Gerald Amirault - Accusations

Accusations

The prosecution relied heavily on testimony from young children extracted through long sessions with therapists. Dorothy Rabinowitz, of the Wall Street Journal, wrote that "ther than such testimony, the prosecutors had no shred of physical or other proof that could remotely pass as evidence of abuse". Among the accusations were, as summarized by Rabinowitz from court records, Amirault

had plunged a wide-blade butcher knife into the rectum of a 4-year-old boy, which he then had trouble removing. When a teacher in the school saw him in action with the knife, she asked him what he was doing, and then told him not to do it again, a child said. On this testimony, Gerald was convicted of a rape which had, miraculously, left no mark or other injury.

The Amiraults insist they were victims of the day care sex abuse hysteria that swept the US in the 1980s.

In 1995, Judge Robert Barton ordered a new trial for Violet, then 72, and Cheryl, who had been imprisoned eight years. He ordered the women released at once. Barton — known as "Black Bart" for the long sentences he gave criminals — revealed his contempt for the prosecutors.

Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein presided over a widely publicized hearings into the case resulting in findings that all the children's testimony was tainted. He said that "Every trick in the book had been used to get the children to say what the investigators wanted." Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly — which had until then had never in its 27 year history taken an editorial position on a case — published a scathing column directed at the prosecutors "who seemed unwilling to admit they might have sent innocent people to jail for crimes that had never occurred."