the friends were involved.". But to sustain that defense they must show they had no "predisposition" to the crime and that agents had originated the idea. Nemser said another alleged victim was hypnotized before making incriminating statements against the Friedmans, a technique he claims has dubious results. Following a lot of "teasing negotiating," David allowed the filmmakers to use this upsetting material. Subsequently, Judge Costantino ruled that the evidence of Friedman's sexual abuse of children, his collection of pornography, the seriousness of his federal charges and the erosion of support for him in the community justified detention prior to trial. The abuse escalated into sodomy. They come from all social classes and all walks of life. Weiser said. HN4In other cases concerning risk of flight, we have required more than evidence of the commission [**6] of a serious crime and the fact of a potentially long sentence to support a finding of risk of flight. This unsigned posting is rife with inaccuracies. For the DVD release of "Capturing the Friedmans" last month, Jarecki added new material. "I've thought of prequels and sequels," he said. But many of those cases came to nothing. He said both father and son committed forcible sodomy on him multiple times. At those trials, alleged child victims were repeatedly interviewed until they gave increasingly lurid accounts of sodomy, other abuse and even satanic rituals. HN3Title 18, U.S.C. Young victims were left scared and unable to sleep. One guy was in for 274 years with no recourse to appeal. 1987). In the Basement | The New Yorker I stalled for a long time before seeing "Capturing the Friedmans." Mr. Jarecki said the material on Mr. Goldstein was left out because it duplicated statements by the 13 children but was included in the just-released DVD. One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before their eighteenthbirthday; fewer than one in ten will tell. Anyone who has seen the movie knows that it would be a much different film without so many strikingly candid moments caught on camera. There's no real easy way to put in one sentence what this movie's about. Photo spread: While consenting adults continue to differ on the issue of conventional pornography, the society at large has reached a clear consensus on its disapproval of dirty pictures or films involving children. They just treated him so unfairly.". David wonders why What's harder for me to understand is that there was never any separation made between Arnold and his son. They found Newsday articles summarizing the case and identifying David Friedman as the eldest son of Arnold Friedman. "I asked Jesse, do you remember me hugging you at all? Tonight, the film will compete for an Oscar for best documentary film. "Jesse was put into a corner and had to plead guilty," Nemser said, adding that Friedman is the beneficiary of "an enormous windfall" of evidence because of the research that director Andrew Jarecki did. In producing this work, the filmmaker, Andrew Jarecki, mines a motherlode of home movies and video made by the weirdly narcissistic Friedmans themselves before and after the arrest of the father and son. He filed a second motion last month in state appellate court in Brooklyn asking for a change of venue because Friedman and his legal team don't think he can get a fair hearing in Nassau County. Marinello said. There is no crime in admitting to an untruth wrung from you by a persistent detective when you were 9 years old, if that is what happened. Then the authorities discovered Friedman ran after-school computer classes for boys from his home. We proudly partner with NewsBreak, SmartNews, Google News, Apple News, FlipBoard and more. That was one of the threats Arnold Friedman used to keep the children quiet about what was going on during his classes, parents and police have said. A film that pretends to be neutral in order to reinforce a biased viewpoint can be more powerful than one that openly takes an advocacy position. And when a patriarch dies, who's in charge then? Strip "There's a lot well, there are some things I don't want to talk about.". "This is the constant reminder I live with every day," Gregory said, "that I was abused. The judge who presided over the original case has proven to be just as one-sided, the lawyers say. And they told the story of a 56-year-old man and his then-18-year-old son who were charged with molesting young boys at a computer class they taught at their home. They believe the motion filed on Jesse's behalf was simply a result of publicity garnered from the movie, that there's no factual basis.". He tugged an ear and stroked the close-cropped beard grown during his first few weeks in prison. ; PG). Jesse, said Maltin, "was a kid in my house all the time. "Through the Academy's mercenary response in refusing to air a thirty second public service message, victims have just been silenced once again." He I would bang on the walls. ", When David finally agreed to cooperate, Jarecki "noticed that all his stories sort of dead-ended. Or that Ross Goldstein, who wasn't in the film, would plead guilty to sodomy and implicate his friend Jesse if nothing happened? "This is the way they were raised." Because Judge Costantino's implied finding that Friedman posed a risk of flight was clearly erroneous, we reverse and remand. Everyone was smart, and yet no one can agree on anything.". He described them as a Mayberry-like force of officers who "spend a fair amount of time listening to the wind blow through the curtains.". I'd like to make that perfectly clear. On the surface, the film seems like a fair-minded treatment. Jarecki describes him as having "a tragic flaw. "We had an opportunity to see when anyone was lying to us, because we had enough information to do our own detective work. The court then remanded the case to allow the prosecution to introduce new evidence concerning defendant's risk of flight and potential to obstruct justice. ", Now 34, Jesse Friedman spent 13 years behind bars and is today electronically tagged and forbidden from living in an apartment where children also stay. "While we applaud director Andrew Jarecki for addressing the important topic of sexual abuse," Dr. Fink states, "a straightforward documentary would have mentioned the 1989 Geraldo episode where Jesse tearfully confessed to the crimes, as well as the confession of a co-defendant, Ross Goldstein, whose existence is not revealed in the film.". ", "The fact that my son and I pleaded guilty was not an admission of culpability," Friedman wrote, "but an attempt to salvage whatever little remained of our lives.". The children reported Arnold threatened to burn down their houses, kill parents, if they told. According to parents of the victims, Jesse Friedman often had a camera around his neck when he greeted their children outside his home before computer classes. "My father," he says, "didn't really give two fucks about my life." "I say to them: 'I don't care what you've told the police or anybody, it's now time for you and I to talk about the truth.' Before Friedman's sentence was pronounced, Panaro urged Boklan to make no recommendation on how much of the sentence actually should be served. Indeed, Goldstein's story parallels the pressure and intimidation placed on Jesse to plead guiltyas he ultimately did. 3142(i) require that when pretrial detention is ordered, the judicial officer include written findings of fact and a written statement of the reasons for the detention. At the trial, defense lawyer Allen Brown maintained that Herbort thought he was making a legal purchase. "I've been waiting 16 years now to prove my innocence," Friedman said. Did you and your father ever discuss the case? He asked for their support. The three-count federal indictment against Friedman was filed on November 13, 1987. It was an unorthodox change of direction for a successful businessman in his late 30s, but Mr. Jarecki could also afford to pick and choose his subjects, without fearing financial backers who might limit his independence. That launched a highly aggressive and now equally controversial investigation by the Nassau County Police Sex Crimes Unit. "To call Jarecki's work an investigation is ridiculous because he didn't speak to most victims. "The victims seemed to have been arm twisted into buying into the prosecutors' theory that this was some kind of pedophile circus going on. That, plus Friedman's reluctance to talk about his family, led Jarecki and his staff to do some independent research. Because under New York's sex-offender registration act, you must have a hearing in front of the original judge who sentenced you. He threatened to burn their houses down. But in the McMartin case, the stories of abuse the children told were so implausible that the prosecution was ultimately discredited. Copyright 2023, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies. Things got very heated, according to Jarecki and several other witnesses, at the Tribeca Film Festival last May and at screenings in Great Neck earlier this month, both of which were attended by several principals from the film. "Clear evidence is omitted, facts distorted, and uncertainty is created about the guilt of these two confessed pedophiles," the letter said. He was a workaholic who talked little and demonstrated no affection for either her or their three sons, Mrs. Friedman said.