", Testimony on both sides of every issue moved Jarecki. If this flawed documentary film has a certain "haunting" brilliance, as many movie critics have said, you are what haunts it. It is about the elusiveness of truth, despite the seemingly best efforts of those involved to grasp it. Both Arnold and Jesse Friedman pleaded guilty to dozens of counts of child molestation in 1988. Society, justifiably confused, found in child abductions and sex abuse an oasis of outrage: a violation it could attack without fear of contradiction, and without ever having to explain itself. And that was the start of the film Jarecki ended up making. Because anger comes across in his performances and in his sarcastic personal style. As a reward for keeping quiet, children were allowed to take computer discs home to copy. He said both father and son committed forcible sodomy on him multiple times. "Especially in sex cases, you always ask for inconsistent statements in the discovery phase since we have learned that these techniques can be faulty in and of themselves and, also, when abused, can produce false results," Barbuto said. The movie, which reconciles gravely serious content with gallows humor and exploitable oddness, is playing at both the Cineplex Odeon Dupont Circle 5 and Landmark Bethesda Row Cinema. None of the pictures or tapes were found during two searches in late 1987 of the Friedman house at 17 Picadilly Road. However, the Bail Reform Act does not permit detention [**5] on the basis of dangerousness in the absence of risk of flight, obstruction of justice or an indictment for the offenses enumerated above. He appears to relish describing how one of the Friedmans put semen on a stick of gum and forced him to chew it, and how Arnold once ejaculated into a glass of orange juice and forced the class to drink it. There are no such quotes in any interview in the film.]. But most people, he continued, focus squarely on the case. Police have given the following account of what happened in Arnold Friedman's computer class: What the parents did not see were the pornographic magazines interspersed on shelves along with legitimate classroom materials. Last June agents came upon a nightmare in Conneaut, Ohio, when they searched the home of David McNutt. Frances Galasso, the retired detective-sergeant who was in charge of the Friedman case, defended the integrity of the investigation. "Had Jesse known at the time about the doubts which the prosecutor knew about, it could have been used in his defense," Nemser said. The latest sign of our collective denial is the nomination of a seriously flawed film for an Oscar. I still say everything is status quo. I can challenge the conviction in newly discovered evidence if someone comes forward and changes their testimony. When the arrests occurred, the cameras kept rolling. They'd have to come to court and testify to police misconduct and testify they were never abused in computer classes.". "The judge could order the attorneys to come into court and make oral arguments. Both federal and state prosecutors said as a rule they always prefer to avoid taking child molesters to trial. So what are the odds that Arnold Friedman had hundreds of boys of just the age he liked in his home for computer classes on Saturday afternoons for six years and never once indulged his predilections? And there is even discussion, according to one Nassau County, N.Y., official, of getting clearance to retrieve all documents and testimony in the case because of the renewed public interest in the story of the Friedmans. His brother David comes off as a man so gripped by anger and disappointment that he starts to believe his own claims, even when they can't possibly be true. The father of a 9-year-old victim said the parents have become very close to one another throughout the ordeal of the investigation and prosecution. Back in 1987 and 1988, the. After he graduated from Lincoln High School in Brighton Beach, Arnold went to Brooklyn College and then Columbia University, where he studied chemical engineering. Or propaganda for a pedophile? They thought they were doing a good thing it's hard to really find fault or blame.". In fact, citing the DVD, Jesse's defenders filed a motion in Nassau County Court in January to annul his conviction. "I think I'd like you to send me something (sort of good faith) and I will forward this rather precious book to you.". On May 13, 1988, Arnold was sentenced by Nassau County Court Judge Abbey Boklan to a concurrent 10 to 30 years in prison for sodomy, sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. These spectacular allegations have since been exposed as utterly false. Once, when she asked her son what he was learning in the class, he and a classmate looked at each other with "sheepish grins on their faces" and giggled. In the film, a still-bewildered Elaine Friedman - who was Arnold's wife and the mother of his three sons, David, Seth and Jesse - recalls the shock of the unfolding events: "We had a middle-class home, educated. In addition, a third person charged with abusing the students, Ross Goldstein, a neighbor who later pleaded guilty and aided the prosecution, corroborated several of the victims' stories. No pediatrician noticed any scarring, tearing, bleeding to suggest any abuse. All these years later, he can still close his eyes and feel the haunting stare of the wiry young man who he said started fondling him a few weeks into computer classes when he was 10 years old. So which is the truth -- his admission or his recent retraction? What is most striking is not his case, nor even his appeal. "Thinking doesn't make it so. "He never really spoke too much, but his feelings came out in his music and that's what really attracted me. 1987). The Friedmans and a neighbor, Ross Goldstein, who was arrested in June, were charged in a series of indictments with more than 400 counts of various forms of sexual abuse involving 7to 11-year-olds who were students in Arnold Friedman's computer classes. We are in serious denial, as a culture, about child abuse and its brutal costs - both to our youth and to our nation. "You tried to be fair, but I don't think you were.". Elaine Russo Friedman is a 60 year old female who lives in Edgartown, Massachusetts. They also found a list of 80 names and phone numbers handwritten in Friedman's tortured, tiny scrawl. His mother comes off as partially insane and insensitive at best. They were on welfare as a result.". Print must refer to BocaNewsNow.com. But Jarecki and David got along well. Their parents would get uptight about things like that, he said, but they could talk to him about anything. Ultimately, Arnold pleads guilty to the charges against him in the hope of saving his son, but in vain. Innocence was what her son lost, she said. That Jarecki, the founder of Moviefone, would be in such a position seemed improbable just a few years ago. [This false statement about pornography found on classroom shelves is directly contradicted by the November 3 and November 20 police Search Warrant Inventories, the authoritative documents on what was found in the house and where. Many of us have physical scars from what was done to us. "Some people look at it and say he's trying to beat it on a technicality. "So it's ironic," he says, "that this story would come to me and in such a disarming, roundabout way. The oldest films, taken by Arnold's father, show little Arnold, his brother and a sister who died in childhood. Speaking to him the day after the documentary of his alleged crimes and subsequent imprisonment lost its bid for the Best Documentary Oscar, Jesse came off as everything you'd least expect. She lived there with her parents and her brother, Armin. Elli's Story | Museum of Jewish Heritage Holocaust Curriculum So which is the truth -- his admission or his recent retraction? Though many witnesses are brought to suggest that the police overreached in prosecuting the Friedmans, there are no simple answers offered in this movie. While interviewing potential subjects in 2000 for his then-planned clown film, Jarecki came across David Friedman, whom he describes as "the No. Whatever the truth, the documentary captures a real story filled with very real pain. Is it the uncle? "Let's go with the supposition that Jesse was innocent of the charges against him," the filmmaker says. The investigation into the Friedmans' activities intensified in March after Arnold Friedman pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 13 boys, Onorato said. Both defendants were exonerated, but not before their family business was ruined, their reputations trashed and the son had spent five years in jail, unable to make bail. HN3Title 18, U.S.C. He said: "I still haven't found anyone who gave credible evidence of Jesse's guilt. That shows you how perilous a position Jesse was in, because we do a lot of work in the film to identify them as separate people in separate situations.