Angry Buckey Is Grilled on His Behavior

McMartin Pre-School teacher Ray Buckey was cross-examined for three hours Friday about his drinking problem, reports of nighttime screaming bouts, his disdain for underwear and his collection of adult pornography.

Buckey, 31, dressed smartly in a pink shirt and gray suit, told Deputy Dist. Atty. Lael Rubin that he did not dispose of the sexually explicit pictures he had carefully cut from magazines--despite advice from his lawyer’s investigator to get rid of them--”because I still used them” for sexual gratification.

He said it was not until the police “started banging on the door” of his parents’ home just before his arrest that he “panicked and went to get them and tried to flush them down the toilet and threw them out the window.”

Temper Flares

Buckey’s temper flared as Rubin hammered away at the life style he admitted to on direct examination earlier this week--skipping college classes to play volleyball and “hang out,” deceiving his parents, drinking heavily and being convicted of drunk driving, and showing a preoccupation with pictures of a specific sexual act that he kept under his pillow or mattress.

Aside from those pictures, Rubin asked, “did anybody ever give you any advice about getting rid of or destroying any other piece of evidence?”

Buckey took issue with the word “other.”

“Is it your belief that those exhibits in front of you . . . are not evidence?” she asked him.

“Evidence of what? That I masturbate?” he said angrily.

“Evidence, Mr. Buckey,” she said.

“I don’t believe it’s any relevant evidence at all,” he protested. “What’s that got to do with allegations of molesting children?”

“Are you asking me?” Rubin countered.

Judge Intervenes

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders halted the heated exchange.

“I think that was a rhetorical question,” he said.

Buckey said he had no knowledge of any evidence being removed from his family’s Manhattan Beach home or nursery school just before a police search.

But Rubin said, outside the jury’s presence, that Buckey was present at a 1986 hearing before another judge when several items removed by the investigator were discussed. Some were turned over to the prosecution and others were determined to be an invasion of Buckey’s privacy and withheld, she said.

Pounders said he would study the transcripts before deciding whether Rubin can pursue the issue in front of the jury. The defense investigator who allegedly removed the items committed suicide on the eve of his scheduled testimony.

Buckey, who is charged with 53 counts of molestation and conspiracy involving 11 children, took the witness stand Wednesday for the first time since his arrest nearly six years ago. He denied any wrongdoing, blaming the case against him on inept interviewing methods and misguided adults.

He testified that he was not working at the school when some of his accusers attended, and was seldom alone with the others.

He verified school records, however, that show he was the only teacher on duty the afternoon of Aug. 11, 1983, the day that a 2 1/2-year-old boy reported he was molested, triggering the investigation. He said 10 children stayed for afternoon care and that all but two parents had picked up their children by 4 p.m. when the youngster left.