3 Ex-McMartin Defendants File Suit for Millions

Claiming that their lives have been ruined by wrongful prosecution, three former defendants in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case filed multimillion-dollar lawsuits Thursday against Los Angeles County, the City of Manhattan Beach, a child abuse diagnostic center and a television reporter, among others.

School founder Virginia McMartin, 78, and her granddaughter, Peggy Ann Buckey, 30, are seeking at least $10 million each, according to civil documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. Former defendant Betty Raidor, 66, and her husband, Milan, filed a similar suit, and two other former defendants, Mary Ann Jackson, 58, and Babette Spitler, 38, are expected to follow in the next few days, their attorneys said.

“The prosecutor unfortunately lacked objectivity toward my clients at a critical time,” said James H. Davis, who represents McMartin and Buckey. “The project was (wrongly) assigned to the Children’s Institute International (a child abuse diagnostic and treatment center that evaluated the children) . . . and the result was a ‘rush to judgment’ in which these people were tried and convicted in the media. . . . It was tragic.”

The five had been indicted and charged in the spring of 1984 with sexually abusing dozens of youngsters enrolled in the Manhattan Beach nursery school run by the McMartin family, but two years later, after a lengthy preliminary hearing, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner characterized the evidence against them as “incredibly weak” and dropped all charges against them.

Two other defendants, Raymond Buckey, 28, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 59, still face 101 counts of molestation and conspiracy, and are expected to go to trial this fall.

Defendants Named

Named in Thursday’s suits are Los Angeles County and the City of Manhattan Beach, which had earlier rejected damage claims, along with Children’s Institute International of Los Angeles and a therapist there, Kathleen (Kee) MacFarlane; physicians Astrid Heger and Bruce Woodling, who examined the children; former Dist. Atty. Robert H. Philibosian; and the ABC television network, its local affiliate KABC, and KABC reporter Wayne Satz. Sheriff Sherman Block, the State of California, the state Department of Social Services and former Manhattan Beach Police Chief Harry Kuhlmeyer are also named in Raidor’s suit.

The suits contend that Manhattan Beach and Los Angeles County officials launched a child abuse investigation “without a reasonable factual basis” and did not follow appropriate procedures; that the development of evidence was improperly left to a private child abuse center, and that KABC-TV demonstrated “outrageous conduct” by manipulating and distorting the news.

Damages Alleged

As a result, the suits argue, the women suffered “loss of employment and earnings; humiliation and severe emotional distress in that (they) endured embarrassment, public obloquy, unemployment, financial destitution, strained familial and social relationships, loss of self-esteem and permanent impairment of earning capability. . . .”

Attorney Davis said he will ask for a speedy, consolidated trial in light of Virginia McMartin’s advanced age, though it will probably not begin until early next year.