Community Is Divided Over McMartin Decision

Mark Cutsforth, sitting at an outside table at the Criterion Restaurant in Manhattan Beach Saturday, said he cannot believe that charges against five of the seven defendants in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case have been dropped.

“(Dist. Atty.) Ira Reiner is putting his win-loss ratio ahead of seeking justice,” said the 31-year-old computer programmer. “In this case, I think it should have gone to trial because the judge said it should go to trial.”

But Virginia Roberts, who grew up in Manhattan Beach and manages a small apartment building overlooking the city’s main pier, had a different opinion.

“I think the whole thing is a witch hunt,” said Roberts, a grandmother of five. “Reiner’s decision surprised me, but it pleased me. I feel it could be devastating for him politically, but it was a brave move.”

The streets of Manhattan Beach, an affluent community that attracted national attention with the McMartin case, were crowded Saturday with people enjoying summer-like weather. Nearly everyone who was asked was willing to offer an opinion on the latest development in the case.

Reiner said Friday that his office would not prosecute McMartin founder Virginia McMartin, her granddaughter, Peggy Ann Buckey, and three of the school’s former teachers because of insufficient evidence. Reiner said Raymond Buckey, 27, the key defendant in the case, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 59, will stand trial. Raymond Buckey faces 79 molestation counts, while his mother is accused of 20 counts. Both also face one count of conspiracy.

Cutsforth said that Reiner should have prosecuted all seven defendants, citing an earlier decision by Los Angeles Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb that all of the defendants should stand trial. Some of the others interviewed Saturday agreed with Cutsforth.

Peggy Redman, who recently moved to Manhattan Beach from LaVerne, said she was convinced that sexual molestation of children had occurred at the school.

“I was a schoolteacher for 14 years and I think it would have been very hard for something to have gone on at the school with the others not having known about it,” Redman said as she sat with her husband outside a coin laundry on Manhattan Avenue.

Her husband, Don, expressed dismay over the length of the defendants’ 18-month preliminary hearing--the longest in state history--and its cost. “They spent, what, $3 million for a preliminary hearing? (Prosecutors say the case has cost $4 million so far.) That’s just absurd, just absurd.”

Mike Bilke, a resident of Manhattan Beach for six years, said he has wondered whether the case had not been “blown out of proportion.”

“There were no pictures, no real evidence, and in a case like that, there should be something,” Bilke said as he washed his red Ferrari before a tennis date.

Ted Turner, a 64-year-old Westchester resident who had driven his wife to Manhattan Beach for a beauty shop appointment, said he is not sure what to make of Reiner’s decision or, for that matter, the entire McMartin case.

“It appears something happened (at the school),” Turner said. “I feel something happened, but maybe not to the extent some say it did.”

Danny Cawthon, an eighth grader at Manhattan Beach Intermediate School who was taking a break from skateboarding, said he had heard about the district attorney’s decision Friday. A good friend of his has a brother who attended the McMartin Pre-School, he said.

“It was sort of a bad thing,” the 14-year-old said when asked about the decision. “If the kids find out about it, they’ll be scared.”

Few Will Really Know

A few miles away at Mrs. Gooch’s, a health food store, manager Vince McCann said that while he could not comment for the store’s owners, he personally felt no one except the defendants themselves and God will know if they should have stood trial.

“I think this case has shown us very clearly that we don’t have a clue” how to handle child molestation cases, McCann said.

Meanwhile, Virginia Roberts said that she is “sick of the case” and will be glad when it is over. While there was a lot of talk initially about the case among her neighbors, she said, there does not seem to be as much anymore.

“I’ve gotten more comments from friends who live out of state who ask ‘What’s going on in your city,’ ” Roberts said. “We get more talk here about the deteriorating pier.”