In fact most victims doubled down and said Jesse was and is guilty.
Nope, not true. Neither the majority of the 14 boys who testified before the grand jury, nor the majority of the over 100 alleged victims, are still pushing the idea that they were abused.
Jesse himself confirmed his guilt many times for years. He only changed his story after this film came out and saw an opportunity to make himself a victim.
Again, not true. Jesse Friedman has been maintaining his innocence since about a year into his sentence, many years before filming even started.
Secondly, many victims of child abuse or rape recant, because of the shame and embarrassment.
You got a source for that statement? One that would support the idea that people who were actually sexually abused maintain their accusations for months or years, and only then later recant?
Jesse himself recanted his abuse at the hands of his father. He said to Geraldo Rivera that his father molested him for years. But he seems to ignore that entire aspect of his life.
He doesn't ignore it, but addresses head on that he lied on the Geraldo show, and that it was a mistake to appear on the show (http://www.freejesse.net/case-story):
I don’t remember how The Geraldo Rivera Show became interested in my story. Geraldo wanted to do a show about what happens when the victim becomes the victimizer; addressing the questions of how should society handle these unfortunate situations.
Laying in my cell covered in urine, locked in the dark in solitary confinement, believing that my next prison was going to be even more dangerous, I hoped the show would reach those prisoners and they would be more sympathetic and less likely to hurt me. I guess I still hoped that someone would treat me with some measure of decency.
I worried about what I would one day be able to tell the Parole Board when I had a chance for parole? If I continued to admit to having committed those crimes, then what reason would the Parole Board have for releasing an admitted serial child rapist? One of the few inmates who was nice to me at the jail explained that I could never again say, "I didn’t do it. I'm not a child molester!" That would only result in me being labeled as, "In denial. Unremorseful" and denied parole. The only seemingly viable option was to say, "Yes, I did do those bad things, but there is an explanation."
I know it seems today like going on the Geraldo show is like going on "The Jerry Springer Show" -- accepting an invitation to be publicly humiliated on national television. But back in 1988 Geraldo was just a guy with a television show who I thought was offering me an opportunity to tell a sympathetic story. The show was a nightmare and in retrospect one of the biggest mistakes I ever made.
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