Trial Judge May Not Achieve Goal as McMartin Case Enters Fifth Year

“This evening concludes my first year on this case,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders mused one day last month during the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial.

“And I don’t intend to see another anniversary date,” he added. “I intend to conclude the case within the next year.”

But the complex case--which has entered its fifth year and has cost county taxpayers more than $8 million--is far from concluding, slowed by unexpected developments and delays beyond even a judge’s control.

Goal of Mid-Summer

Prosecutors say they will “probably finish” presenting their case against Ray Buckey, 29, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 61, by mid-summer. The two are charged with a total of 99 counts of molestation and share a single count of conspiracy involving 14 children who attended the family run Virginia McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach.

Even so, the defense says it does not expect to finish in 1988. “We’ll all be celebrating next Christmas before the case is over,” predicted Dean Gits, who represents Peggy McMartin Buckey.

In the last year, after lengthy pretrial motions for dismissal and change of venue and three months of jury selection, the trial finally got under way July 13.

In opening statements, the prosecution described the case as a saga “about trust and betrayal of trust” and said it would show that the Buckeys sexually abused the youngsters left in their care and that Ray Buckey then ensured their silence by threats to harm their families.

The defense said it would show that the Buckeys are innocent victims of a witch hunt and promised that Raymond Buckey would testify in his own “common-sense defense.”

So far, however, only three of the 13 children scheduled to testify have taken the witness stand, leaving most of the trial still ahead.

As the year began, defense attorneys unsuccessfully fought to have charges dismissed on grounds that the district attorney’s office suppressed evidence and unfairly chose to prosecute the remaining two of seven defendants originally charged in the case. They were joined by a former deputy district attorney once assigned to the case, who was forced to resign after allegedly lying about leaking information to the press.

An 11-year-old girl, a 12-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy all testified this fall that they had been molested by one or both of the Buckeys while they attended the nursery school.

A mistrial was averted in October after a jail house informant was granted immunity from prosecution for past perjuries. The informant, George Freeman, testified that while he and Ray Buckey were cellmates at Men’s Central Jail, Buckey admitted to having molested children and to incest with his sister.

Freeman disappeared after allegedly receiving a threatening telephone call as his cross-examination was about to begin. He was arrested and compelled to complete his testimony. Last month he was again arrested for investigation of robbing a woman at gunpoint.

Former defense investigator Paul Bynum, 39, a retired Hermosa Beach police officer, was found dead in his Glendale home earlier this month of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was to testify that he found animal remains buried in a vacant lot next to the McMartin School.

(Last December, Judy Johnson, the mother whose report triggered the massive molestation investigation that eventually involved nine South Bay nursery schools, was found dead of liver disease in her Manhattan Beach home. And in 1985, an uncharged suspect in the McMartin case, Robert H. Winkler, 35, was found dead in his Long Beach apartment of an accidental drug overdose).

Family matriarch Virginia McMartin, in five days on the witness stand in October, vehemently denied that she had ever molested a child or seen her daughter or grandson do anything that might even be misconstrued as molestation, adding that she had “never heard” of molestation before being caught up in the case that bears her name.

She acknowledged, however, that one of her own granddaughters believes that her two children were molested at the nursery school. She said Ray Buckey had had a drinking problem and had received counseling from a pastor at the Church of Religious Science in Redondo Beach.

Planned Testimony

After nearly four years behind bars, Ray Buckey came a step closer to release when Pounders set bail for him this month at $3 million. The judge expressed concern that Buckey might flee, but said he did not think it likely that the defendant would carry out any alleged threats.

“It would be a travesty to hold him without bail for five years” without any determination of guilt, Pounders concluded.

Prosecutors have called 15 witnesses so far--including three children and parents, four physicians, two Manhattan Beach police officers, a mother who visited the school but did not enroll her daughter, the jail house informant and the former defense investigator.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lael Rubin said that besides 10 other children and parents, she and co-prosecutor Roger Gunson intend to put on testimony from other law enforcement officers, district attorney investigators, medical experts and others in the beach community.

Asked to assess the children’s testimony, Rubin replied:

“What we have learned . . . is that they are more articulate and less intimidated by defense tactics than in the preliminary hearing almost three years ago. . . .

“This is not to say that an 11-year-old intellectually and in terms of mental development is on a par with a 40-year-old lawyer, but (the children) are much better at standing their own ground.”

The prosecutors and the judge were critical of the lengthy cross-examinations, noting that one physician was questioned for 14 days by defense attorneys.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate that every witness be examined three times as long on cross-examination as they are on direct,” Pounders said last month, adding that “I plan to work on orders to cut that down because otherwise we’re going to be here forever.”

Defense lawyer Daniel Davis, who represents Ray Buckey, did not return a call from a Times reporter. He has repeatedly indicated he does not wish to comment to The Times.

However, defense attorney Gits said he has occasionally felt “pressured” to complete cross-examination within a certain time frame.

Still, he said, “my belief is that the defense is right on course. This is a non-case built on human frailties and fear, which is what we expected the evidence would show.”

‘Prepping by the D.A.’

He agreed with Rubin that the child witnesses appear less confused than earlier, but attributed that to “enormous prepping by the D.A.”

He said their accounts have changed dramatically over the course of their initial interviews at Children’s Institute International, a Los Angeles child abuse diagnostic and treatment center in 1983 and 1984, their testimony before a 1984 county grand jury and their testimony at the 18-month preliminary hearing that ended in early 1986.

For example, he pointed to one child who earlier implicated the Buckeys and former defendant Betty Raidor, but now says she does not remember Raidor’s having ever touched her.

He cited a second child who had testified earlier that Peggy McMartin Buckey and other teachers were present during so-called “naked games,” but who now is sure only of the fact that he was molested by Ray Buckey.

Gits added that he believes the prosecution’s medical evidence shows only that physicians are not yet able to tell by examining a child whether he or she has been molested at some point in the past.

As the trial inches along, however, the costs accompanying it have not. The total cost of the McMartin case is more than $8 million, according to Tyler McCauley, chief of Los Angeles County’s audit division.

The defense, which includes the two court-appointed attorneys, their associate counsel, law clerks, secretaries and paralegals, has been costing about $90,000 a month, while the district attorney’s office’s costs average about $50,000 a month, according to Rick Vandenberg, senior accountant-auditor for the county.

Pounders, the fourth Superior Court judge to be assigned the case, has won praise from both sides as a fair magistrate who is in control of his courtroom but who does not abuse his power.

As the year neared its end, however, a weary Pounders expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of the proceedings:

“I’m going to work very hard in determining how I’m going to take an active role in cutting down the amount of time (the case takes).”

The McMartin case began in the fall of 1983 when Ray Buckey was arrested after a parent reported that her 2 1/2-year-old had been molested by “Mr. Ray.” He was released for lack of evidence, while the investigation continued.

Buckey was rearrested the following March along with six other teachers at the nursery school, including his mother, grandmother and sister.

After an 18-month preliminary hearing, a Municipal Court judge ordered all seven teachers to stand trial for molestation and conspiracy. However, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, who had inherited the case from his predecessor, Robert Philibosian, dropped charges against five of the seven, citing “incredibly weak evidence.”