Capturing the Friedmans Page #4

time, as punishment to that.

I never did it again.

He made me format it.

I formatted it.

I had to bring my computer

in and show him

that I hadn't brought it home.

So he was absolutely positive,

100%, that it was not

touched at all in any way,

form, shape whatsoever.

And how did he know that

you brought it home?

He accounted for

all the disks that were there.

And since he flipped

through, he's like,

"Who the f*** took this? Tell me

now, or I'm gonna kill you all!"

And he had a knife, and he

was waving a knife around.

I was like, "I did it!"

My general recollection

of the classes

is basically a positive one,

is a pleasant one.

The types of behaviors

which were described,

which were, well, just

downright satanic in nature.

I mean, they make him sound like

some kind of brutal sadist,

whereas, you know, I had just

always thought of him

as being kind of a nebbish.

I think, as someone

who took the classes,

it was just hard to picture

even that going on,

because I did have

a good experience.

And I didn't, you know,

see anything, you know,

remotely like,

you know, like child molestation

or child abuse or any

child anything going on.

What took place in

Arnold's classes

was pretty much just

straight computer lessons.

I mean, as ordinary

and as boring

as you could

possibly imagine it.

It was just generally

a free-for-all.

Everybody could see

what was going on,

and very often they

would participate

in these sort of mass games

in the classroom.

There was a game there

that was called "Leapfrog."

And this one really got to me.

They would play

leapfrog in the class.

They'd actually have

their clothes off.

And we associate leapfrog like

you do when you were a kid,

one guy jumping over another

guy, but the fact is

it means everybody's butt's

up in the air, so to speak.

The very nature of these

charges is so absurd.

It seems almost like some

kind of grotesque fantasy.

Yeah. Leapfrog.

I remember about that.

It's kind of like Twister,

where we would have to sit down.

Our asses would be in the air.

Arnold and Jesse would leap

from one person to another,

sticking their dick

each in our ass.

But then I was confused,

because you said that

no kids were raped

in the computer room.

The leapfrog game, which

was not molestation,

was a leapfrog game, was not

considered molestation,

was done outside.

But that was a group game.

The actual molestation,

one-on-one contact,

happened in the bathroom.

The game happened

out on the floor.

One of the things,

you sit down there,

and I know I, you know, think

about this, and you know,

"How could this go on

in this home for so long

and not be, you know, come out?"

But, you know,

that wasn't my province.

That wasn't what I had to decide

or the judge had to decide.

You know, that's up to someone

else to decide that.

But if I recall, you know,

the children were

pretty vivid in their

recollections

as to what Arnold

and/or Jesse did to them.

And Judge Boklan,

she's you know,

a pretty strong-willed judge.

And she's pretty unmovable

when she makes her decision.

There was never a doubt in

my mind as to their guilt.

And remember, I'd been

around for a while.

This wasn't, you know, the first

sex case that I had ever seen.

In fact, my previous law

secretary used to tease me

that we were the pervert part.

And having been, you know, head

of the Sex Crimes Unit myself,

where, you know, I had young

boys who were sodomized,

in fact, one who killed himself

you know, after the sentence

of the abuser.

I mean, some horrible

experiences.

So for me to be so outraged,

I mean, this was really

very, very bad

what was going on there.

It was like someone's

worst nightmare.

Who would even think

of doing these things?

And to do them in a group

and with so many witnesses.

The scenario, as posted by

the media and the police

was so incredibly way out,

it was hard for me to

believe that it was true.

We now welcome, also in

Los Angeles, Debbie Nathan.

Debbie is an investigative

freelance journalist,

who has been covering

the McMartin and other

abuse trials around the country.

All these parents

are bizarro, huh?

They're all whacked?

Well, it's not really fair,

I don't think

to deal simply with

these parents

or with this particular case.

You have to understand that

all over the country

there is a hysteria.

And I don't think that

it's a question

with most of these

kids of lying.

I think that they have been

brainwashed, if you will.

I was one of the first writers

for the mass media

to look at those cases

critically and question them.

So as a result of that, having

done a lot of that work,

I got a lot of letters

from people.

And my father wrote to Debbie

and said, I don't know,

said, "Help me."

And she has been the only

person outside the family

that said, "I believe you."

In the Friedman case,

the basic charges were

completely implausible.

First of all, you'd have

to believe that blood

is coming out of these

children's orifices,

that they're screaming,

that they're crying,

that their clothes are soiled

from semen and from blood.

And yet their parents show up.

Sometimes they show up

unannounced.

Everything looks fine.

Was there any physical evidence

in the case that was relevant?

Or it was the case

really strictly based on

the statements of the kids?

It was more testimony.

There was a dearth

of physical evidence.

I don't even recall

whether there was

any physical evidence that

would have indicated

one way or another that

these events took place.

I don't think that they're

sitting around with any kind

of diabolical or

conspiratorial agenda

to go out and falsely

accuse Arnold Friedman

or rail road Jesse Friedman.

But nobody's critiquing them.

Nobody's telling them that

there's a right way

and a wrong way to do this.

Nobody's saying that we've got

a problem in this culture

with hysteria around this issue.

And so they're really free

to let their fantasies fly.

I think the most

overwhelming thing was

the enormous amount

of child pornography.

You would just have to walk

into the living room,

and it'd be piled

around the piano.

There were literally foot-high

stacks of pornography,

in plain view,

all around the house.

But photos taken

during the search

showed nothing of the kind.

But as far as the families were

concerned, I don't want to

use the word that they were

competitive with each other.

I don't know if it's

to that extent.

You know, sometimes it'd be some

idle conversation about,

you know, another boy, you know,

"He was sodomized 5 times,

"but my son was sodomized

6 times," you know,

as if that meant something in

the overall scheme of things.

There's a whole community

atmosphere that gets created

in a mass-abuse case like this,

where the families are

talking to each other,

they're going to

community meetings,

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