This is all you need to know to conclude that the filmmaker presented a biased view of the evidence/interviews to sell this documentary as a appeal to the liberal minded of injustice. However the highlighted facts are here:
http://www.nassaucountyny.gov/agencies/DA/NewsReleases/2013/062413friedman.html
Some of the Key Findings:
The nearly three-year investigation that analyzed existing information and unearthed significant new evidence affirmed the conviction of Jesse Friedman. The investigation also added critical context, and in some cases supplied refuting evidence, to the central theories advanced by Jesse Friedman and his advocates.
1) Three victims affirmed their prior accounts to the Review Team, and at least three others maintained their accusations at various points within the last decade.
2) None of the five individuals who Friedman advocates suggest “recanted” have, in fact, recanted to any degree of legal certainty. Three have not recanted at all. Reviews of transcripts concerning these individuals reveal that abuse occurred. Another who spoke to the Review Team stood by his account, in contrast to the statement he gave to filmmakers. The subject of the most recent purported recantation has refused to speak to the Review Team or even confirm he wrote the letter outlining the claim, which was provided to the Review Team by Jesse Friedman’s lawyer.
3) Thirteen children accused Jesse Friedman of criminal misconduct within the first five weeks of the investigation.
4) The investigation also revealed additional statements alleging abuse by Jesse Friedman, obtained during the original investigation from three children who did not testify against Jesse Friedman in any grand jury and were therefore not known to anyone outside law enforcement until this Review. One additional student originally disclosed abuse against Arnold Friedman only, but has since told the Review Team that he was also abused by Jesse Friedman.
5) Friedman codefendant Ross Goldstein privately confessed to a childhood friend in 1989.
6) Unedited film transcripts of Judge Abbey Boklan and Detective Anthony Squeglia show that each was the subject of selectively edited and misleading film portrayals in Capturing the Friedmans.
7) The “Meyers Tape” – one of only two pieces of direct evidence of heavy-handed police interviewing techniques cited by Friedman, his advocates and the Court – is, in fact, no tape at all. All that remains of a tape that hasn’t existed for more than two decades are notes taken during its screening by a Jesse Friedman attorney. Those notes, presumably limited to information the attorney found helpful to his client’s case, were then reduced and curated by filmmakers, and read dramatically by Friedman’s attorney in Capturing the Friedmans.
8) A sworn affidavit from the therapist who treated former student “Computer Student One,” stated that she never performed hypnosis on the child. A portion of an unedited transcript of the film’s interview with “Computer Student One” contradicted his claim of pre-outcry hypnosis and had been edited out. “Computer Student One” claimed in a 2004 media report that Capturing the Friedmans “twisted” his account. The filmed allegations of “Computer Student One” remain the only direct evidence offered by Friedman or his advocates suggesting that hypnosis was used to induce victims to make accusations in this case.
9) While maintaining his innocence prior to his eventual guilty plea, Friedman commissioned and failed at least two lie-detector tests.
10) Notes from Friedman’s attorney reveal that a psychiatrist hired by Friedman prior to his guilty plea, found Friedman to be a “narcissist” and “psychopath” who was capable of committing the crimes with which he was charged. The notes also reveal the existence of a second Friedman-hired doctor. Friedman’s lawyer eventually instructed both doctors not to issue formal reports “due to the extreme negative result”.
11) Prison disciplinary records show that Friedman was caught possessing a magazine photograph depicting two nude children, and was punished for writing allegedly fictional accounts of bestiality, incest and child rape.
12) Howard Friedman, brother of Arnold and uncle of Jesse, admitted to the Review Team that Arnold had privately confessed to him shortly after his arrest, and that Arnold admitted to him that Jesse was also involved in the abuse that occurred in the Friedman house, and that Arnold admitted molesting Jesse.
13) Prior to his guilty plea, Friedman went to visit his father in an out-of-state prison in an effort to locate photographs of the abuse that Friedman once agreed may exist. Case files also reference a hidden closet near the computer room that was not searched by federal agents during the surprise search warrant and was later discovered empty during the execution of a state search warrant in the weeks following the Friedmans’ arrests.
14) Jesse Friedman’s willingness to tell the truth has been inconsistent, especially as it pertained to his many descriptions of his father’s guilt, his own possible victimhood, and his prior relationship with his former friend and codefendant, Ross Goldstein.
reply
share