Buckey’s Defense Rests Case : Trial: The judge in his retrial on child molestation charges says the matter will go to a jury within two weeks.

After three weeks of whirlwind testimony, the defense in the retrial of McMartin Pre-School defendant Ray Buckey rested Tuesday with vehement denials that he ever molested a child, setting the stage for closing arguments next week.

“We’re getting to the tense part now,” Buckey said after completing two days on the witness stand. “Probably the most stressful time (for me) is when the jury gets the case.” The judge said the case will go to the jury within two weeks.

Looking relieved, Buckey told reporters he “liked the shortness and directness” of his examination, in contrast to his eight days of testimony at his first trial.

He said he believed the prosecution strayed from the real issues, however, and seemed unprepared. “They left out gobs of information” brought up during the earlier three-year trial, which ended with him being acquitted of 40 of 53 counts of molestation. He is being retried on eight of the 13 counts on which the jury deadlocked.

Referring to cross-examination by Deputy Dist. Atty. Pam Ferrero, Buckey said, “Her whole thing was innuendo.

“(She seemed to be saying), ‘Gee, if he didn’t wear underwear, let’s jump the Grand Canyon and say he molested children.’ ”

Three girls, ages 11 to 13, testified earlier that they were sexually abused by Buckey as toddlers and had been too scared to tell anyone at the time.

Buckey, 32, was questioned at length about his habit of wearing shorts without underwear, with the prosecution suggesting that skimpy attire was not only inappropriate for a teacher but may have facilitated sexual contact with youngsters at his family’s Manhattan Beach nursery school.

“Did you dress to molest?” his attorney, Danny Davis, asked Buckey at one point during his testimony, as scattered laughter broke out in the courtroom.

“No,” Buckey replied, smiling.

Afterward, the defendant, who wears a conservative business suit for his court appearances, shook his head. “I’m not the only person in the South Bay who doesn’t wear underwear, but I was probably the dumbest person, not to have worn it at the preschool.

“I’m wearing it now, “ he volunteered to a crowd of cameramen and reporters outside the courtroom.

During the second day of cross-examination, Ferrero also focused on Buckey’s activities in 1980, when he did volunteer work two days a week at a San Diego day-care center, and observed at the McMartin school, directed by his mother, two other days a week.

Implying that such an interest in children was not normal for a then-23-year-old man, she concluded her examination by asking if, while taking college classes near a preschool three years later, “Did you ever stop for a period of four hours and stare at those children?”

“No,” Buckey said.

As part of their rebuttal, prosecutors said they will call an investigator who tailed Buckey. The investigator testified at the first trial that Buckey stopped to watch the children playing in the schoolyard adjacent to the campus for hours while ignoring shapely women who passed by.

Prosecutors also subpoenaed Buckey’s mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, who testified briefly Tuesday.

Peggy Buckey, who was acquitted of all charges against her in January, admitted that children often sat on her son’s lap at the school and that she had once checked to see if he had an erection.

“I was the director and owner; I had to think the way parents think,” she explained. “I had one of my parents tell me he did not want a male teacher (for his child).”

Asked why she didn’t also watch for signs of sexual arousal in her female teachers, Peggy Buckey said, “There’s a difference.”

“The difference, would you agree, Mrs. Buckey, is your son?” inquired Deputy Dist. Atty. Joe Martinez.

“No,” she said emphatically.

She testified that she had never received any complaints about her son’s behavior at the school.

Later, Martinez told reporters that he is confident about the case, which featured direct testimony from three alleged child victims, circumstantial evidence from a physician and parents, and evidence provided by Buckey himself of what prosecutors call “his predilection for children.”

“He’s always denied his guilt. We didn’t expect him to break down and admit to being a child-molester,” Martinez said.

“This is not Perry Mason.”