Article from the Great Neck Record
Jesse Friedman Case Re-Examination
Written by Carol Frank Friday, 29 June 2012
So far, four original complainants have recanted
The review of Jesse Friedman’s case by the Nassau County District Attorney’s office, while conducted to protect the confidentiality of those associated with the case, is uncovering new and important evidence that is being examined by a panel of experts appointed by District Attorney Kathleen Rice.
While it appears that some of the boys, now men in their thirties, have not responded to written inquiries, four of the original 14 complainants have recanted the testimony that they gave to the grand jury almost 25 years ago. In addition, 20 other young men who were in the classes where abuse was alleged to have happened, and who were not complainants have offered testimony in taped or filmed interviews with investigators, that they were never molested nor did they ever see anyone molested.
Lonnie Soury, a member of Friedman’s investigative team provided a redacted statement in which one complainant said, “I remember the cops coming to my house and the cops being aggressive and people wanting me to say what they wanted to hear. I’ll tell you, I never said I was sodomized. I was never raped or molested... if I said it, it was not because it happened, it was because someone else put those words in my mouth.”
A non-complainant who was in classes in which complainants testified to having been repeatedly sodomized in plain view of the rest of the class said, “I took years of classes with them. I was always enthusiastic about going back... It was always something I wanted to do. Never something that was uncomfortable at all or awkward. I always assumed that if something was going on in the classes, I would have had some sense of it, and I didn’t...People who were in class with me always felt that they weren’t allowed to say that nothing happened.”
Another non-complainant said, “I was very insistent that nothing ever happened to me and that never seemed to be good enough as a response...
“Nothing happened to me and I saw none of that stuff... I remember the class as a thing that I enjoyed.”
The only complainant with whom the investigators spoke and who did not recant recalled being in hypnosis shortly after interviews with the police. In a 2007 interview he restated that he had no memory of being abused until after he was told so by police and after being put into a trance.
A parent, who frequently went to pick up her son and others in the class for hockey meets would go inside if she had to get the students before the class let out, also came forward in the last month. In speaking with the investigators he said, “I didn’t realize at the time when all of this became public that my son’s class was the epicenter of it all...I never saw anything suspect at all and I would often go inside, unannounced, to pick up the boys early.”