Local : Buckey Returns to Court for Trial
Raymond Buckey walked into court today a free man for the first time in nearly five years, smiling but refusing to discuss the mass molestation charges against him in the McMartin Pre-School case.
Buckey was released on $1.5-million bail Wednesday night as reporters and photographers swarmed around him. Today Superior Court Judge William Pounders likened Buckey’s jail exit to the televised slaying of President John F. Kennedy’s killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby in 1963.
“It was certainly a circus,” said Pounders.
He asked the jurors, who have been admonished to avoid all news coverage of the 2-year-old trial, if they had seen the release on late-night television news shows. They assured that him they had not.
Out of the presence of the jury, Pounders deplored the fact that word of Buckey’s release had leaked out and said he had tried to keep it a secret for Buckey’s protection.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
