About : standard furniture new york upholstered bed
Title : standard furniture new york upholstered bed
standard furniture new york upholstered bed
hi. it's me. oh, we're not ready yet? hi. it's me, jesse. are we there? good. we're there. well, this afternoon, after a very lousy sketchabout yo-yoing, i figure we'll, for lack ofanything better to do,
we'll take it towards a moreserious side right about now. and we're going to conductan interview with arnold friedman, my father. i still feel like i knewmy father very well. i don't think that just becausethere were things in his life that were private andsecret and shameful that that means thatthe father who i knew and the things i knew about himwere in any way not real. they're gonna put mein the movies
they're gonna makea big star out of me we'll make a film about a manthat's sad and lonely and all i got to dois act naturally well, i'll bet you i'ma- gonna be a big star might win an oscar,you can't never tell the movies gonnamake me a big star 'cause i can playthe part so well well, i hope you cometo see me in the movies then i know that youwill plainly see
the biggest fool that'sever hit the big time arnold liked pictures. i mean, that's, let's face it. he liked pictures. well, we're here. this is it, the wholefamily assembled. everybody ingreat neck, new york. we had three sons. david, being the oldest
had a lot of responsibilitywhen he was young. seth was an outright rebel. and somehow, jessewas just like the the one that keepstrying to catch up and doesn't quite make it. i have very good memoriesof the, of my, well, i have very good memoriesof my childhood. i had a great time growing up. i had a great timebecause of my friends.
and my father was great. i mean, he may not havebeen the best father, but he went tocolumbia university. and then when he graduated,he went to the catskills to play in his band. the jazzbo mambo with a boogie beat is the newest danceon 52nd street the band was called arnito reyand his orchestra.
my father's namewas arnold friedman. this was in the late40's and early '50s. so he played latin music. it was very big at the time, and so he changedhis name to arnito rey. we'll do a jazzbo mambo8 to the bar i don't know. my dad was a cool guy, you know? he was a schoolteacher.
and i think that the other kidsliked him, and he liked kids. but he didn't like spendinga lot of time with his wife, so he would teach highschool during the day and then after school, he wouldcome home and teach piano lessons and later computerlessons in the house. and that was, of course, moretime he didn't have to spend with his wife. i'm not that anxious to talkabout his father, because, you know,we were divorced, and
but his father, he would, i don't really wantto talk about it. in case anybody didn't know,i'm the father of this family. i'm never in the movies. never see me in anyof the pictures, but i really am the father. and we're all gatheredtogether while david is messing upthe camera here. now he's taking a good movieand zooming in and out.
when you see me on this,you're gonna say okay, shut it. he died of a surprise heartattack about 5 years ago. and it was very, very sad. he was, you know, selfless, altruistic. but in the end, he wasn'ttogether with your mom? he wasn't togetherwith my mother at the end. and when did they makethe decision not to be together?
long before he died? couple years before his death. there's a lot i, well, whatever. there's some things i don'twant to talk about. well, this is private,so if you don't, if you're not me, then you really shouldn'tbe watching this, because this is supposed to bea private situation
between me and me. this is between me nowand me in the future. so turn it off. don't watch this. this is private. if you're the fucking,oh, god, the cops. and if you'rethe fucking cops, go fuck yourselves, because you're full of shit.
back in 1984, us customs hadseized some child pornography, addressed fromthe netherlands, in the mail to arnold friedman. now, he never got thatpiece of mail, but his name wasforwarded on to us. so what we would do thenwould be to initiate a correspondence witharnold in the hopes that we can determine if he isin fact willing to violate the statute again about mailingor receiving child pornography.
"dear stan, the book isjoe, 14, and his uncle. i think i'd like you to send mesomething, sort of good faith, and i will forward this ratherprecious book to you. thanks, arnie. " see, it's very hardto believe that this so-called "goodmarriage" was so disturbed. he sent him these pictures,and he sent him a note that i remember, becausethe lawyer got the note. and then he wrote, "enjoy. "
since he had sentthe magazine, he was always askingfor it back. so i asked the prosecutors,"let's grant him his wish. he wants his magazine back. " i dressed up as a mail carrier,knocked on his door, asked him if he wasarnold friedman. he replied he was. and i said, "i havea package for you. sign right here. "
he did. about an hour later,we went back. we would give him sometime with the magazine. i'm dressed now. i just put a blue suit jacketover the carrier's uniform. and i told him, "i have a searchwarrant for child pornography. " he says, "there's nothin'like that here. " and i said,"you don't recognize me?" i'd just been athis door an hour ago.
he goes, "no. " and i took off my jacket, and isaid, "now do you recognize me?" "oh, yeah. oh, okay.the magazine is upstairs. " so we went up to his bedroom. in the top dresser doorwas the open magazine. well, he thought we would takethe magazine and leave, and i said, "no, we havea search warrant. we're gonna search the wholehouse for child pornography. " and around that timehis wife showed up.
i thought they weresearching, like, for marijuana or something. i didn't know what theywere searching for, to tell you the truth. and i thoughtit was a big mistake. one of the first thingswe went to was his office. and i remember just as i wasabout to pull out a drawer, mr. friedman camerushing in and said, "wait. i'll get that for you. "
and said, "here. this is all that's there. " and it was one piece of mailfrom the netherlands, but it was child pornography. and he said, "that's it. that's all there is. " and i said, "well, that'sgreat, mr. friedman, but we're still gonna search. " and he goes, "i don'tunderstand why you don't go
when i tell youthat's all there is?" and i said, "well,we don't believe you. " well, it's not something hesort of left lying around on the kitchen table. he wasn't proud of it,and he kept it hidden. he had his office downstairs. it wasn't, like, right there. you had to go downstairs and around the cornerto get to his office.
we used to havesomeone that cleaned. he says, "don't lether clean in here. it's okay. i don't wantmy things disturbed. " so all right. i never went in there. then one of our inspectorsmoved the piano that was in that office. and that's where his stashof magazines were held, behind the piano.
and this was arnold's secret. he liked to lookat pictures of boys. and it's not that heacted on these things. he just wanted to look at thesepictures and meditate or and these are listingsof the magazines that were foundbehind the piano. "young boys & sodomy. " "incest case histories. " something called"chicken pickin's magazine. "
and in addition to that,we found evidence of a computer class beingtaught there by mr. friedman. and we did seizesome list of names that we thoughtcould be students. i remember walkingin there saying, "goddamn. we couldhave a problem here. " just when you think everythingis going to be dull, something gets droppedon your lap, you know, and it turns out to be somethingbigger than you ever thought.
what happened was oneof the detectives from the vice squadcame in to see me. and he had a list. and it was at that point thatwe were able to learn that these were computerclasses that went on literally every day ofthe week and saturday. and we drew a big map of thewhole village of great neck sectioned it off, and startedsending detectives out to do interviews.
she set us up in teams, male/female teams. and we got a listof alleged victims. soon as we wentinto the house, we were usually approachedby the mothers. and we explained why we'rethere, what we're doing there, and we'd really like totalk to their children, preferably alone. the parents werebecoming impatient.
they wanted somethingdone immediately. but you always want to be verycareful about how you proceed, because the one thingthat you worry about i know i worried aboutit all the time, is just charging somebodywith this kind of a crime is enough to ruin their lives. so you want to make sure thatyou have enough evidence and that you're convinced thatyou're making a good charge. and how much time wasthere between the time
the postal inspectorsearched the house and the time that you wentin for the second search? well, it would have beenless than a month, because we did that the daybefore thanksgiving. a prominent middle-agedteacher in a prosperouslong island town is charged with sodomizing youngboys who were his students. police are charging thatsexual abuse went on behind the doors of17 picadilly road in great neck.
we rang the doorbell. as soon as he realized who itwas, he wasn't gonna let us in. so one of the detectivesbroke the door down. and we went intothe premises at that point. arnold was by himself. his wife was out shopping. i was out to the store tobuy a thanksgiving turkey. and i go up the frontwalk to the house, and there're peopleall over the house.
and my husband is sitting,looking very sheepishly in the dining room, handcuffed. by this time, just aboutevery news organization you could name hadarrived on the scene. i went home for thanksgiving. got to the house, and there'scops and news trucks all over the place. and i got worried, of course.
when david came to the house, we were able toascertain eventually the type of business he was in. and we heard that he wasinvolved in children's entertainment in the form ofsome sort of clown activities. i was there whenthe clown came in. he was ranting and raving. we had words. and i was goingthrough the folders.
we told him to take a hike. and he kept tryingto come into the house, and i kept telling himthat he couldn't, that he had to leave. he wasn't allowedwhile we were searching. and finally, he came infor the last time. he bent down. i really thought he hada weapon in that duffle bag. everybody kind of, you know,reached for a gun at one point.
what he came out with was a pair of fruitof the loom underwear. and he started prancing around,flailing his arms in the air, saying, "look at me.i'm an asshole. " they're harassing my fatherfor no reason at all. if i had had some kind ofarabian sand scarf i would have wrappedthat around my face and been lawrence of arabia. maybe thatwould have been better.
but i took out underwear,and i put it on my head because i didn't wantto be on camera. the first arrestedwas arnold friedman, a retired schoolteacher who wascharged with sodomizing boys aged 8 to 11. the charges are that, whilerunning a computer school, arnold friedman and his sonengaged in various forms of sexual abuseagainst minor children. jesse pulls up cominghome from school.
his friends dump himout of the car. david sort of grabbed me,and we were sitting a couple of houses down,sort of on the sidewalk. and he was sayingsomething to me. and then one of the tvcameras came over, so we kind of ranto the backyard. and we went behind the house. and we were in the backyardof our house. and the cops came back, and theysaid, "what's going on here?"
and i said, "don't worry aboutit. it's just me and jesse. " and they said,"well, we want jesse. we need jessein the house now. " of course, we thought,you know, we didn't know why that was. as we conducted more interviewsof the children, jesse's name started to pop up. and jesse was there. what did jesse do?
and then eventually we wereable to ascertain that jesse's role was not oneof, you know, helping his dad conduct the computer class, but basically abusingthe children himself. we didn't have childrentelling us that arnold hadslapped them around. but quite a number of the kidsreported incidents of being slapped and havingtheir hair pulled or their arms twisted by jesse.
he was, by far,the more violent one. all these policemensaid that jesse was some kind of aggressor. that even his fatherwas cowering, and jesse was this sexual,molesting tyrant. i challenge anyoneto find anyone who jesse had even teasedas a child or called a name. jesse was not an angry person. he was not an upset person.
so we ended up spendinga lot of time together. i was over his house 3 daysa week, 4 days a week. and as far as i know him,none of this ever happened, not on my watch. eighteen-year-old jesse friedmanalso stands accused of sex abuse and using a childin a sexual performance. the only thought that i justkept having the whole night was, "we're gonna get bailed outand then we'll go home and we'll figure outwhat's going on,
and the lawyers willtake care of this, and they'll straightenthis out. " because it was stilljust a matter of, "this is a bigmisunderstanding. " but when the bail was setat a million dollars, instead of going outwith mom and david like we were supposed to,we went back the other way. and that was the moment when there was this whole new sensethat the problem was
much worse than ioriginally thought. the investigation didn'tend at that point. that really was the arrestand the search of the house. and then we went on, because wehad literally, at that point dozens more interviews to do. somewhere along the way, i thinkit was the nassau county cops, they showed me this magazine,and they said, "you see?look at this magazine. " and they showed me the magazine.
they were embarrassedto show it to me because of whatthe pictures were. and you know, i didn't see it. my eyes were inthe right direction, but my brain saw nothing. because when it was all over, the lawyer showed methe magazine, and then i saw it. for the first time,i really saw it. i couldn'tbelieve what i saw.
i mean, i had no conceptthat this thing even existsin the world, that this magazine wouldeven be in the world. i mean, we hada middle-class home, educated. i had a good family, right? where did this come from? mr. and mrs. friedman's house on this most beautifulthanksgiving dinner. for my daughter,for my son-in-law,
and for my 3 grandsons. i'm thankful that both mybrothers are home, and i'm most thankful to my husband, to arnie. anything you wantto say, mr. friedman? are you guilty? did you do all they say you did? no comment. i was the first to visitmy brother in prison.
and that was a moment inmy life i'll never forget. he came into the room. i was sitting at thistable, a lot of tables, and they were crowded. just awful surroundings. and he didn't havehis glasses on. without his glasses,he was blind as a bat. they'd taken them off andbroken them, stepped on them. he had a smell of urine.
they were throwing urine at him. they were threatening tothrow him down the stairs. they knew whathe was in there for. it was all over the media. and he was half-blind andhadn't shaved in two days and shivering and coldand scared out of his wits. the first words outof his mouth were, "howie, they're gonna kill me.get me out of here. " the people versus arnoldfriedman and jesse friedman.
indictment 67430. step up, please. so began the very first timecameras were permitted in a nassau county courtroom. fifty-six-year-oldarnold friedman and his 18-year-old son jesse heard the court clerk read offa 91-count indictment charging them withsodomy and sexual abuse. arnold friedman, how do youplead to this indictment?
guilty or not guilty? not guilty. and jesse friedman, how do youplead to this indictment? my brother and jesse keptsaying they're innocent. "this is trumped up charges. " and they gota mcmartin's, you know? they somehow got one kid to, they got the police to beable to convince the kids, "well, all of your friendssaid something happened.
didn't something happen? something must have happened,"et cetera, et cetera. and they were convinced. they kept sayingthey were innocent. and i just kept thinking, "i have to believe them. " it's very hard for people toaccept him as a pedophile. arnold friedman wasan award-winning teacher. all over the housewere plaques
and newspaper articleswritten about him. he had been given an award,"computer teacher of the year. " he also taught piano. david plays beautifully. and his father taught himhow to play the piano. it was when he diedthat i realized how much of an impacthe had on my life. take a bow. he was very supportive of mymagic when i was a kid.
when i was about 6, my fathertook me to a magic show. and it's probablymy earliest memory. you know when your son goesto college and you say, "go to college," and"what are you going to be? "be a doctor. be a lawyer. " i tried to make him intoa doctor or a lawyer. you know, my mom wouldalways say, you know, "get a job. get a job. " but my dad would say to me,"you know, david,
i can't tell you what to do,because you know what i did when i got out of college. " he blew off his chemicalengineering degree, which he could have workedfor an oil company and made tons of money. instead, he playedin the mountains, which is a total blow-off,follow your dream, artistic thing. and i totally love him for that.
trust your children to somebodywho was a schoolteacher for over 20, 30 years,a member of your community. all you heard were accoladesabout this person, and now all of a sudden,he's a monster. and things that werebeing said, you know, upset the community, because you don'texpect that here. great neck is a peninsula. it's a very insulated community.
this was a certain kind ofperson that lived in great neck. it's on the north shoreof long island, which is usually apredominately wealthy area. these are wealthy,professional people that have garnered a great dealof income in their lives, and they live accordingly. nice community. tight. affluent.
well-kept homes. they get dressed upto go shopping. they want to be surethey get seen by the people they want to see, and cars are important, clothes are important. there's a lot ofcompetition in great neck. everybody's kid'sa genius and the best, and everybody's the bestin this and that,
and you just want yourkid to be happy and to get an arrayof experiences. and this computer class wasone of those experiences. you thoughtyou were doing right. most of the childrenstarted out explaining how mr. friedman would tryto test them, i think, in my opinion, as to whetherthey'd be receptive to some of his advances. there'd be certain showingson the computer
during computer classof certain material that was inappropriatefor children. if you were going to bethe first one abused on a particular day, he would pull up a chairand sit next to you. maybe it would start with hisarm around your shoulder or on your leg andgradually move it up, touching private parts. and then over the course of timewe developed a situation
where we found out that therewas not only sexual touching of the genitals, but therewere acts of sodomy, oral and anal sodomy, that took place duringthe course of the class. so were the kids abusedin the computer room in view of everyone else? from what i sawin my sessions, none were rapedout on the floor. the kids were raped in jesse'sroom or the bathroom.
just to change the subjectfor a second, there were these sexualcomputer games that were discussed duringthe course of the case. we'd basically dothe games where there would be naked girlsand everything in the computer class. but i remember one time islipped one of the games out, and i brought it homeand everything, and i copied it,and arnold found out.
because of that, i was raped by him and jesse at the sametime, as punishment to that. i never did it again. he made me format it.i formatted it. i had to bring my computerin 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 thatyou brought it home?
he accounted forall the disks that were there. and since he flippedthrough, he's like, "who the fuck took this? tell menow, or i'm gonna kill you all!" and he had a knife, and hewas waving a knife around. i was like, "i did it!" my general recollectionof the classes is basically a positive one,is a pleasant one. the types of behaviorswhich were described, which were, well, justdownright satanic in nature.
i mean, they make him sound likesome kind of brutal sadist, whereas, you know, i had justalways thought of him as being kind of a nebbish. i think, as someonewho took the classes, it was just hard to pictureeven that going on, because i did havea good experience. and i didn't, you know,see anything, you know, remotely like, you know, like childmolestation
or child abuse or anychild anything going on. what took place inarnold's classes was pretty much juststraight computer lessons. i mean, as ordinaryand as boring as you couldpossibly imagine it. it was just generallya free-for-all. everybody could seewhat was going on, and very often theywould participate in these sort of mass gamesin the classroom.
there was a game therethat was called "leapfrog. " and this one really got to me. they would playleapfrog in the class. they'd actually havetheir clothes off. and we associate leapfrog likeyou do when you were a kid, one guy jumping over anotherguy, but the fact is it means everybody's butt'sup in the air, so to speak. the very nature of thesecharges is so absurd. it seems almost like somekind 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 leapfrom one person to another, sticking their dickeach in our ass. but then i was confused,because you said that no kids were rapedin the computer room. the leapfrog game, whichwas not molestation,
was a leapfrog game, was notconsidered molestation, was done outside. but that was a group game. the actual molestation,one-on-one contact, happened in the bathroom. the game happenedout on the floor. one of the things,you sit down there, and i know i, you know, thinkabout this, and you know, "how could this go onin 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 decideor the judge had to decide. you know, that's up to someoneelse to decide that. but if i recall, you know,the children were pretty vivid in theirrecollections as to what arnoldand/or jesse did to them. and judge boklan,she's you know, a pretty strong-willed judge.
and she's pretty unmovablewhen she makes her decision. there was never a doubt inmy mind as to their guilt. and remember, i'd beenaround for a while. this wasn't, you know, the firstsex case that i had ever seen. in fact, my previous lawsecretary used to tease me that we were the pervert part. and having been, you know, headof the sex crimes unit myself, where, you know, i had youngboys who were sodomized, in fact, one whokilled himself
you know, after the sentenceof the abuser. i mean, some horribleexperiences. so for me to be so outraged, i mean, this was reallyvery, very bad what was going on there. it was like someone'sworst nightmare. who would even thinkof doing these things? and to do them in a groupand with so many witnesses. the scenario, as posted bythe media and the police
was so incredibly way out, it was hard for me tobelieve that it was true. we now welcome, also inlos angeles, debbie nathan. debbie is an investigativefreelance journalist, who has been coveringthe mcmartin and other abuse trials around the country. all these parentsare bizarro, huh? they're all whacked? well, it's not really fair,i don't think
to deal simply withthese parents or with this particular case. you have to understand thatall over the country there is a hysteria. and i don't think thatit's a question with most of thesekids of lying. i think that they have beenbrainwashed, if you will. i was one of the first writersfor the mass media to look at those casescritically and question them.
so as a result of that, havingdone a lot of that work, i got a lot of lettersfrom people. and my father wrote to debbieand said, i don't know, said, "help me. " and she has been the onlyperson outside the family that said, "i believe you. " in the friedman case, the basic charges werecompletely implausible. first of all, you'd haveto believe that blood
is coming out of thesechildren's orifices, that they're screaming, that they're crying, that their clothes are soiledfrom semen and from blood. and yet their parents show up. sometimes they show upunannounced. everything looks fine. was there any physical evidencein the case that was relevant? or it was the casereally strictly based on
the statements of the kids? it was more testimony. there was a dearthof physical evidence. i don't even recallwhether there was any physical evidence thatwould have indicated one way or another thatthese events took place. i don't think that they'resitting around with any kind of diabolical orconspiratorial agenda to go out and falselyaccuse arnold friedman
or railroad jesse friedman. but nobody's critiquing them. nobody's telling them thatthere's a right way and a wrong way to do this. nobody's saying that we've gota problem in this culture with hysteria around this issue. and so they're really freeto let their fantasies fly. i think the mostoverwhelming thing was the enormous amountof child pornography.
you would just have to walkinto the living room, and it'd be piledaround the piano. there were literally foot-highstacks of pornography, in plain view,all around the house. but photos takenduring the search showed nothing of the kind. but as far as the families wereconcerned, i don't want to use the word that they werecompetitive with each other. i don't know if it'sto that extent.
you know, sometimes it'd be someidle conversation about, you know, another boy, you know,"he was sodomized 5 times, but my son was sodomized6 times," you know, as if that meant something inthe overall scheme of things. there's a whole communityatmosphere that gets created in a mass-abuse caselike this, where the families aretalking to each other, they're going tocommunity meetings, or they're calling onthe phone all the time.
they're seeing each otherin group therapy. and there is definitelyan element when a community defines itself asa victimized community, that if you're not victimized you don't fit intothat community. the families that hadtheir child molested or allegedly molestedbecame very involved and took a greater partof their life at that point. i appreciated their callin the beginning
telling me what happened. and then when i told themthat we looked into it and my wife and i both felt thatnothing happened to our son, it got to be a little pushysituation where they told us that we were in denial, and itabsolutely happened to our son. you fucking bitch! i'm gonna kill you! when jesse gets out of jail,he's a dead motherfucker. when arnold gets out of jail,he's a dead motherfucker.
fuck you! i'll fuckyour whole family! is there any one word orphrase that you could use to describe thatexperience overall? chaos. hysteria. it was really crazy. am i dreaming? is this a nightmare? this can't be happeningto my family. my brother?
and a day doesn't go bythat i don't think of it. it destroyed my family. it tore us apart. i can't say too much about it. we were a family. mommy believes you did it and she believes youshould go to jail, and she believes that shedeserves everything that's left and you shouldn'thave any part of it.
you have to hireanother lawyer? all this woman doesis hire lawyers. i honestly have to tell you,anything that she decides i can't trust. she runs around, "arnie,they don't trust me. " well, we don't trust her. we lived with her for 3, for 2months while you were in jail, and we learned not to trust her. david had just gotten a videocamera when this case broke,
and so he just started recordingthe family falling apart. and mommy believes them,and i don't. i tell them to get lost, and mommy says, "you're right. " and "i've lived with himfor all my life. " and "look at all these horriblethings he's done for me over 30 years," whichamounts to nothing, except this. at some point, davidmaking the videotapes
kind of springboarded to mythoughts about audiotape. and i began to makeaudio recordings of these family arguments. don't scream. the family was screamingat each other. and everyone wanted meto say, "he didn't do it. " well, i wouldn't do that. i said, "i don't know. " they wanted mejust to lie, you know,
and say, "he didn't do it,"whether i believed it or not. and i was so angry at arnoldand what he'd done that i wouldn't do it, and isaid, "well, i don't know. " and i wanted justto tell the truth. that is the truth.i didn't know. my mother abandonedhim, pretty much, wouldn't talk to him, foughtwith him constantly, made him sleep on the sofa. and after 33 years ofmarriage, when your wife,
when you've been accused ofa crime you didn't commit, you spend 6 weeks injail for it, you're trying to builda defense, and your wife leaves you,essentially, my father fell apart. you yelled and screamed aboutwhat, that you ruined her life. she's brainwashed you.you didn't do anything. the police have done it to you. it's not your fault.
the police arerailroading you. but it's not your fault. mommy doesn't believe you. the police picked on you, and that's whothey're going after. it's not becauseyou deserved it. you're taking the blame,and you don't deserve the blame. she's brainwashing you intothinking that it's your fault, and it's not your fault.
she thinks he did it. and if he did it,then she thinks he's going to beconvicted of it. and if he's convicted of it,he's going to go away. yeah, but if, let's say hegoes away for 10 years. he's still gonna come out. no, i'm talking about 50 years.i'm talking about 100 years. she doesn't thinkhe's getting 50 years. i don't think she thinks thathe's going to get 50 years.
ok, so what is he gonna get?twenty years? that's 50 years. what's the difference, well, if he goes to a stateinstitution on state charges, you know he's not coming back. in this case, there wasconsultations between both sides, the districtattorney's office, the families,the defense attorneys, as to what to do witharnold friedman.
we were trying to maintaina sense of normalcy in terms of having dinnerand paying the bills, but it was almost surreal. i mean, i don't thinkany of us had any notion of what was going onor what we were doing or where any of thiswas leading. sir, would you like tocomment on the situation? yes, i think this is a kitchen. i thought it was onlygoing to last a year
and that we would look backand laugh about how crazy we were and how we didn'tknow what we were doing and just sort of laugh. what do you want?my nose? my teeth? wait a minute. there it is. - there's your nose.- oh that's great. i feel like i'mbeing dissected here. and here's mommy and daddy in a rare moment of affection.
what's the matter? - why?- why? why not? that's not all. you've gotten other things. lately but not all. you're the one who's stolenmy heart, dear i think i was the first womanthat he ever really dated.
and he was very reluctantto get married. i sort of said, "we've gotto do this," you know. i could be very so he says, "well, all right. " big mistake. we were delighted. she was effervescent, pretty. they seemed to bevery much in love. they seemed to bevery compatible.
it had been a longtime in coming. my mother, "you're my oldest! get married! i wanta grandchild," you know. my mother is sexually ignorant. as far as i'm concerned, she hadsex, i mean everyone thinks their parents onlyhad sex 3 times, you know for eachof their siblings. but with my mother,i think it was true. and it was like, you know,you read in a book
how do you have sex,and you start here, and then you do step 1,step 2, step 3. and that's somewhat like whatsex was like with arnold, because i used to say to him, "it's called foreplay. it's supposed to be play. it's supposed to be fun. " and he treated it like work. like this is what you'resupposed to do when you do it,
like washing the dishes. if he was so much in the closetand not living with her and not attracted,where was she for 30 years? why didn't she say, "honey,you're not having sex with me. i think i want a divorce. " where was she? i don't think that's the case. either they'reboth crazy, which is a possibility,
or or he was perfectly normal, based according to, youknow, by her standards. you're the one for me it was a difficult marriagebecause of elaine. she had her problems, and ittook a monumental amount of patience and loveand caring to handle it. it wasn't easy for him. it wasn't easy for the kids.
but they were ableto live with it. she was the best mothershe knew how. she loved her kids,and she loved her husband. she wasn't the warmest, most outgoing human beingin the world. when i had the first child,i was just ecstatic, but i didn't knowhow to do it. and i wasn't the most well-balanced person myself.
you know, we all havehang-ups, and that's my hang-up. good things can neverhappen to me, only bad. that's all the snapshots. i know. this whole thing isall the snapshots. did they go and theylooked through each one? they must have. this is ancient film.
holy shit. - dad, what is it?- oh, my god, it's amazing. how did you get this?this is great. - this is my dad's.- who took it? my father. dad, what's that a film of? this is a film of my sister. i had a sister. she died a yearbefore i was born.
my brother knew her whenhe was young, of course. and she died of blood poisoning. it was a horrible,terrible, sudden death. and it destroyed the family. arnold's parents divorced. so arnold's motherhad these two boys, and they were really onwelfare. i don't know. they lived ina basement apartment. evidently, therewas one bedroom,
and the boys slept inthe bedroom with the mother. we shared, all 3 of us,not in the same bed, but we all sharedthe same room, big rooms. and rather than put a,apparently the living roomwas the living room, and then there wasthe kitchen, so we put all the bedsin the one room. and that she dated a lot of menand would bring the men into the apartment, and theywould have sex in the bed
while arnold wasthere listening. and arnold said that,because he saw his mother in bed with a man, thatwhen he was adolescent, he was experimenting,as all children do, and he had sex with his brotherin bed or something like that. and to me, that's not what all children do. arnold sent me this right aroundwhen he started writing me, and it's called "my story,"and it was written in 1988.
and i think it was his attemptto talk about the case but also talk about the casein the context of his life. and it starts out, it says, "this story goes back 50 yearsto when i was a child. " he says, "when ireached adolescence i sought out partners formy emerging sexuality. my first partner, when i was13, was my 8-year-old brother. i had overt sexualrelations with him over a period of a few years. "
i know that my brother has saidthat he messed around with me when i was a kid. and i don't remember any of it. i don't remember anything. i have nothing up here that has me yelling orscreaming or crying or trying to get awayor unhappy or i there's nothing there that. maybe someday a doorwill open,
but it better hurry up,because i'm 65. and at this point in time,i could care less. then he goes on and says,"my next partners were boys my own age, all of whichsexual relations, probably being withinnorms for my age. however, the emotionalimpact of these relations was very pronounced andlasted through my adult life. a more normal situation,as probably happened with my partners, wouldhave been to outgrow
and forget these episodes. however, i literally fellin love with these boys, and the relations were farmore significant to me than they were to my partners. " and then he told me that when hegot to be an older teenager, like maybe in his late teens,he started worrying that he was still attracted tokids that were the same age as his brother had beenwhen arnold was 13, and that really startedbothering him.
and then after he had his ownchildren, he was worried. he started worrying thatmaybe he would molest his own children. and at that point,he went to therapy, and the therapist told him,"no, don't worry. you've got everythingunder control. " the jazzbo mambowith the boogie beat is the newest danceon 52nd street all the cats come runningfrom both near and far
to do the jazzbo mambo8 to the bar come on, light fingers! light fingers, come on! jazzbo mambo jazzbo mambo,8 to the bar you could see thatthis wasn't exactly fred macmurray and"my three sons," right? it always struck us as being a very dysfunctionalfamily, obviously.
and we'd have to, you would have to wonder,wouldn't you, what kind of a familysituation you would have that could producethis kind of crime. what might it be like to grow upin a household like this? i don't know.i can't even imagine. today is september 14, 1975. we just concluded a tourof jungle safari. jungle habitat.
jungle habitat inwest milford, new jersey. here are my 3 brothers. two brothers, you dummy. all right, there are 3 children. what happened was the 3sons were like a gang. like, "this is our gang and mom. " "she's not part of our gang. " and we have, of course,
a pterodactyl. a jewish pterodactyl. shmuck, shmuck, schmuck. the 4 of us got along so well. we had a very similarkind of sense of humor. you know, one guy would saysomething, and then it would, then the next personwould add to the joke. and my mother, who hasno sense of humor, and she just didn'tget that part of us.
and she resented that. when this whole thing blewapart, the men got together, and arnold confided in them. and me? and i was a loyal wife. people told me, "oh, whydon't you leave him? he's a horrible person. just walk out and leave him. " and i didn't.
i went all over town. i raised money for bail. i called every relative i knew. i begged. and i did all thisfor him, right? he was my husband. i loved him. and no one said,"what do you want?" to me. ok. ok, i think we can eat now.
so you're sayingwhat we have is the people who we thoughtwould testify and say that nothing happened. and we are afraid to put themon the witness stand, even though we knowthat nothing happened. we think they will saysomething happened. the friedmans suggested thatwe speak to various people who may have been presentat the time. and some of those people weren'talleged victims at all.
and that the hope was that oneor more of these people would say,"this is just not true. " but that just didn't happen. as far as i'm concernedhe's being, he's so then nothing happened. we begged him to tell usthat something happened, to explain how this whole messcould have happened. that's the only way to explainhow it could have happened other then the fact that thepolice are out of their minds.
we begged him.he told us nothing happened. that's good enough for me.nothing happened. if my father had the abilityto confess to me, yeah, he had donesomething one time, and that's how this whole crazymess got started, it would make a lot more sense. not that i wanted thatto be the case, but you have to find a wayto explain the unexplainable. oh, my gosh.
oh, look at that. happy birthday to you is that a real ice cream? that's what's so odd about it. they had this idealized image of this father as being thissaint-like person this santa claus,messiah, you know. and professionalsin the field say that oh, they have this ideathat children identify
with the abusive parent. when i was about a year or two,my parents separated. and what did i do? "my father is wonderful. my mother is terrible. " the truth ismy father was a rat just like david's father. my father walked out. this is not wonderful.
this is being a rat. my mother was a nag. well, i mean, this is true but look, she stayed with me,she took care of me. so people's visionsare distorted. i never felt angry at my dad. my dad had nothingto do with this. someone knocks on the door and accuses you for a crimeyou didn't commit
you gotta attack attack your attackersand do what you can. and that's all it was. it had nothing to do with there was nothing elsethat was involved at all. we were talking abouthonoring and respecting. yeah, but, yeah,talk about honor and do you honor and respectyour husband? that's whyi don't talk to you.
i said i did honorand respect my husband. oh, okay. but you don't likethat answer. no i don't.i don't believe it, no. ask your father. do i honor and respect you? do you object to my handling do you have any objectionin my relationship with you? do you like itwhen she calls you slime?
she did. did you like itwhen she did? did you like it when the other cases thati've written about those familieshave been much stronger. first of all,they've started from a monolithic feelingof innocence which didn't existin this family because of arnold's pedophilia.
and they just buckled down and everybody gets behindthe defendant the accused family member. people quit their jobs. and, you know people were all sitting aroundthe kitchen table for the next 3 years withstaplers and xerox machines and they're working onthe defense. and then when the defendantis convicted
they're working on the appeal and all family conflictis submerged. why don't you try onceto be supportive of me? well, i'll tell you why. because we all started atthe beginning of this thing and i well let's startfrom right now. ok, let's startfrom right now. all right, let's startfrom right now.
we'll all start brand new. we have a decision makingprocess on the table. great. all the past mistakes,they were mistakes. we're not gonna hold themagainst anyone. great, great. now we're starting afresh. stop. lower your voice,and talk nicely to your sons. alright, now we're gonna do it,starting now.
seth, why don't you call me? do i bawl you out? seth is ...against me and she can't hold itagainst me. well, now it's timeto call it 'cause mommy's sadand stuff. i think therewas a recognition that arnold's case was becomingincreasingly hopeless
because of the childpornography problem because of other peoplecoming out of the woodwork. so the strategy evolved to "what can we do to save jesse?" jesse's lawyervery eloquently said to us "if there's a rowboatand it's sinking and the rowboatis tied to a rock you have to disconnectthe rowboat from the rock and save the rowboat
even though the rockis sinking" meaning you had to separatearnold from jesse. and arnold was going to plead and jesse wouldin some way benefit. i was sitting therepotentially going to trial with no pornographic magazinesadmitted into evidence without an adult pedophileas a co-defendant and i understoodthat sort of reasoning but it makes no senseif my father pleads guilty
and then i go to trial and say,"i didn't do it" when all the jurors have alreadyread in the newspaper that my father plead guilty. and i did not want my fatherto plead guilty. i arranged for mr. friedmanand his family to get a jury roomwhere they could sit and they could discussthese plea options. and while i didn't goinside the room except to knock on the doorand say where we're at
in terms of what mr. friedmanwanted to do there was a lotof yelling and crying and screaming going on,coming out of that room. god damn it! when i screamed at arnold,i screamed "you must do itbecause it'll help jesse. do it for jesse. " and my brothers werejust furious at this notion that my father would go to courtand plead guilty.
and at one pointin all of the chaos my fatherjust started screaming. and there'suncontrollable tears and he picked up a chair. i remember he threw a chair. he was just screaming about howhe wasn't gonna plead guilty. he didn't do anything,he's not gonna plead guilty. and he was furiousat my mother and he wasjust freaking out.
and i remember very clearly sitting down with my fatherin the corner. my mother's over there,brothers are over here. i'm talking tomy father privately and he asked mewhat he should do. and i could have saidto my father "i want you justto walk out of here and go to trialand not plead guilty. " instead, i remembervery clearly saying to him
i wanted himto make the decision. and i remember feeling likea really young kid. kind of looking upto my dad and saying "dad, i," you know"i want you to be my daddy. " and i would have been really,really proud of him if he had juststood up and said "elaine,i'm not pleading guilty. we're going to trial. " but that's not what happened.
former new york cityschoolteacher arnold friedman had nothing to saywhen he left the nassau county courthousein mineola but inside he pleaded guilty tomore then 40 counts of sodomy sexual abuse, and endangeringthe welfare of a child. attempted sexual abusein the first degree an "e" felony, two counts and endangering the welfareof a child a class "a" misdemeanor,one count
in full satisfactionof this indictment? yes. my mother manipulated him. my mother is crazy and my mother has controlover my father. some relationships have that where the womancontrols the man. it's called being pussy whipped. my father and my mother
are not the onlytwo people in the world who have that relationship. my father and motherhad that relationship. my mother and the lawyers said,"take the plea. " they took the plea. i sat there in disbelief. is this my brother? this isn't my brother,he's not a monster. he's a good loving brother
and husband, and son,and citizen, and teacher and this isn't happening. this is a mistake. something as horrendousas child molestation you have to live with yourself. if you didn't do it,you don't plead guilty. i never understood it. we have elaine. - hi.- we have teddy, arnie.
number 4753206. don't.please don't film me. david, i told youi don't want to be on tape. why are you so when we stop talking to her she doesn't want she doesn't want any record,any record at all as if they were can you believe these kids,
that they have to persecute me? david, if your motherdoesn't want to be filmed don't film her. - ok.- come on. when it was all over,they said it was all my fault because i wanted themto take a plea and it had been arranged before. arnold agreedto take a plea but they were very hurt.
i'm still here. yeah. i may not be herevery much longer but i'm still here. that's disturbed. the sentence:10 to 30 years. the crime:sodomizing young boys. defendant arnold friedmanhad pleaded guilty to sexually abusingmore than a dozen youngsters,
but this does not endthe friedman case. there are still numerous sodomyand sex abuse charges pending against arnold's son,jesse friedman. i mean we could try this casein the media. who's gonna, who's gonna buythat i sodomized boys? yeah, i agree with you.i agree with you. no, i really well, i don't thinkwe have to try well, all i want to do
we didn't make a dealwith arnold friedman to spare his son. so his son is facinga multiple count indictment he's facing a considerableamount of jail time and now he's confrontedwith a situation where long island knows that his father admittedhis guilt and there's a reasonablehuman expectation of some people that,you know
where there's smoke,there's fire. and if he did it,maybe his son did it. we know he wasin the same class and he was helping his father. so i think thatwas a difficult thing for jesse tohave to overcome. i always believed jesse. how could this possiblygo on for 4 years children repeatedly sodomizedand sexually abused
with brutalityif you believe the police. and then their parents cometo pick them up right after computer classand not one kid is crying not one kid tellshis mother or father what happened in class not one kid says anything? i find that so incredible that jesse's storythat nothing happened to me was more believablethan the police version
of these horrific acts. jesse and i went we flew in august of 1988 all the wayto madison, wisconsin where we rented a carand drove 90 miles to some town that i couldn'tpossibly give you the name of to a federal prison. who knew more about this casethen arnold friedman? he knew more aboutit than jesse.
i had to wait 40 minutes because arnie was eitherplaying tennis or golf i don't remember what it was. i was outraged. it was a visiting room. jesse was out in the waitingroom at this point and this man had this little boyin there who was his son or his stepson,i don't know but the child was about4 or 5 years old
and they were in the tableright next to us. and i was interviewing arnie and all of a suddenhe leaned over and asked me if i could askthe corrections officer or whoever was in chargein the room if we could get another table. and i asked him why,and he said "that little boy over therebouncing on his father's lap is getting me very excited. "
it took me about 15 minutesto regain my composure. i remember thatlike it was yesterday. i was shocked 'cause even though i wasinvolved in the case now for two months and even thoughi had studied pedophilia and i knew what these mendid to little boys i had never heard somebodyactually say it. and i was absolutely disgusted.
we did change our tableand i spoke to arnie. i interviewed himfor a very long time. he was telling methat the only reason he pled guiltyand went to jail was because he wantedto save his son, jesse. he told me that he wasa pedophile. he told me that he hadhad activity with boys but not in great neck. he told me that he had a housein wading river
a beach resort and that the familyenjoyed vacations there. and he told me thatthere were certain boys he took liberties with and i don't wantto go into it while he was in that area. "in my early 40s,during the summer i did go 'over the line' and did have sexually arousingcontact with two boys
short of sodomy. one of the boys was the sonof a close friend and i feared exposureand loss of this friendship. the boy might havetold his parents but they said nothing so i assumed thathe really had not told them. " that's what? it's one sentence.what does that mean? do you fucking knowwhat that sentence means? i don't even fucking knowwhat that sentence means.
i "sexually aroused?" what the fuckis he talking about? maybe he put his armaround the kid. maybe he took himin a sailboat and he found thatsexually arousing? maybe he was leaningagainst a tree. that's calledsexually arousing contact if you're sexually arousedwhile you lean against a tree. i don't know what that means.
i don't knowwhat that sentence means. when arnold was first arrested,he said "i'm arrested becauseof this magazine. i sent one magazinein the mail and that's why i'm arrested,and it's nothing. it's just nothing. it doesn't count,it doesn't matter it's nothing. " and you know, you liveas husband and wife
you share certain intimacies. i said to him,"tell me the truth. what happened?" he says, "that's it.that's the truth. " so it came out that he hadin fact molested a young man. and we were sittingin the therapist's office and he said,"oh, i just molested two boys. " and i said, "two? two?" i said, "i thoughtyou told me only one. "
"well," you know, and he "it didn't matter.it's nothing," you know. and then i went berserk. and i felt betrayed. yeah, my fatherhad the magazines and yes, my father admittedthat he was a pedophile and had these fantasies and yes, my father admittedthat he was no saint and that there were timesthat he slipped
but i was arrested, too and i'm not a child molester. and i don't thinkit's appropriate for me to have to answerfor the sins of my father. this is what i walk around with. it's just, every day. it's just ridiculous. all i think about is the caseand my career and they're completely,it's like oil and water.
with the case,it's a question of research. my brother's been inthe law library researching his current plan and i'm supposed to go outand make people laugh. it's unbelievably difficultto deal with the case and then go outand entertain people. hey! hi, everyone! we carefully investigatedthis case for trial.
really get into the case,examine, investigate and try to build a defense. while i was out on bail i put all the chargesinto a database so that they could besorted by complainant by time period,by nature of charge. for example,there was one complainant 10-year-old boy says he came to classin the spring of 1986
and duringthis 10-week session where he wasonly over my house for an hour and a halfonce a week he says that there were31 instances of sexual contact. that's 3 times a week every single week... for 10 straight weeks and then the course ends. in the fall, he re-enrolledfor the advanced course
and says that he was subjectedto 41 more instances of anal and oral sodomyin the next 10-week session and nobody said anything. week after week,month after month year after year until after the policecame knocking on doors and asking questions. i went to the doorbell. there were twonassau county detectives
and they said they'd like tospeak to our son with regard tothe friedman matter. they came in and said, "we knowsomething happened to him. " they didn't say, "we believe. " they said, "we know. " and they wantedto speak to him. i remember it was actually kindof a frightening experience because i rememberthey're talking to my parents about thiswithin earshot of me.
i remember actuallyeavesdropping on what they said and what they saidmade my heart race because they were saying that actually quitea few horrible things had happened toa lot of children and i was one of them. and quite honestly,i didn't believe it and i was very confusedand very angry about this,
thinking, well,why are these people going aroundtelling my parents that all kinds ofthings have happened when i have simply norecollection of anything? children wantto please very often. they want to give youthe answers that you want. adults do that as well. so you have to bevery mindful of the fact that when you'reinterviewing a child
if the child startsto answer questions your responses should besomewhat in the framework of "and then what happened?" or, "what happened next?" or, "what do you remember then?" as opposed to "he did this to you,didn't he?" or "she did this to you,didn't she?" that's a very,very dangerous type
of interview process to use. if you talk toa lot of children you don't give theman option, really. you just, you bepretty honest with them. you have to tell thempretty honestly that "we know you wentto mr. friedman's class. we know how many timesyou've been to the class. " you know, we go throughthe whole routine. "we know that therewas a good chance
that he touched youor jesse touched you or somebody in that familytouched you in a very inappropriate way. " and i listenedto them talking to him and it got to a point where it wasn'tasking him what happened. it was more of themtelling him what happened and that when they didn'tlike what he said they kept repeating to himthat they know what happened
and that he should tell. i believe that i remember sayingthat i saw jesse, like chase after a kid or hit a kidor something like that and that's what i testified toto the grand jury. and i remember sayingthat because i felt and i feel likewhen i said that that ended the questioning. and so that mighthave meant that you could infer maybethat they were asking me
a lot of questions,trying to get something and i just wantedto give them something. i mean i don't want to be say i'm a perjureror anything but i did not observeanything like that happening. what i do remember is the detectives putting me undera lot of pressure to speak up. and at some point,i kind of broke down. i started crying.
and when i startedto tell them things i was telling myselfthat it's not true. i was telling myself,"just say this to them in order to get themoff your back. " i came across a document regarding a group of childrenfrom the friedman case who were in therapy and it statedthat many of them had absolutely no recollectionof the abuse
and there was some discussion about whether hypnosiswould be a good idea now, exactly what you're notsupposed to do. it was the kind of therapy that had a really good chanceof messing up kids' memories and implanting false memories. my parents put mein therapy right away. they put me in hypnosis and tried to recall factsthat i had buried.
and that's how i first came out,started talking about it, just through being hypnotizedand everything i recalled thingsthat i would bury. i was able to talk about them. for example, what would besomething that you recall? the actual first time i actually recalledthat i was actually molested. wow, i was actually molested. i can deal with it now.
that was the first time. and you recalled throughhypnosis the first episode? so tell me about that,if you remember. i don't remember much about it. it was so long ago. i just remember thati went through hypnosis came out,and it was in my mind. 19-year-old jesse friedman was arraigned on more than198 additional counts
of child sexual abuse. this brings the total number ofsexual abuse charges to 245. jesse was grossly overcharged and you're basicallyterrorizing the defendant. you're telling the defendant "look, if you plead guilty you know,we'll give you a good deal and, on,you know, 2 charges. but if you insiston going to trial
we're going to put1,003 charges on you. and if you're convictedof all those charges you're gonna rot in jailthe rest of your life. " i was told thatif he went to trial the judge would give3 consecutive sentences. instead of concurrent the sentencingwould be consecutive. i said, "oh, my god. " she just kept telling meover and over
"the only thing to dois to plead guilty and to get thebest deal you can. you can't go to trial. it doesn't matterif you're guilty or innocent. you can't go to trial,because if you go to trial you're gonna go to prisonfor the rest of your life. " i said, "but ma,i didn't do it. " she said,"that doesn't matter. you have to plead guilty. "
you have to understand,this is a 19-year-old kid and he is now facing the mostheinous charge known to man and everyone in the world slowly but surely,was turning against him. i don't care about my parents. i wish it was just my brothers. oh, fuck. i don't care about my mother,that's for sure. if my brothers were ok
then my mother could goto fucking hell. my father is not goingto survive if my brothergets incarcerated. so so when the guilty verdictcomes in on jesse my father'sgonna kill himself. jesse's gonna go to jailfor the rest of his life. seth is gonna move west. fuck fuck.
i received a telephone callfrom jesse asking to see me and jesse told methat he wanted to plead guilty. in 1988, there was no waythat a jury in nassau county who had been readingthe newspaper headlines in "newsday" for over a year those people were nevergoing to listen to anythingthe defense had to say and i was absolutelyterrified of going to prisonfor 100 years.
jesse had alwaysmaintained his innocence. i don't work out dealsfor people who are innocent. and my first reaction was,"i'm not gonna do it. you're not guilty,you're not pleading guilty. " and at that point,he told me that "i have something to tell you. " and with tears rolling downhis eyes, literally he told me that he was abused byhis father growing up and that while he never enjoyedthe sexual part of that
he did enjoy the attentionhis father gave him and being with his father and that not everythinghe had said about nothing happenedwas true. peter panarowas personally convinced that my fatherhad sexually abused me and nothing i could say could dissuade peterfrom this notion. jesse felt thatif judge boklan knew
that he also was a victimof his father that she might considerthe plea negotiations in a more favorable way. he came up with this strategy. it was peter panaro'sfictionalized story that he fed to me and said, "if you say this,it's gonna look good for you. " i told himi wouldn't do it. i told him, "jesse, when youplead guilty in open court
you're gonna have to admit to this typeof anal sodomy 14 times. and i'm not gonnalet you do that unless you can admit it. " he looked meright in the eye always liked to call meby my name before he made a statement and said,"peter, i can admit it. " the only concernthat peter panaro had
was that ethicallyas a lawyer he couldn't lethis client go into court and say something happened that he knew his clienthad told him was a lie. the private investigator wasn'tcoming up with anything helpful. there was not gonna beany defense witnesses. there wasn't any moneyto hire experts. mom was insistent uponthere not being a trial. peter panarowasn't believing me
no matter how many timesi told him nothing happened. i just ran out of options. jesse was a very good baby. i remember when we brought himhome from the hospital and arnie looked atthat baby and he said "that child is marvelous. he's wonderful" and he was so thrilled. and david was the big brother
and he used totake care of jesse. we used to letdavid watch him and he was very protectiveof his baby brother. it's amazing. six months from now i already don't havea father or a mother. six months from nowi'm not gonna have my brother. if i ever watch this i don't know when it's gonna be.
i don't know where i'm gonna be. i don't know what'sgonna happen to my family. i'm so scared. i don't want to haveto spend the next 8 hours screaming with my sonsand fighting with them. then don't. i want them out of this housetomorrow morning. mom i don't give a shit.
i want you out of this housetomorrow morning. you may notgive a shit about jesse but we are here for jesse. what are you alltalking about here? can't you put your anger asidefor one minute? i cannot put my anger asideabout you. you have been nothing buthateful, hostile, and angry ever since this began. ok, jess, we're on.
ta da. i feel like shit. what's today's date? today's the daybefore i went to jail. "went" to jail? - i'm going to jail.- because we're watching it. we're gonna be watching thisafter i'm already out of jail. after 4, 41/2 years because the case gets reopened. at this point in time,my life is as good as over.
it is terminated at this pointonly to resume at a later date. this one'll go,this one'll shatter. the night before jesse's pleawe stayed up all night. maybe i shot the videotape so that i wouldn'thave to remember it myself. it's a possibility because i don't really rememberit outside of the tape. like when your parents takepictures of you do you remember being there
or do you rememberjust the photograph hanging on the wall? even if i'm facing the worstscenario possible tomorrow and for every dayfollowing it i have to think tonightthat it's not gonna be that bad. goodness knows i don't want to looklike my father. goodness knows,i want to separate myself from arnold friedmanas much as possible
and i'm not throwingchairs tomorrow. good. and if this trialwere postponed for 3 years in 3 years, i would win. but here today,at this point trying to start a trialin two weeks i would lose this trial. we feel this way and that iswhat would happen.
so what are you thinking, jess? i'm not. you're avoiding? well, i gotta eat something. i'm proud to say i've managed to leave barelyany gas in the car. see, just our luck we'll be trappedat the house. we'll run out of gasat the house.
- you a child molester, jess?- nope. did you ever do it? never touched a kid. did you do whatthey said you did? i never touched a kid. i never saw my fathertouch a kid. yeah, but still,you must have done it. yeah, but surelysomething has happened. it must, something.
because the policesay it's true. ok, you nevertouched a kid, right? well, if something happened it didn't happenwhile i was there. and it was a minimal incident because the kid didn'tsay anything about it. but the police,how could they be lying? shut up, seth. the children
the 14 children in this caseare clearly victims. no one could ever argue that. the real culprit hereis arnold friedman. the man is a monster. he abused himand he molested him. this can't be overlooked. i can't believe we livein such a cold society that no one could look at thisman and understand that. my father raised me confused
about what was rightand what was wrong and i realize nowhow terribly wrong it all was. i wish i could have donesomething to stop it sooner. i wish there was somethingi could have done. i'm very, i'm i'm just so sorry it happened. judge boklansternly looked down and said that she recommendedto the parole board that he serve the maximum periodof time permitted by law
a statement which i feltwas harsh and unnecessary to a 19-year-oldunder these circumstances. jesse was a victim. there's no question,jesse was a victim but even when he was caught jesse never expressed any kindof sympathy for these kids and as a matter of fact on the day thatthe plea was taken jesse was dancing and singing onthe courthouse steps
while being videotaped byhis two brothers. my brain hurts! it'll have to come out. my brain, but i'm using it! but i'm using it! nurse! they were taking pictures. i remember someonebrought that to my attention. we looked out the window.
because i'm sayingto myself "this is very bizarre. " i mean he's about to go to jailfor the next 6 to 18 years and he's out onthe courtroom steps in some sort oftheatrical performance. that is so funny,when they're all i think it was aboutdistracting ourselves not necessarilydistracting jesse. jesse was
i think he wasthe most comfortable about the whole situation. you know i don't know howhe has always been the most comfortable about it,but he has. ok, right about now we've been waiting fora good two hours or so now because evidently the parents stormed denis dillon'soffice this morning
when they receivedthe news last night that i was to plead guilty and they were not awareof this fact. they were not even awarethat negotiations were underway. they did not want meto have less than 10 to 30 and there are a lot of people probably making all sorts ofangry statements at this point in time. i can imaginewhat they're discussing.
the meeting must have,just like our family. well, there wasn't reallymuch of them anyway but that meansthe meeting's over. that meansthe meeting's over. go ask them, jess. you hold it.i'm not holding it. should i do it, jess? oh, my god. i can't believe this.
he raped my son! get them away from me! they're animals. oh, my god,i don't believe it. wow. after jesse went to jail i know my friendssaid to me "don't you feel, like,terrible being alone in such a big house?"
i said, "no, i feel calm. " that's when i really startedbecoming a person and started to live. elaine divorced himwhile he was in prison. he settled into life there you can't sayit was good in prison but it was as goodas it could get for him. but of course,the torment continued and got worse because of jesse.
my brother nevergot over the guilt. he had talked abouttaking his life because he had this insurancepolicy he had taken out. i think it was $250,000,1/4 million and jesse was the beneficiary. he said, "this is the only thingi have left to give jesse so he has moneywhen he gets out and he can make some kind oflife for himself because i've screwed it upotherwise for him. "
by that time, that clausein the insurance policy where suicide was payablehad come into effect. and this isthe coroner's report. it describes the cause of deathas doxepin intoxication which basically meansthat arnold took a massive overdoseof antidepressants. i took a deep breathand i said "it's over, david. he's out of his misery.
it's over. " i thought it was a blessing because the guilthe was carrying he was so unhappy. he was outof his misery. the rest of the family wasn't but he was. i found it a blessing. let me entertain you
let me make you smile. it's unbelievably difficult. i have to readthese horrible letters about my brother beingalmost killed in prison. my friends call me,i'm crying. "why are you crying?"i can't tell them. none of the peoplethat do what i do know about this story. just the intimationof something like this
can ruin someone's career. and i'm always afraidthat's going to happen. so let me entertain you and we'll havea real good time i feel i will neverreally know the truth. but the one truthful thing or the honest thing we know howard loved his brother. howard loved his family.
loves his family. and i believed himwhen he said he didn't dothose terrible things. i believed him. arnold had a needto confess and he had a needto go to jail. and the sad thing isthat he took his son with him. what's the term about families? dysfunctional?
numero uno. it was not the wayit was supposed to end. people were supposed to realizethat all of this was nonsense and we'd try to go back toliving our normal lives. hey! hi, everyone! i would have to stare at arnoldacross the dinner table and it was justthe two of us. there was reallynothing between us except these childrenthat we yelled at.
we named the cottage"peaceful pond cottage" because we were looking fora place of healing and peace. any comment onyour personal life, sir? it's personal. hey, how you doing? yes! finally. - is that him?- that could be he. shit. room service.
oh, god. you order a son?you looking for me? surprise. hi. look at me. look. ripped by:skyfury