145 More Counts Dropped in McMartin Abuse Case

The once-massive McMartin Pre-School molestation case shrank further Wednesday as a Los Angeles Municipal Court judge threw out 145 more charges against former teachers at the Manhattan Beach nursery school.

Citing prosecutors’ failure to produce any testimony on the counts, Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb dismissed 80 of 170 counts against key defendant Raymond Buckey, 27; 33 of 45 counts against Betty Raidor, 65; 15 of 22 counts against Babette Spitler, 37, and 16 of 20 counts against Mary Ann Jackson, 57. She also dismissed another count against Peggy McMartin Buckey, 58, leaving a total of 24 against her.

Bobb had dismissed a total of 64 counts against three defendants Tuesday, after the prosecution and defense both suddenly rested their cases in the 10th month of the convoluted preliminary hearing.

The judge took numerous other counts under submission, leaving only about 90 counts for which there is any supporting testimony intact. She will hear arguments about the sufficiency of evidence on those counts today or Friday. The courtroom was crowded and tightly secured as Bobb resumed the dismissals Wednesday. The public was searched, more than half the seats were cordoned off and investigators from the district attorney’s office occupied many of the rest. Spectators--who included many McMartin parents, and friends and spouses of the defendants--spilled over into an adjacent courtroom where the proceedings were viewed on television.

The usually dour defendants were smiling and chatty. Defense attorney Bill Powell hugged his client, Jackson, after the majority of counts against her were dismissed. And Raidor said she felt “relieved.”

Matriarch Virginia McMartin, 77, wearing a tiny mouse pin on her lapel, said she didn’t “know what it all means--maybe it’s more tricks by them (gesturing toward prosecutors) or the media.”

The school owner wanted to talk about her upcoming birthday and the Lakers, and recited a poem she said she had written while charges against her were being dropped:

The “breakthrough” has come with truth’s true story

Showing the triumph of justice in all of its glory

For God ever-present with all power and might

Mankind with justice, mercy and right.

McMartin and six teachers had been charged with 208 counts of molestation and conspiracy, following their indictment on 115 counts. A combined count of conspiracy naming all seven defendants and 141 molestation charges remain, but the numbers do not add up because some of the counts are said to be duplicates and others involve more than one defendant.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lael Rubin, the chief prosecutor, insisted that the government’s case is still strong, and noted that at least one count still remains against each defendant. She has said all along that the prosecution may file additional charges later, based on testimony presented at the hearing.

However, defense attorneys said they are confident they can chip away at many of the remaining charges.

Rubin said she still plans to appeal the judge’s Tuesday ruling that child witnesses will not be allowed to testify by closed-circuit television, but is awaiting court documents and transcripts. If her appeal succeeds, she will seek to reopen the preliminary hearing for testimony by five additional children.

The case--in which children who attended McMartin testified that teachers raped, sodomized, fondled, photographed, threatened them and forced them to participate in bizarre rituals and to watch animal sacrifices and mutilations--began disintegrating Tuesday.

The 13th youngster had just completed her testimony when Bobb ruled that televised testimony--sought by the prosecution for the 14th witness--is constitutional but not applicable to a hearing already in progress. McMartin parents and child abuse experts had lobbied for months for passage of the recently enacted state statute authorizing the procedure.

Prosecutors said they had no more witnesses who could take the stand without the closed-circuit television arrangement, in which the child, accompanied by a “support person,” would testify from a separate room, out of the presence of the defendants. But after the judge ruled against them, they said they had no choice but to rest their case without calling any of the 28 children they had said were waiting to testify.

Caught by Surprise

In fact, prosecutors revealed Tuesday, many of those children were no longer willing to testify either in person or via television.

The defense, caught by surprise, declined to present the “affirmative defense” they had said they intended, and also rested. And on a defense motion, Bobb began dismissing counts for which no testimony had been provided.

What remain in the preliminary hearing now are largely “housekeeping” matters--sorting out exhibits and remaining counts--as well as final arguments. Bobb declined to set a date by which she would decide which charges are supported by the evidence and whether any or all of the defendants must stand trial.