Friedman’s case – Capturing the Friedmans

Friedman’s case – Capturing the Friedmans           

many of the quotes here come from:
Capturing the Friedmans: Annotated Bibliography
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/bib.html

Many viewers leave the theater believing that they have seen an objective documentary presented by a director who entrusted audiences to draw their own conclusions on Arnold Friedman’s and Jesse Friedman’s guilt. A careful review of the original evidence, however, shows that the case against the Friedmans was much stronger than the film revealed.

Geraldo Rivera’s interview with Jesse Friedman “Busting the Kiddie Porn Underground” February 23, 1989 — Geraldo!

Jesse’s attorney, Peter Panera, is interviewed. He tells how he and Jesse made a special trip to Wisconsin to visit Arnold Friedman in prison to convince him to reveal where he had hidden the photos and videos of the children. Arnold refused to reveal what he had done with them, despite the fact that it would have helped gain lenacy for his son. Jesse’s mother Ms. Friedman also appears on the show.

Geraldo Rivera’s interview with Jesse Friedman
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/geraldo.html

Geraldo: “How many kids, Jesse, did you and your father actually physically abuse in your home?” Jesse: (long sigh, appears to be mentally counting) “I guess 17.”….

The Secret Life of Arnold Friedman By Alvin E. Bessent – Newsday  — LI., NY May 28, 1989

http://web.archive.org/web/20060901203550/www.newsday.com/mynews/ny-friedman052889,0,1599081.story

Bessent reports on the victims’ fear of the Friedmans:
“As the abuse escalated so did the threats. Police said the children were extensively videotaped and photographed. No pictures of the children have been recovered. But police said Arnold Friedman told the children he would send pornographic pictures of them to magazines and tell the publishers to print their names if they told what was going on. He threatened to burn their houses down. He reportedly said he would kill their parents. . . . Some of the children who testified before the grand juries received threatening telephone calls warning them not to cooperate with police.” “Some of them still wet their beds, take baseball bats to bed with them or are unable to sleep.”

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/bib.html

State of New York v. Arnold Friedman.
Motion for order requiring return of property seized from 17 Picadilly Road, Great Neck, Nassau County, New York, seized pursuant to search warrant of November 25, 1987.  Motion #C-427, Indictment #67104 & 67430.
September 14, 1990.
Judge Abbey L. Boklan approved Arnold Friedmans’ request for the return of all property seized at the Friedman home with the exception of pornographic materials listed in this document.  Materials include such items as:  5 pornographic movies, assorted order forms for pornography, assorted pornographic magazine cutouts, 2 partially nude photos of children, 3 sheets advertising homosexuality with boys, 6 photos of naked people, 3 battery operated sex aids, 1 hypodermic needle, 9 pornographic computer games (with descriptions), list of names and phone numbers of 9 victims, 2 registration sheets with names of victims.

In Their Own Words:  Jesse’s Victims Speak Out

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/vict.html

Victims break their silence Victor Manuel Ramos — Newsday  — LI., NY  February 29, 2004 Newsday  staff reporter Victor Manuel Ramos interviews several of the victims who Arnold and Jesse Friedman plead guilty to abusing.

“For Gregory, the hullabaloo over Jarecki’s film — and whether the director will pick up an Oscar tonight — is a sideshow to the legacy of the abuse. Even now, Gregory said he sometimes wakes up at night shaking, especially after hearing of other child abuse cases on the news or elsewhere. What would be passing news to others, hits home for him.

Case of Arnold Friedman and Jessie Friedman “Capturing The Friedmans”
http://web.archive.org/web/20070918045108/www.theawarenesscenter.org/arnoldandjessefriedman.html

http://capturingthefriedmans.wordpress.com/

Clear evidence is omitted and facts are distorted. In addition, the film relies on popular but erroneous myths about child sexual abuse. As a result, uncertainty is created about the guilt of two confessed pedophiles — who are recast as victims — while the real victims — the boys and their families — are portrayed as untrustworthy.

CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS”  Documentary or Whitewash?

http://capturingthefriedmans.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/capturing-the-friedmans-documentary-or-whitewash/

Man’s 1988 child molestation conviction to be revisited by Vivienne Foley, CNN August 17, 2010 “In August 2010, the 2nd Circuit Court decision stated that “… the police, prosecutors and the judge did everything they could to coerce a guilty plea and avoid a trial” and said there was a “reasonable likelihood” Friedman was “wrongfully convicted” of sexually abusing children.” Nassau County (Long Island) District Attorney’s office will re-open the case.

Sex Abuse Cases – Marci Hamilton, Capturing the Friedmans – The Victims speak out

Sex abuse cases: ‘I have a personal stake in this’ (Video)
Mar 28, 2013  Jeff Blumenthal     Reporter- Philadelphia Business Journal

Last week, I interviewed Marci Hamilton, a lawyer representing victims in the Sandusky and Philadelphia Archdiocese child abuse scandals, as part of our Inside the Reporters Notebook series….

Hamilton’s pointed response explained what she says is a personal reason for her involvement. She is a professor at Cardozo School of Law and not a litigator by trade. But she said she was incensed on February 10, 2011, when a Philadelphia Grand Jury released a report following an investigation into allegations that two priests and a teacher sexually abused a 10-year-old boy at St. Jerome Parish in Philadelphia, and that another priest assigned to St. Jerome sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy.

It was that report, Hamilton said, that caused her to contact her co-counsel Jeff Anderson, and say she wanted to participate in the litigation.

“I have a personal stake in this,” Hamilton said. “My children are Catholic. My daughter was baptized by a pedophile priest. I have family pictures with a pedophile at one of the most important ceremonies of a child’s life. So I am in it, yes, in Philadelphia. Because its the only way to make this Archdiocese to do the right thing.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/blog/jeff-blumenthal/2013/03/sex-abuse-cases-i-have-a-personal.html

Capturing the Friedmans
At a time when child sexual abuse has been identified as a major public health crisis, the new film “Capturing the Friedmans” takes a skeptical attitude regarding believing children. The 1989, Arnold Friedman and his son Jesse plead guilty to multiple charges of sodomy and sexual abuse against young boys who took computer classes taught in the basement of their home. Jesse now claims he was wrongly convicted.

Our research into the case shows that the director of the film sacrificed truth in favor of creating artistic ambiguity. Clear evidence is omitted and facts are distorted. In addition, the film  relies on  popular but erroneous myths about child sexual abuse. As a result, uncertainty is created about the guilt of two confessed pedophiles — who are recast as victims — while the real  victims — the boys and their families — are portrayed as  untrustworthy.

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/1.html

In Their Own Words:  Jesse’s Victims Speak Out
….The Film “Capturing the Friedmans” about a case of child molestation in Great Neck, Long Island has been nominated for an Academy Award.  We are two of the victims of Arnold and Jesse Friedman writing to you, asking you to hear out side of the story, writing on behalf of the other victims and ourselves. We were abused, tortured, and humiliated by Arnold and Jesse Friedman in computer classes in Arnold’s basement.  Many of us have physical scars from what was done to us; all of us have psychological scars. Although it has been 16 years, we live with the knowledge of these crimes every day of our lives. Some of us have had bad dreams, some of us slept with baseball bats under our bed for years for fear of reprisals.  Many years ago, we thought we could not tell what was happening to us because we felt too guilty and embarrassed and were constantly threatened. Our parents thought Arnold was calling our houses so often because he was such a concerned teacher. His calls were to make sure we were not telling and to repeat the constant threats.

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/vict.html

Victims Say Film on Molesters Distorts Facts

Victims Say Film on Molesters Distorts Facts
By SHARON WAXMAN February 24, 2004

for more information on this case:

http://capturingthefriedmans.wordpress.com/

”Capturing the Friedmans,” the Oscar-nominated documentary that raises questions about the guilt of a father and son convicted of child molestation, is being criticized by six of their former victims, who say the film omitted or distorted important information about their cases.

The six are suggesting that the director, Andrew Jarecki, created more ambiguity than actually existed about the case both to heighten the dramatic impact of the film and to elicit sympathy for the Friedmans. The film tells the story of the disintegration of a seemingly average Long Island family after the father, Arnold Friedman, and son, Jesse, were accused of molesting children in computer classes they held in the basement of their Great Neck home in the 1980′s….

The mother said that Mr. Jarecki’s film omitted a third co-defendant, Ross Goldstein, a teenage neighbor who also pleaded guilty to charges of child molestation and who corroborated some of the children’s accusations at the time and went to prison. She also said that Mr. Jarecki omitted a tearful confession by Jesse Friedman in prison on Geraldo Rivera’s talk show in 1989. Mr. Friedman detailed how his father had molested him as a child. In interviews Jesse Friedman has retracted his confessions, saying he pleaded guilty because he feared he could not get a fair trial and would get the maximum penalty….

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. He said he considered the Rivera interview unnecessary, since the film showed Jesse Friedman’s confession in court….

Two former victims, including the son of the woman who spoke to The Times, wrote an open but anonymous letter last week to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which will give out the Oscars on Sunday. They said that the film portrayed the victims as if they had invented their stories to satisfy an overzealous Nassau County police force.

They wrote: ”We did not lie. We did not exaggerate. We were never hypnotized to tell our stories.” They said the director had twisted the facts in the film to make it appear that they had….

Mr. Jarecki denies that he has become an advocate for Jesse Friedman. Still, Mr. Jarecki has submitted an affidavit on his behalf to the court.

”One of the hallmarks of a balanced film on a controversial subject is that advocates on both sides will never be satisfied that the film supports their agendas,” he wrote by e-mail. ‘

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/movies/victims-say-film-on-molesters-distorts-facts.html

The Recovered Memory Project, Critiquing “Capturing the Friedmans”

The new format of the Recovered Memory Project. This project began as an archive of corroborated cases of recovered memories of traumatic events. It grew from two dozen cases to over 100, and 5 new cases have just been added, for a total of 106 cases. The archive of corroborated cases of recovered memories is now located at the tab labeled “Case Archive.”
The project has expanded over time to include scholarly resources—abstracts and citations of scientific articles in support of the phenomenon of recovered memory (see the tab labeled “Scholarly Resources”). Thirty-one new resources have been added, including articles from the past three years. The section has been reorganized by topic and now includes sections on memory disturbances in survivors of childhood abuse, survivors of the Holocaust, and war veterans; the neurobiology of memory disturbances….

http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/

Critiquing “Capturing the Friedmans” September 7, 2010
….a careful examination of court records reveals that Capturing the Friedmans leaves out important evidence of guilt and distorts many facts in the case. Most pertinent to this blog is the assertion that the case may have been built on hypnosis. There is no credible evidence for this claim. Indeed, in an October 2007 hearing, Friedman’s own lawyer described the single excerpt in the movie about hypnosis as “reliable evidence of nothing” (p. 12). It is fair to characterize the movie, he went on, as “containing interviews, cut and spliced, and taken out of context.” Those problems and other inaccuracies are addressed in the video critique below. One might wonder why someone who failed two lie detector tests, pleaded guilty, told the judge he was “sorry for [his] actions,” asked for “assistance with [his] problem,” and then reaffirmed his guilty plea from prison would ever be embraced as innocent.
Includes the video “What Was Left Out? A Critique of “Capturing the Friedmans.”

http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/2010/09/07/capturing-the-friedmans/

The Friedmans’ child abuse case bibliography – Capturing the Friedmans info

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/bib.html

Facts:
Jesse Friedman pled guilty and confessed on TV (Geraldo).

The movie “Capturing the Friedmans” left out the fact that there was a third defendant.

Ross Goldstein, the third defendant, confessed and agreed to testify against both
Friedmans.

The victims as adults have gone public with their being abused.

describes crimes of abuse

Capturing the Friedmans: Annotated Bibliography

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/bib.html

Many viewers leave the theater believing that they have seen an objective documentary presented by a director who entrusted audiences to draw their own conclusions on Arnold Friedman’s and Jesse Friedman’s guilt. A careful review of the original evidence, however, shows that the case against the Friedmans was much stronger than the film revealed.

Geraldo Rivera’s interview with Jesse Friedman “Busting the Kiddie Porn Underground”  February 23, 1989 — Geraldo!
Jesse’s attorney, Peter Panera, is interviewed. He tells how he and Jesse made a special trip to Wisconsin to visit Arnold Friedman in prison to convince him to reveal where he had hidden the photos and videos of the children. Arnold refused to reveal what he had done with them, despite the fact that it would have helped gain lenacy for his son….Frances Galasso, the detective-sergeant who was in charge of the Friedman case, describes Jesse’s lack of remorse for his victims and describes how he and his brother harassed some of the victims’ parents at court proceedings. She says that Jesse told the grandfather of one victim: “Well maybe we are suffering now, but with what we’ve done to your children, they’ll suffer for the rest of their lives.”
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/geraldo.html

Excerpts from interview – based on videotape recording of the show, recorded on February 23, 1989.
Geraldo: “How many kids, Jesse, did you and your father actually physically abuse in your home?”
Jesse:   (long sigh, appears to be mentally counting) “I guess 17.” ….

Geraldo: “What did you do to the children?”
Jesse:  “What did I do to the children? I fondled them. I was forced to pose in 100′s of photos for my father in all sorts of sexual positions with the kids and the kids likewise with myself….

The Secret Life of Arnold Friedman     By Alvin E. Bessent – Newsday  — LI., NY
May 28, 1989

http://web.archive.org/web/20060901203550/www.newsday.com/mynews/ny-friedman052889,0,1599081.story

Bessent also reports on the victims’ fear of the Friedmans:

“As the abuse escalated so did the threats. Police said the children were extensively videotaped and photographed. No pictures of the children have been recovered. But police said Arnold Friedman told the children he would send pornographic pictures of them to magazines and tell the publishers to print their names if they told what was going on. He threatened to burn their houses down. He reportedly said he would kill their parents. . . . Some of the children who testified before the grand juries received threatening telephone calls warning them not to cooperate with police.”
“Some of them still wet their beds, take baseball bats to bed with them or are unable to sleep.”

State of New York v. Arnold Friedman.
Motion for order requiring return of property seized from 17 Picadilly Road, Great Neck, Nassau County, New York, seized pursuant to search warrant of November 25, 1987.  Motion #C-427, Indictment #67104 & 67430.
September 14, 1990.
Judge Abbey L. Boklan approved Arnold Friedmans’ request for the return of all property seized at the Friedman home with the exception of pornographic materials listed in this document.  Materials include such items as:  5 pornographic movies, assorted order forms for pornography, assorted pornographic magazine cutouts, 2 partially nude photos of children, 3 sheets advertising homosexuality with boys, 6 photos of naked people, 3 battery operated sex aids, 1 hypodermic needle, 9 pornographic computer games (with descriptions), list of names and phone numbers of 9 victims, 2 registration sheets with names of victims

The People of the State of New York , Respondent, v. Ross G., Appellant
163 A.D.2d 529; 558 N.Y.S.2d 603; 1990 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8786
June 28, 1990 The Supreme Court of New York responds affirmatively to an appeal by Ross Goldstein who asks the state to reduce his sentence to the terms recommended and agreed to by the prosecution. Although he was not mentioned in the film, Mr. Goldstein was a third defendant who was arrested along with Arnold and Jesse Friedman. According to this document, Goldstein, a former friend of Jesse’s who was between 15 and 16 years old when he committed the crimes. He later became repulsed by the abuse, and six months before the Friedmans were arrested, Goldstein disassociated himself from Jesse Friedman and his activities. Goldstein, now age 19, confessed to the crimes and agreed to testify against both Arnold and Jesse Friedman in exchange for leniency.

Victims break their silence  Victor Manuel Ramos — Newsday  — LI., NY     February 29, 2004 Newsday  staff reporter Victor Manuel Ramos interviews several of the victims who Arnold and Jesse Friedman plead guilty to abusing.

“For Gregory, the hullabaloo over Jarecki’s film — and whether the director will pick up an Oscar tonight — is a sideshow to the legacy of the abuse. Even now, Gregory said he sometimes wakes up at night shaking, especially after hearing of other child abuse cases on the news or elsewhere. What would be passing news to others, hits home for him.
Diagnosed in his preteen years, Gregory said he has persistent rectal bleeding from the abuse. Memories aside, the physical scar will never let him forget. `This is the constant reminder I live with every day,’ Gregory said, `that I was abused.’”

Case of Arnold Friedman and Jessie Friedman “Capturing The Friedmans”

http://web.archive.org/web/20070918045108/www.theawarenesscenter.org/arnoldandjessefriedman.html

http://capturingthefriedmans.wordpress.com/

Our research into the case shows that the director of the film sacrificed truth in favor of creating artistic ambiguity. Clear evidence is omitted and facts are distorted. In addition, the film relies on popular but erroneous myths about child sexual abuse. As a result, uncertainty is created about the guilt of two confessed pedophiles — who are recast as victims — while the real victims — the boys and their families — are portrayed as untrustworthy.

CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS”  Documentary or Whitewash?

http://capturingthefriedmans.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/capturing-the-friedmans-documentary-or-whitewash/