Ray Buckey Calls Porn Irrelevant : Defendant Also Tells of Ignoring Advice to Destroy Material

Ray Buckey told a prosecutor in the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial Friday that he ignored an investigator’s warning to get rid of pornographic pictures because “I still used them.”

Buckey, who testified earlier that he used adult pornography for sexual gratification, said that a now-deceased private detective, Paul Bynum, advised him in the summer of 1984 to destroy the pornographic pictures he kept in his bedroom.

“He said it would be best not to have them,” Buckey said.

“Why did you not take his advice and get rid of them?” asked Deputy Dist. Atty. Lael Rubin.

‘Still Used Them’

“I still used them,” Buckey replied.

Buckey, 31, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 62, are charged with 64 counts of molestation and one joint count of conspiracy stemming from the operation of their family owned preschool in Manhattan Beach.

Their trial, now in its 27th month, is the longest and most costly in Los Angeles history.

Buckey said he did not decide to get rid of the pornography until police “started banging on the door” of his parents’ home just before his arrest on child molestation charges.

“I panicked and I went to get them and tried to flush them down the toilet and threw them out the window,” he said.

As Rubin placed the pictures before him on the witness stand and hammered away at the subject of Buckey’s use of pornography, the defendant protested that the adult pictures were irrelevant to the trial.

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