Alleged child molester free on parole
Former day care worker served 18 years
NORFOLK, Massachusetts (AP) -- A former day care worker is free on parole, 18 years after he was convicted of raping eight children in one of the nation's most notorious and disputed child molestation cases.
Gerald Amirault, 50, left Bay State Correctional Center on Friday with his wife, Patti, his attorney and about a dozen family members and friends. He waved and smiled nervously.
"It's a bit overwhelming," Amirault said. "I'm grateful to my wife and my children and the family and friends I have that are surrounding me. This is what's representative of Gerald Amirault and his family, not this case, this Fells Acres fraud."
Amirault planned to return home to Malden, the city just north of Boston where he and his family ran the Fells Acres day care center.
The center was the site of the child-abuse scandal that led to Amirault's 1986 conviction on charges of molesting and raping eight 3- and 4-year-old children.
His sister, Cheryl Amirault LeFave, and his late mother, Violet Amirault, were convicted in a separate trial and released in 1995.
The case came to symbolize changing attitudes toward the mass prosecution of child sex abuse cases. The Amiraults argued they were victims, railroaded by questionable testimony from child witnesses who they said were badgered by well-meaning therapists until they concocted their tales of abuse.
Amirault pledged Friday to clear his family's name and challenged the news media to investigate the case.
"I'm going to fight this case to the day I die," he said. "I'm going to get my name back."
His accusers stand by their testimony, which included stories of Amirault dressing up as a clown and raping children with knives, and the ritualistic slayings of animals.
But police never found evidence and the interview techniques used by investigators in the case have since been discredited.
Amirault, who was a handyman, driver and caregiver at the center, maintained his innocence throughout his imprisonment, refusing to undergo counseling for sex abuse because he viewed it as an admission of guilt. The convictions have been criticized for more than decade after media reports raised questions about how the evidence was gathered.
The state Board of Pardons recommended in July 2001 that Amirault's sentence be commuted, but then-acting Gov. Jane Swift rejected the recommendation in February 2002.
He was granted parole last October and Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley announced earlier this month that there was not enough evidence to have Amirault committed indefinitely as a sexually dangerous person.
His accusers say the pain reawakened by his release has been amplified by the doubts about the case.
"I think people look at us as if he's the innocent person and we're the evildoers," said Harriet Dell'Anno, whose daughter, Jaime, testified against Amirault.
Several mass child-abuse convictions from the 1980s have been overturned, including those involving workers at the Little Rascals day care center in Edenton, North Carolina. In another notorious case involving the McMartin Preschool near Los Angeles, charges were dropped by prosecutors after juries deadlocked on criminal charges.
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