Tape Played to Test Boy’s Account of ‘Naked Games’

A defense attorney seeking to discredit the testimony of a 7-year-old boy against his former teachers at McMartin Pre-School played Monday parts of a videotape made last year during an interview with child psychologists.

Defendants in the case are accused of molesting dozens of children at the school.

In the tape, the boy said he had guessed at certain things, such as showing the sexual parts of a doll to indicate where the children allegedly were touched during “naked games” at the Manhattan Beach facility.

Attorney Dan Davis, representing defendant Raymond Buckey, stopped the tape and asked the boy if he had really just been taking “a wild guess” at where to point.

“Yes,” the boy said.

When Davis asked the boy if he really was touched by the teachers, however, he again replied, “Yes.”

The videotape also showed a therapist from Children’s Institute International questioning the boy about the games.

“They started out fun, then the kids got tricked?” the therapist asked the boy, who gave no reply.

Davis hoped to draw out inconsistencies in the boy’s testimony by showing the videotape of interviews he made at the institute.

Prosecutor Glenn Stevens objected to showing the tape in front of the boy, saying it could embarrass and confuse him.

But Municipal Court Judge Aviva Bobb ruled that three parts of the tape could be shown in court.

The child, the first testify in the preliminary hearing, also continued to contradict earlier testimony in his fifth day on the stand, saying he could not remember many incidents that allegedly occurred at the preschool.

During his first day as a witness last week, the boy described being molested at the preschool. Under cross-examination later in the week, he recanted much of his often graphic testimony.

That pattern continued Monday, when he told a defense attorney that he had seen some of the teachers naked. Last week, the child surprised prosecutors when he testified that the only adults he had ever seen naked were his parents.

The boy appeared bored and frequently answered, “I don’t remember” under the attorney’s sometimes repetitive questioning.

Charged with 208 counts of molestation in the case are owner Virginia McMartin, 77; her daughter, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 58; her grandchildren Peggy Ann Buckey, 28, and Raymond Buckey, 26; and three other former teachers, Betty Raidor, 65, Mary Ann Jackson, 57, and Babette Spitler, 36.

The boy told prosecutors last week that he and other students played “naked games” at the school. In one of those games, the boy said Ray Buckey “made us take our clothes off in the jail.”

Public, Media Barred

When Davis asked Monday if he had fun when he played in the jail, the boy answered, “Yes.”

The public and news media are barred from the courtroom but can watch the testimony from a nearby room via closed circuit TV. The preliminary hearing is expected to last several months.