McMartin Witness Admits to Perjury

A jail house informant who recently provided key testimony against defendant Raymond Buckey told jurors in the McMartin Pre-School child molestation case Tuesday that he has repeatedly perjured himself in the past.

The informant, George Freeman, also acknowledged that it would be difficult for the McMartin jurors to believe him.

Freeman, 45, who briefly shared a cell with Buckey in March, 1984, made his concessions in a blistering session of cross-examination upon his return to court after his arrest Friday.

Freeman, who has a record of five felony convictions, had disappeared last week after Superior Judge William R. Pounders granted him immunity from prosecution for his previous lies under oath so that he could no longer take the Fifth Amendment when being questioned about them.

Currently in custody as a material witness in lieu of $1-million bail, the unshaven Freeman provided details Tuesday about having perjured himself in a 1980 trial stemming from riots at Soledad State Prison, a 1984 Los Angeles murder trial and again at the McMartin preliminary hearing.

He committed perjury, he said, to protect his family and himself from retribution from prison inmates.

Freeman was subsequently asked by Daniel Davis, Raymond Buckey’s attorney, how anyone, based on his record, could determine when he was lying in court.

“Only God would know, right?” Freeman responded.

As the cross-examination continued, Freeman finally appeared to concede that he has no credibility.

“In your own words,” asked Davis, “you’ve told a number of people, haven’t you, (that you) have no credibility, haven’t you said that to people?”

“That’s what you told me, yes,” replied Freeman.

“But didn’t you also say yourself to various people that you have no credibility?” Davis continued.

“I was just repeating what you said,” Freeman retorted.

“You don’t have any credibility in your opinion do you?” Davis finally asked.

“No, I don’t,” Freeman replied.

Freeman is the only adult witness who has testified to having knowledge of Buckey’s alleged child molestations.

In recent testimony, he said that Buckey, 29, had confessed while they were cell mates to having sodomized a 2-year-old, having had sex with his sister and having buried photographs in South Dakota that document sexual acts at the now-closed McMartin Pre-School.

Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 60, are charged with 99 counts of child molestation and one count of conspiracy involving 14 children who attended the Manhattan Beach nursery school.

After Freeman’s testimony, which is due to continue today, Davis said that the witness’s statements speak for themselves.

“He said it, didn’t he?” Davis asked. “He’s a robber, he’s a liar, he’s a perjurer and he has no credibility.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lael Rubin, who had questioned Freeman in front of the jury last month before informing Pounders that he may have committed perjury in earlier cases, said she still believes that Freeman has testified truthfully in the McMartin case.

“If he was not a credible witness, we wouldn’t put him on the stand,” the prosecutor asserted. Jurors “have to look at the whole package, they have to look at the whole picture.”

While on the stand Tuesday, Freeman, who remains a suspect in a 1979 murder case, explained to the jury that he did not show up in court last Wednesday because he was ill. He did not show up the following day, he added, after receiving a phone call from a man, identifying himself as a lawyer, who allegedly threatened him.

“He (the caller) said I shouldn’t come to court because there was the possibility I may wind up dead,” Freeman said.

Thursday morning, Freeman testified, his stepdaughter dropped him off outside a hospital and he went to a bar, where he had three beers before calling Rubin’s office to say he needed time to think before returning to court.

“She (Rubin) said I’d better be in here by 1:30 p.m. or I’d be in big trouble,” Freeman recalled.

Asked on the stand if he then attempted to get to the courthouse, Freeman replied, “No, I went back in and had a couple more drinks.”