McMartin Boy Says He Told Mother of ‘Games’

A 9-year-old boy insisted Wednesday that he had told his mother that he had been sexually touched by a teacher at the McMartin Pre-School and forced to play so-called naked games weeks before being interviewed by a therapist at Children’s Institute International, a counseling center for child-abuse victims.

The child’s testimony, first given during nearly two hours of direct examination and dissected several times in the cross-examination that followed, is considered significant because the defense contends that therapists programmed the young witnesses to imagine that they had been molested.

The third-grader, who attended McMartin four years ago, also testified about a game of “horsie,” played nude, about serving as a “lookout” atop a jungle gym watching for unexpected parents while his classmates were molested inside the school and about being taken to a house equipped with professional photography equipment for nude picture sessions.

Implicates Teachers

He implicated defendant Raymond Buckey, 26, in most of the activities, but said that defendants Betty Raidor, 65, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 58, and school founder Virginia McMartin, 77, watched some of the games.

He also said that Raidor and Buckey had stripped and “showed me their private parts.” Prosecutors said his testimony supported four counts of molestation against Buckey and the conspiracy count against all seven defendants.

The youngster appeared extremely nervous at first, clutching the arms of the witness chair, breathing fast, his eyes darting about the courtroom as Deputy Dist. Atty. Glenn Stevens began to question him and defense attorneys responded with what Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb termed “a barrage of redundant objections.”

And when the boy did begin to testify, the words came in a breathless tumble. Asked about one of the field trips, the boy said: “This man would put us in a closet. They’d take one kid out and take pictures of their private parts out in the big room. . . . I would go over to a chair and one man would tie us with our backs turned facing the wall and put a blindfold over our face. . . . The men would take pictures of my bottom.”

He said the photographers used a large camera that clicked in a studio-like setting with two big umbrellas and bright lights.

As the day progressed, his nervousness appeared to ease. He frequently broke into a grin when his eyes met those of his mother or Stevens, took off his shoes, spun full circle in the witness highchair and rolled his eyes when a by-then-predictable objection prevented him from answering a question.

Defense attorney Dean Gits, who represents Peggy McMartin Buckey, suggested to the child during cross-examination that he must have told his mother about the alleged activities after being taken to Children’s Institute and after seeing news accounts or being given information by adults. The child denied both suggestions. He said he was certain that “I told her before . . . some of the same things I said in court--like that Ray touched me in my private parts and that we played some naked games.”

When the boy’s mother testified several months ago, prosecutor Stevens attempted to ask her why she had taken her son to the center, but was cut off by defense objections that the question was “irrelevant.”

Had Mentioned Incidents

Defense attorney Daniel Davis told the court that the mother apparently did know something of the alleged activities before the child was taken to the institute, because she had referred to several of them during a preliminary telephone interview. Another defense attorney, Forrest Latiner, said a diary kept by the mother made no mention of the child’s disclosure.

The boy is the fourth alleged child victim to take the stand in the lengthy hearing, which is being held to determine whether there is enough evidence to warrant a trial for the seven defendants. Charged with 208 counts of molestation and conspiracy involving 41 children during a six-year period are Virginia McMartin; Peggy McMartin Buckey; Raymond Buckey; Peggy Ann Buckey, 28; Betty Raidor; Mary Ann Jackson, 57, and Babette Spitler, 36.