Convicted molester seeks prison release
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Stoll was one of dozens arrested in Bakersfield in the 1980s for child molestation.
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BAKERSFIELD, California (AP) -- John Stoll has been imprisoned for 20 years based solely on the testimony of six children who claimed he molested them. Most of those witnesses, now adults, have come forward to say they lied.
Only Stoll's son maintains his father molested him.
Stoll's case was part of a wave of hysteria concerning child molestations that swept the nation in the 1980s and led to the arrest of hundreds of people, including dozens in Bakersfield.
Many later had their convictions overturned for reasons including prosecutorial misconduct and coercive interview techniques now believed to produce false statements from children.
Stoll is up for parole next year, but a release without vindication could send the 60-year-old man to the state's hospital for sex offenders indefinitely. Perhaps his last hope is a habeas corpus hearing on Monday.
"I just want to clear my name," Stoll said in a jailhouse interview with The Associated Press. "It's all I've got left."
In Bakersfield in the 1980s, 46 people were arrested in eight alleged child molestation rings. Thirty were convicted, eight had their charges dropped and eight struck plea deals to stay out of jail.
Twenty-two of the convictions were later reversed for reasons including legal technicalities, prosecutorial misconduct or faulty jury instructions. The rest served out their sentences. One died in prison. Some, but not all, were vindicated.
It is still unclear whether any of the molestations ever even occurred.
But it is clear, according to a scathing state attorney general's office report in 1986, that Kern County had a history of using flawed interview techniques and improperly trained deputies in molestation cases.
Although the state report did not cite Stoll's case, it criticized the techniques used by the same lead investigators who arrested Stoll.
Stoll was convicted along with two other men and a woman of abusing six children at sex parties that allegedly included sodomy, group sex and pornographic photography.
Stoll claims it all began when his ex-wife alerted sheriff's deputies after his 6-year-old son, Jed, told her that he and his friends had been playing sexually inappropriate games with each other. The children, ranging from 6 to 8 years old, never implicated adults in the sex play until deputies began investigating in 1984.
District Attorney Ed Jagels spearheaded the molestation cases and he still prides himself on a tough-minded approach to crime. His office's Web site boasts that during Jagels 20-year tenure, Kern County has sent more people to prison per capita than any major California county.
But four of Stoll's accusers testified in January that the molestations never occurred. They said they were manipulated by overzealous investigators who dogged them for hours in interviews, away from their parents, until they fabricated the stories. A fifth witness testified he has no memories of what did or didn't happen.
Still, some details are far from clear: the sixth victim, Jed Stoll, still insists his father molested him.
"I know my father was not falsely convicted of child molestation because he molested me," he wrote last year in a signed declaration to the Kern County District Attorney's Office.
Stoll blames his son's position on a bitter custody dispute, saying his ex-wife had filled Jed's head with lies. Efforts by The Associated Press to reach Jed Stoll were unsuccessful.
Kern County authorities maintain Stoll is guilty, even though two of his co-defendants had their convictions overturned on legal technicalities and the county agreed to pay $4.2 million last year to people vindicated in other cases.
Stoll's fate now rests with the judge presiding over his habeas corpus hearing, his last chance. He has exhausted his appeals.
Stoll's lawyers have long argued that, absent any other evidence against Stoll, the recanted testimony proves he never committed the crimes.
"The bottom line in this case is there is no rationale for why five men would take the witness stand now and testify on behalf of the man who supposedly molested them," said Kathleen Ridolfi, who directs Northern California's chapter of the Innocence Project.
Complicating matters further, a convicted child molester, Grant Self, was renting Stoll's pool house when the investigation began. Stoll claims he did not know about Self's record.
Prosecutors presented no physical evidence at trial. None of the children were ever examined by doctors. The case rested on testimony alone -- and the jury convicted.
The lead sheriff's investigator, Conny Ericsson, refused to comment when reached at his retirement home in Redding, California.
Eddie Sampley was 7 when he says he falsely testified against Stoll. Guilt has been his shadow for 20 years. But like the others, he never came forward until the Innocence Project's investigators contacted him.
"I don't know why I couldn't have been stronger and not lied back then," he said. "They used me to get what they wanted, to put Mr. Stoll away."
Copyright 2004 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
