Not Aware of Suppression of Evidence, Stevens Says

A former prosecutor in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case testified Tuesday that he was unaware of anyone in the district attorney’s office ever intentionally withholding evidence from the defense.

Former Deputy Dist. Atty. Glenn Stevens testified under a grant of immunity at a pretrial hearing concerning defense allegations that prosecutors intentionally suppressed evidence about the mental instability of the late Judy Johnson, the mother of a child at the school whose claims triggered the case.

“Are you aware of anyone in the district attorney’s office who intentionally withheld any document from the defense attorneys for which there was no claim of privilege?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Harry Sondheim asked Stevens.

“No,” replied Stevens, who left the district attorney’s office in early 1986 to become a defense attorney.

Stevens also testified that he believed Peggy McMartin Buckey was innocent last fall when his voice was tape-recorded.

Stevens was questioned about a conversation he had with screenwriters Oct. 28, 1986, about 10 months after he left the district attorney’s office and almost a year after he was removed from the case.

“In my mind, at that time, she . . . I knew . . . was an innocent woman,” Stevens testified in the crowded courtroom as his parents looked on.

His testimony followed his assertion last week that the other remaining child molestation defendant, Ray Buckey, is not “legally guilty.”

Buckey, 28, and his 60-year-old mother are the only remaining defendants in the case. Charges against five other defendants were dropped last January when Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner announced that there was insufficient evidence to win a conviction.

Buckey, who faces 79 counts of child molestation, and his mother, who faces 20 counts, are accused of abusing the children at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach in 1983.

Their trial is set to begin after the evidence hearing, in which the Buckeys’ lawyers are trying to prove prosecutors intentionally withheld important evidence from the defense.