A state Supreme Court Judge has ruled that the Nassau County District must turn over troves of long-sealed documents related to the 1988 child molestation conviction of Great Neck native Jesse Friedman, who has spent years asserting his innocence in the media and the court system.
Justice Dana Winslow ruled that office of District Attorney Kathleen Rice should turn over nearly every document generated during the original investigation, with the exception of victims’ names.
Rice’s office, which in June released a lengthy review of the case that affirmed Friedman’s conviction, has pledged to appeal the decision. The documents will not be immediately released, as appellate court Justice Peter Skelos issued a stay to Winslow’s order Tuesday pending the result of the appeal.
“After more than two decades, several guilty pleas, a complete appeal process, and a full and independent re-investigation, the victims in this case deserve closure and privacy,” said Shams Tarek, spokesperson for Rice. “We are disappointed by the decision and will absolutely be appealing and expecting to prevail on behalf of the victims in a higher court.”
Friedman’s defense attorney Ron Kuby described the release of the documents, which he said could provide the basis for a further legal challenge to Friedman’s conviction, as one step in a long road towards Friedman’s exoneration.
“I actually have a complex range of emotions. This is not a football game where we win something and we start cheering and slapping each other on the back,” Kuby said. “This has been an excruciatingly long process and I don’t think it’s over yet.”
“Independent of the outcome it was important and necessary to have a judge tell the prosecution that they need to be truthful and forthcoming and their cheap attempts to smear Jesse Friedman based on lies are neither appreciated, nor do they further the administration of justice,” Kuby added.
Friedman and Kuby petitioned the court to force the DA’s office to turn over records from his case earlier this month, alleging that Rice’s office withheld information from the independent board that reviewed the re-investigation of the case and ignored exculpatory evidence – claims that the DA’s office rejects.
Kuby also said the DA’s office admitted in court that Friedman was found not guilty of possessing child pornography while in prison. The DA’s review of the case had stated that Friedman was caught possessing a photograph of nude children.
Friedman, who along with his father Arnold Friedman was convicted of sexually assaulting more than a dozen children who attended computer classes at the Friedman family home, had long contested the ruling, saying the case against him was marred by overzealous police work and that he made a false confession to avoid a longer prison sentence.
The 2010 appeals court ruling asked the DA’s office to review the charges in the wake of “Capturing the Friedmans,” a 2003 Oscar-nomiated documentary that alleged police misconduct and harsh interrogation of children who testified against Friedman. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Friedman’s conviction but recommended opening an investigation into the case.
Friedman petitioned Winslow to force the DA’s office to turn over information that has remained sealed since the 1988 trial.
“DA Rice appointed a special Advisory Panel to ensure a fair and thorough review, but then chose to withhold from them the evidence most essential in a case based upon child testimony, including the unredacted witness statements, police interview notes, records of when and how the statements were taken, in addition to the grand jury testimony that formed the basis for the indictments,” wrote Friedman’s legal team in the petition.
The case at the heart of the report shook Great Neck in the late 1980s, with hundreds of counts of sexual assault filed against the Friedmans for allegedly molesting and sodomizing young boys who attended computer classes at their family home.
Jesse Friedman said after the trial that his father Arnold Friedman, who died in prison in 1995, sexually assaulted him, but has denied that any molestation took place at his father’s computer classes.
Friedman’s supporters have compared his case to the rash of allegations of Satanic child abuse during the 1980s which were later proven false.
The DA’s report rejected the comparison, stating that the Friedman accusers were older than those in discredited cases and that the allegations in Great Neck were more plausible than their Satanic counterparts.
Rice’s 177-page report, which was overseen by an independent panel that included prominent defense lawyer and Innocence Project founder Barry Scheck, disputed the evidence presented in the documentary, concluding that police conduct did not undermine the case against Friedman and that many of Friedman’s alleged victims still maintain his guilt.
“By any impartial analysis, the re-investigation process prompted by Jesse Friedman, his advocates, and the Second Circuit, has only increased confidence in the integrity of Jesse Friedman’s guilty plea and adjudication as a sex offender,” the report said.
The report states that improper police work did not harm the investigation, arguing that numerous children made allegations in the early stages of the investigation, many complainants interviewed by the review team did not report leading questioning by police, and claims by one witness that he was subjected to hypnosis were not credible.
A co-defendant in the case, Ross Goldstein, wrote a letter to the report’s review team in March recanting all allegations of abuse and saying he was coerced into confessing.
The report casts doubt on Goldstein’s credibility, noting that it took three years for the team to secure an interview with Goldstein and arguing that his previous detailed descriptions of his role in the alleged abuse were not consistent with coerced testimony.
The report also puts forward other information the authors say provide evidence of Friedman’s guilt, including interviews with accusers who confirmed their accounts.
