To explore the details of the case, Jarecki intersperses home video footage shot by Arnolds eldest son David during the time with interviews of Arnolds alleged victims. At the sentencing, Jesse revealed through his attorney, Peter Panaro, that he had been abused by his father. There was no hugging or touching in her family, she said. An Oscar-nominated documentary blends truth and art - angering some of the real-life participants. Truth and justice were never a part of this case.' Twenty children testified before grand juries that ultimately returned three indictments in the case. One guy was in for 274 years with no recourse to appeal. ", By Robin Topping and Denise M. Bonilla, Staff Writers. Arnold pled to 8 counts of sodomy, 28 counts of first-degree sexual abuse, and also admitted to ramming a child's head into a wall in front of other children. And on and on . "It's the scarlet letter of the '80s," says O'Malley. However, he had already been sentenced. Jesse Friedman was released from New York's Clinton Correctional Facility in 2001 after serving 13 years of his sentence. It was a film about a family. I guess you could be a nice, sweet kid and be a child abuser, but it really made no sense. The producer of a prize-winning short film, Jarecki counted film director Melvin Van Peebles among his mentors. In 1938, when Elli was seven years old, her town was taken over by Hungary. "And when I started to tell them things, I was telling myself it was not true. "It analyzes everyone's approach. They are now 24 and 27. Two are included in the film, one on camera and another on audiotape. I stalled for a long time before seeing "Capturing the Friedmans." ", The charges stem from alleged abuses during the past eight years of 7to 11-year-old boys attending weekly computer classes at the Friedman home at 17 Picadilly Rd. Court psychiatric testimony described Jesse's joy when his father turned from Jesse to children in the class. Fran Galasso, head of the sex crimes squad. Wallene Jones, who was talking to a member of the team making the documentary in 2001, recalled that she and her partner, William Hatch, visited one student on 15 separate occasions before the child finally said he was sexually abused, according to the motion papers. He didn't just plead guilty either. dick rammed up your ass for like 10 minutes. Files were established for each child. The conviction overturned, vacated and the charges dismissed would be very nice. I saw no evidence of coaching when I was reporting the Friedman case, but it was hard to shake that nagging doubt. By virtue of his own admissions in court, Arnold Friedman is a pedophile. The children had been coached, led by well-meaning social workers to say what police and prosecutors wanted to hear. Friedman is being represented by attorney Mark Gimpel, and on a pro-bono basis by Earl Nemser of Swidler Berlin in New York City. Among other statements, he has "affidavits from three people who were in the computer classes, who remember speaking to the police, and remember telling the police nothing happened." All calls will be kept confidential, they said. He unleashes the power of the moving pictures the Friedmans created, to capture paedophilia as it rears its ugly head from underneath the thin veneer of suburban family life. Arnold Friedman, who pleaded guilty March 25 to 42 sex-related charges involving the 13 boys, stood meekly with his hands cuffed behind his back as Nassau County Judge Abbey Boklan sentenced him to the 10to 30-year jail term to which Friedman had agreed when he entered his plea. The documentary examines the case of a father and son accused of molesting computer students in their Long Island home in the 1980s. 1. They often appear confused. "And that he was doomed to spend 13 years in prison from the moment his father confessed. Jesse is in the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. Elijah Wood, Sean Astin and Liv Tyler accepted the Best Picture Award for "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," the final installment in the trilogy. Mr. Jarecki dismisses the idea that his film confirms the cliche of clowns hurting inside, behind the makeup. No one in this movie can agree on anything, but you feel that no one is just phoning it in.". Learning that Arnold Friedman had been teaching private piano and computer lessons to adolescent students in his home for several years, Great Neck police were emboldened to suspect that sexual abuse had run rampant. The documentary also brings to light the use of hypnosis and group therapy techniques and how those practices could have created false memories in children. According to Gary, the brothers' parents are separated or divorced. Fagin also said that some victims may want to bathe continually. Both federal and state prosecutors said as a rule they always prefer to avoid taking child molesters to trial. Both Arnold and Jesse would admit molesting 13 boys. Goldstein, a former schoolmate of Jesse Friedman, was being held yesterday in lieu of $100,000 bail set by District Court Judge Murray Pudalev. Elaine Friedman - Independent Consultant: Writer, Reporter, Editor I still would have this nightmare in my head. He wears or carries a monitoring device. "I enjoyed friends and women more than smoking pot," he said. In a recent interview with Newsday's Vctor Manuel Ramos, the filmmaker Jarecki said he did not mention Goldstein in the film because Goldstein asked not to be mentioned. Later, his father began to visit his bedroom at night and fondle him. then go fuck yourself because you're full of shit.". Reprise of a late '80s Great Neck child sex-abuse case is deeply troubling, thrillingly cinematic, aptly enigmatic. But Silberg and Boklan say the victims didn't undergo hypnosis until after they told their stories to police. But only one of the twelve victims who have been cooperating with the investigation made a positive identification. which survived to allow Andrew Jarecki to attempt to understand this He never railed about being wrongly prosecuted. Sgt. "I can't even remember what I said [on Geraldo]," said Jesse, who consented to a conference call interview for this story with his brother David on the line. Fortune continues to smile on his endeavors in a sobering kind of way. As a reward for keeping quiet, children were allowed to take computer discs home to copy. On November 25, 1987, Friedman, a computer teacher, was charged with multiple state offenses alleging that he had sodomized and sexually assaulted a number of his male students between the ages of eight and twelve. And Arnold only touched boys when. We did not exaggerate. ", The children whose parents deny what has happened and force them to suppress it often suffer the most, Kaplan said. Though it does imply an injustice has been done - that father Arnold Friedman, who died in prison in 1995, had previous sexual contact with minors but not his students, and that Jesse was probably innocent - it carefully balances opposing views. There are Several Versions of the Story in 'Capturing the Friedmans Speiser said he teased Friedman for being obsessed with technology. And the lawyers lay out a cozy web of personal relationships among various Nassau officials who are still connected to the case. But my father was a pedophile, he bought child pornography. Meanwhile, Arnold, Jesse, and Ross Goldstein, 18, a friend of Jesse's, would be indicted in Nassau County on a total of 464 counts of sodomy, sexual abuse, using a child in a sexual performance and endangering the welfare of a child. "Arnold Friedman started a family with the best of intentions. However, while the film self-consciously proclaims itself a balanced documentary, on close examination it implicitly takes an advocacy position that undermines our legal system's response to child abuse. One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before their eighteenthbirthday; fewer than one in ten will tell. Andrew Jarecki, the director of Capturing the Friedmans, has been criticized for not making a film more strongly advocating Jesse's position. In addition to a primer on the cases against Arnold and Jesse Friedman, answers to questions often asked about the film and additional scenes that didn't make it into the 107-minute documentary, Jarecki and Smerling included comments some quite critical from people who attended the film's premieres at New York theaters. Elli also often played with many friends who were not Jewish. In 1988, Jesse didn't know that some materials were never turned over to the defense. The best any of us can do, he says, is to "stand in the place where your personal convictions are, acknowledge that place, and try to give a truthful interpretation of the reality you see from there. It has reluctantly brought them out of their silence. However, since there is no question that justice has been served, this film causes new harm to the victims and further muddies the public perception of the realities of child abuse. Galasso denied hypnosis was used and said detectives did not coerce statements from the victims. 2d 697 (1987). ", Jesse Friedman was interviewed in March in a prison visiting room. Was the abuse as reckless and open and repetitive as they said? I can't deny that. So what are the odds that Arnold Friedman had hundreds of boys of just the age he liked in his home for computer classes on Saturday afternoons for six years and never once indulged his predilections? No mention is made in the film of the pre-sentencing psychiatric report in which Jesse told a psychiatrist that he was relieved when his father began molesting the children in his computer classes because it finally deflected his father's sexual attentions from him. "At a certain point, the community said, 17 Piccadilly Road [the Friedman home] -- that's the DNA address of a bad cell. But when Jarecki lured David to an interview on the front steps of his childhood home in Great Neck, N.Y. on Long Island, "he became a little wobbly and emotional" and mentioned, in passing, his mother's suicide attempt. What he uncovered instead was a family scandal: In 1987, David's father, Arnold, a respected Great Neck schoolteacher, was arrested for possessing child pornography; along with his 18-year-old son Jesse, he was also charged with having sex with minors. "I didn't set out to make an advocacy film for the Friedmans, and I didn't make one. It "taught me that life was . Nassau District Attorney Denis Dillon said through a spokesman that his office would respond to all of the motion's allegations -- including the alleged use of hypnosis -- in court. Every time we thought he was obfuscating or manipulating us in some way, it turned out that he wasn't. In the film, Jarecki focuses on the idea that several of the accusers had been hypnotized or had participated in group therapy, a practice he criticizes as unreliable. He said he remains plagued by a persistent physical injury that has never healed. His brother David comes off as a man so gripped by anger and disappointment that he starts to believe his own claims, even when they can't possibly be true. You know we knew this was a film about the family. "I have a great photo book from Holland that might be copyable. Four other victims who have retained a lawyer to fight Jesse Friedman's motion to vacate his guilty plea also criticized the film. Worthless stuff? His face darkened while he reclines on a sofa, he then proceeds to make claims so outlandish in their scope as to be utterly unbelievable. "Especially in sex cases, you always ask for inconsistent statements in the discovery phase since we have learned that these techniques can be faulty in and of themselves and, also, when abused, can produce false results," Barbuto said. By law, he has to register every 90 days as a "violent sexual predator" under Megan's Law and must do so for the remainder of his life. His calls were to make sure we were not telling and to repeat the constant threats. Morris admits he walked a fine ethical line in researching the story. The anti-Friedman constituency cites his plea as conclusive evidence that the crimes occurred. He would stay alone for hours in one of the two cluttered offices he maintained in the Great Neck house and then spend the remainder of the night slumped in front of the television set. At the time it was the longest, costliest criminal proceeding in U.S. history, eating up seven years of court time. Another mother had lunch with a friend whose son had also been a computer student. ", At the same time, Jarecki acknowledges, "Elaine felt that the entire foundation of her relationship was built on shifting sand, that it had been that way for a long time, and the net result of it was going to be the utter destruction of her life. Reclining on a couch with his legs spread and his face hidden by shadows, the unnamed young man makes allegations that are even more bizarre and outlandish than those made in the movie. It was the breakthrough the postal inspectors had been waiting for. "The more people who see it, the more people will know I'm not a child molester," he says. That Jarecki, the founder of Moviefone, would be in such a position seemed improbable just a few years ago. The 13 years I was in prison, everybody knew who I was. 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. 19-year-old Jesse, the youngest of the three Friedman sons was also among the accused. Here's Why 'Capturing The Friedmans' Is One Of The Most Upsetting Documentaries Ever Made. Jarecki also figured birthday clowns "would be a good light subject." Arnold's brother and David hit their heads, saying maybe someday they'll remember something, but they don't, now. Ultimately, Arnold pleads guilty to the charges against him in the hope of saving his son, but in vain. But his emotional problems continued. For example, Arnold Friedman is shown to collect child pornography, and the film tells of his admission that he was a pedophile. We'll find out what Academy members think of this minimalist approach to documentary production when the Oscars are announced today. Elaine, Arnold's wife, never enjoyed these games. He refused to accept later calls from home, and for the next few weeks tried to forget developments in Great Neck. The academy acknowledged receiving an unsigned letter purported to have been written by two men molested as children by Arnold Friedman and his son Jesse during computer classes in the basement of their Great Neck, N.Y., home in the 1980s. I would like it to be as involving and revealing as this experience. A small room to the right of a short corridor had been converted into a classroom. Jesse confessed to his lawyer prior to his plea that he had abused boys and disclosed that his father, Arnold, had abused him. And exonerating a man is not a bad one, if your man is innocent. Sometime around the mid-1980s, U.S. customs officials intercepted a child pornography publication from overseas addressed to Arnold Friedman in Great Neck. Screening at 2pm, panel discussion at 4pm. At one point, the prosecution had gathered more than 400 charges against him. Both defendants were exonerated, but not before their family business was ruined, their reputations trashed and the son had spent five years in jail, unable to make bail. He is buried on Long Island, and his epitaph reads: "Loving father, devoted teacher, pianist, physicist, beach bum.". However, he had already been sentenced. And at the Great Neck screening, there were heated exchanges as well. . . Is it the oldest son, because of primogeniture, and because he is the most outspoken?". In his bid for lenience, defense attorney Peter Panaro said Arnold Friedman began entering his son's bedroom when Jesse was 9 years old, fondling him while reading bedtime stories. " But she said there was never any indication that her father-in-law molested his son. Jesse started seeing a psychiatrist at the age of 10; he was diagnosed manic depressive. Moreover, according to Silberg, the danger to children from this film is not just theoretical, but very real, because the film has been used to raise money to promote the release of convicted sex offenders from prisons around the country. "I know that the things my father and I were charged with didn't happen," he says. ''Big Brother'' is always being filmed. Or propaganda for a pedophile? Postal Service over the past few years, federal agents have become major traffickers in kiddie porn, posing as sleaze merchants in order to break up a vile underground business. There weren't signs of struggle, either. Two Borderline suspects killed themselves last year: a 25-year-old Ohio student shot himself after he was indicted, and a Wisconsin lawyer left a note saying he had been "cursed with a demon for a sexual preference. What else do we know about the Friedmans? Another transcript recorded by one of the children's mother shows detectives telling a boy he'll become a homosexual if he doesn't admit to being abused. Under New York law, where Brady material is withheld from the defense, reversal of a conviction is required if there is a reasonable possibility that the prosecution's failure to disclose exculpatory information contributed to the defendant's conviction. It doesn't make any sense. Elaine Friedman, 71, Dies In Boca Car Crash - BocaNewsNow.com Because of the guilty pleas, there was never any trial. He said, "I fondled [the children]I was forced to, to pose in hundreds of photos for my father in all sorts of sexual positions with the kids" He now claims that his story and his tears were "fictionalized to win leniency". "These children have been brutalized.". In Count One, he is charged with having received a single [**2] pornographic magazine in 1984, and in Counts Two and Three, he is charged with having mailed, and subsequently having had returned to him, another pornographic magazine depicting homosexual acts between an adult and child, all violations of 18 U.S.C. Last week, in response to the nomination of "Capturing the Friedmans" for best documentary, two of Jesse Friedman's victims issued an open letter to the Academy, which stated, in part "If this film does win an Oscar, it will be won at the expense of silencing the plaintive voices of abused children once again, just as our own voices were silenced 16 years ago by the threats and intimidation of our tormentors, Arnold and Jesse Friedman.". From the day I was arrested, I ceased to be anonymous. Join Facebook to connect with Elaine Friedman and others you may know. and he'd say, 'A long time ago,' or he'd say, 'My dad was a great guy. 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. Each new bit of information changes the perception of the audience, as it did for us. It's hard to imagine minds not being changed by "Capturing the Friedmans" simply because you can't watch the film without entertaining the notion of changing your mind. He said he believed at the time there was no way he could win the case. Officers often seem to file as many charges as conceivable, leaving it to the courts to sort out which ones stick. As for medical evidence, the police alleged the Friedmans had "slammed" children's heads into walls and committed other non-sexual violent acts that would have produced physical trauma even if sexual abuse did not.]. "I would walk in and he'd be doing something technical. The most upsetting scenes in Capturing the Friedmans are impossible to look away from. Authorities said he and Arnold Friedman molested dozens of children during computer classes in their home. On the day of Arnold Friedman's retirement party, postal inspectors in New York City were in the middle of an investigation that would shatter the teacher's reputation, tear apart his family and horrify his suburban community. Sitting in a restaurant booth near his home, he described what he endured during those computer classes. "Do you know of any sources? She asked Joyce Brabner, the real-life inspiration for her role, to go away. And can he get a fair hearing now? She was a kind, funny . In one instance, Det. Eventually, he told detectives and his parents that he was photographed urinating and was subjected to sexual abuse. ", To jog the man out of his set routines, Jarecki decided to film David in his boyhood town of Great Neck. Jesse Friedman of Harlem cited evidence unearthed by the maker of the award-winning documentary film "Capturing the Friedmans," which raised questions about the quality of evidence against Friedman and his father, Arnold. The award for best doc went to "Fog of War" while the prize for foreign-language film went to "Man on the Train.". "We don't want to put these children on the stand if we can avoid it," said Andrew Maloney, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The three films nominated for Academy Awards this year that revolve around child sexual abuse are: "Capturing the Friedmans", "Mystic River" and "Monster". Jarecki and Hankin create a lucid context for the family meltdown: the home-recorded scenes spell out the dynamics of a domestic disaster with stronger-than-fiction veracity. Inspectors referred the case to the Nassau Police Department when they realized that Arnold Friedman taught mostly school age and preadolescent boys how to use computers from a makeshift lab in his basement. Jesse Friedman, who now claims to be innocent, spoke at this event and director Jarecki was there to film it. once-affluent Long Island family's strange story. Or I might try to write something that doesn't need to be filmed. And we both looked at each other and were both equally kind of dumbfounded. 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. Why didn't they come forward when they were raped? I covered the Friedman case for Newsday. Physical evidence is typically rare in such cases. "We're all for freedom of speech," Weiser emphasized, "but when a project receives the industry's highest recognition, that gives it credibility.". "There has never been any dispute about the fact that these statements were made," he said. "It hit me like a bolt from the blue," she says. They saw nothing to be suspicious about. Jarecki fails to mention that the Friedmans pled guilty so none was sought. He cut a deal, but in order to garner sympathy and perhaps secure an earlier release, he had to come off as the victim.
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