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FRONTLINE Bulletin http://www.pbs.org/frontline/ - This Week: "Did Daddy Do It?," Apr. 25 at 9:00pm (WTTW) on PBS - Inside Frontline: An e-mail dispatch from producer Michael Kirk - Live Discussion: A chat with the producer, Fri. at 11 a.m. EDT ---------------------------- + This week ... As Americans know all too well these days, the sexual abuse of children is not an easy subject to broach. Still harder is to call into question the testimony of vulnerable minors and the integrity of experts and prosecutors who believe that they are protecting children from unspeakable crimes. But this week FRONTLINE examines a period in the 1980s when prosecutors and the public were swept up in a panic, fueled in part by the media, that led to dozens of infamous convictions for child-molestation in day-care centers around the country. Now, nearly 20 years later, an in-depth re-examination of one particular case calls into question the methods of those who pursued these cases so zealously. In "Did Daddy Do It?," this Thursday night Apr. 25 at 9:00pm (WTTW), FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk and correspondent Peter J. Boyer tell the story of Frank Fuster, a Cuban immigrant who in 1984 was living in the suburban Miami neighborhood of Country Walk when he and his young wife, Ileana, were charged with sexually abusing more than 20 children at their home day-care center. Fuster -- who had prior convictions for manslaughter and child molestation -- was branded a "monster" by the local media and was convicted and sentenced to 165 years in prison, where he remains today. Fuster's case was significant because it established the "Miami Method" of prosecuting day-care abuse cases. This method -- which was copied nationwide -- involved having "child experts" elicit videotaped testimony from young children. The Fuster case also boosted the political fortunes of Florida's state attorney at the time, Janet Reno. But FRONTLINE's investigation reveals new evidence that undermines the seemingly ironclad case against Fuster, including new allegations by Fuster's former wife that she was personally pressured by Reno to testify falsely against her husband. On our website following the broadcast we'll offer more details on the stories of Frank and Ileana Fuster, a closer look at the controversy over the techniques of interviewing children about sexual abuse, and much more. You'll find it all at http://www.pbs.org/frontline/ We hope you'll join us. Wen Stephenson Website Managing Editor FRONTLINE This program will be rebroadcast at the following time(s): Apr. 28 at 11:00pm (WTTW) ---------------------------- + Inside Frontline ... [We asked FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk how the Fuster story came to his attention, and to elaborate on the "Miami Method" developed by Florida prosecutors in the 1980s to go after alleged child molesters. This method also figured in the cases of Grant Snowden and Bobby Fijnje, which Kirk reported on in FRONTLINE's 1998 "The Child Terror." See http://www.pbs.org/frontline/shows/terror/ ] . . . . Several years ago we began researching a program about the panic that surrounded allegations of what is known as "multiple victim child abuse." Many of these cases were alleged to have happened in day-care centers. We came to the conclusion that Miami was a kind of "ground zero" for these cases, so we began investigating stories there. We discovered the Frank Fuster case, known as "Country Walk," and the role played by State Attorney Janet Reno, the child "specialists" Joseph and Laurie Braga, and the local media. The more we looked at the details of this story, the more we became convinced that it and two others (Grant Snowden and Bobby Fijnje) provided the story trajectory we're always after. The Fuster case was the first that employed what we call the "Miami Method." The prosecutors had learned that they would need multiple witnesses, speaking in unison about the details of an allegation of abuse. They devised, with the help of the Bragas, a method of extracting information from the children and videotaping that testimony. A state law was changed to allow the children to testify by closed-circuit television from the judge's chambers. The method also required physical evidence, and in the Fuster case that was the allegation that Fuster's son Noel had gonorrhea of the throat. Finally, the method called for an adult eyewitness, which in Fuster's case was the testimony of his wife, Ileana. On the heels of the Fuster case, the method was applied to the successful retrial of police officer Grant Snowden. Snowden had been previously charged with child molestation but was acquitted when a jury seemed not to believe the young girl who made the allegation. The so-called "Miami Method" actually grew, in large measure, out of the lessons prosecutors learned from the first Snowden case. The Bobby Fijnje case grew out of allegations by members of a church who believed that 14-year-old Bobby, one of the church babysitters, was molesting their children while they worshipped in an upstairs sanctuary. The "Miami Method" was again employed -- and by now the media in Miami were having a field day with the stories of ritual sexual abuse. (There were charges of satanic rituals and other outrageous reports.) The prosecutors charged 14-year-old Bobby as an adult, and he was held in a juvenile detention center for two years before his trial began. Fijnje's lawyers attacked the experts who elicited the testimony from the children. When the jury found Bobby Fijnje not guilty, the child-abuse fever in Miami seemed to break. So these three cases represent the trajectory of the "multiple victim child abuse" story. The fact that Grant Snowden was released by an appeals court and that Bobby Fijnje was acquitted means that of the three stories Frank Fuster's has yet to be revisited -- which is why we have chosen to emphasize his story in our broadcast. --Michael Kirk ---------------------------- + Live Discussion ... Join producer Michael Kirk on Friday, April 26, at 11 a.m. EDT, for a Washingtonpost.com Live Online discussion. For details, see: http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/zforum/02/tv_frontline042602.htm ... or check FRONTLINE's website following the broadcast: http://www.pbs.org/frontline/shows/fuster/ ---------------------------- Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers. National sponsorship of FRONTLINE is provided by EarthLink and NPR. ---------------------------- We're always happy to hear from our viewers. If you have a question or comment about a FRONTLINE program, about our website, or about this bulletin, you can write to us directly by going to: http://www.pbs.org/frontline/contact/ ---------------------------- FRONTLINE http://www.pbs.org/frontline/ You are subscribed to this email as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you wish to unsubscribe please visit http://www.pbs.org/frontline/join/ and fill out the unsubscribe form. Due to the high amount of traffic we cannot process unsubscribe requests by email. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
