Buckey Lawyer Cites Delays, Seeks Release

An attorney for Raymond Buckey asked a court to release the former preschool teacher from jail on grounds that Buckey’s constitutional rights have been violated by delays in the McMartin Pre-School child molestation case.

“The law has been violated so many times you’re going to have to rewrite the law to keep him in (jail),” Daniel Davis, attorney for the 26-year-old Buckey, said Friday.

Buckey and six other defendants are charged with a total of 208 counts of child molestation and conspiracy.

Davis said delays in the preliminary hearing, now under way to determine if the defendants should stand trial in Superior Court, deprived Buckey, who is being held without bail, of his right to an uninterrupted hearing.

The 36-page petition was filed in Superior Court and cited 50 unnecessary or unexplained delays in the preliminary hearing, Davis said.

Prosecutors, who said they were unaware of the petition, said Buckey should remain in jail.

“Unequivocally Raymond Buckey should not be released,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Lael Rubin, chief prosecutor in the case. “The length of time of the preliminary hearing is directly related to the tactics by the defense and to a judicial system that is ill-equipped to handle a case of this magnitude.”

Prosecutors charge that Buckey and six other defendants sexually abused more than 100 children over 10 years at the Manhattan Beach preschool.

During cross-examination Friday, defense attorney Forrest Latiner showed a 6-year-old girl pictures of herself as a pig-tailed preschooler in a McMartin Pre-School cheerleading uniform and asked “You had fun at the school, didn’t you?”

The witness, clutching a stuffed animal, wrinkled her nose, leaned toward the microphone and answered “Yes.”