"[30], On February 10, 2015, Jesse Friedman was back in state appellate court seeking to have Nassau County prosecutors turn over to him the remainder of their evidence against him. There is a real world out there, and I think it is our job to try to understand it.". Jarecki had been pursuing one of New York's most successful party clowns, David Friedman (aka Silly Billy) for months. According to the victims, fear was another answer. Mom says that she and my Uncle Howard reconnected after many years of not speaking to each other. "In my family, everything got washed under the rug," Jesse said. The woman flew into a huff. On the one hand, death sentences are on the rise (29 last year and 22 so far this year), and the public still supports this ultimate penalty for the most serious crimes. Sofia Coppola, honored by the New York critics with the best director award for "Lost in Translation," said she hired Bill Murray because of his reputation as an off-the-cuff comedian. None of the parents knew what the discs contained, police said. But the 107-minute film is not a police procedural: "Frankly, the police story had been told" in news accounts at the time, said Jarecki, during a brief stop in New York (he lives with his family in Rome), before heading on to Sundance. In 1987, Arnold Friedman, a former school teacher in Long Island, was charged with sexually abusing 10-year-old boys who had taken computer classes in the basement of his house. He said he just wanted to return to his first love of filmmaking after making millions of dollars as a businessman. They filed the charges after interviews with many of Friedman's students. In one instance, Det. And what he produces is a fascinating document. We see him, through the home movies, playing on the beach with his kids, opening presents, etc. They found Newsday articles summarizing the case and identifying David Friedman as the eldest son of Arnold Friedman. Manhattan attorney Earl Nemser said Wednesday he's filing papers in Nassau County Court seeking a new trial for the 34-year-old Friedman, the youngest member of the Great Neck, N.Y., family featured in the film. A customs agent flew to Ottawa and mailed 2,500 fliers to people whose names had been compiled from previous raids and interviews. After the drop was made, the agent would radio a team of federal and local officials waiting nearby with a search warrant. It's not going to give me back my life. I talked with Jesse, his mother, victims and their parents, police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, psychologists and many other players. Friedman Helen, age 91, of Mpls. Other letters followed; the correspondents became "Stan" and "Arnie." They said he told them their children would have to testify in open court if the case went to trial. These revelations are profoundly self-incriminating, even through Arnold may have gone to prison on wrongful charges. The way her son described it at the time was that "they did things to him that made him feel like he was going to go to the bathroom," his mother said. He has stated that this was because he wanted the parole board to read his statement in the future when considering the possibility of releasing him before he served his full 18 year sentence. Twenty-five years ago, when Friedman was 19, he pled guilty to 25 counts of abuse. Memories aside, the physical scar will never let him forget. Friedman had maintained his innocence from Nov. 26, 1987, when he and his father, Arnold, were arrested, until about three weeks ago when he went to the district attorney in search of a deal, Panaro said. It is common for them to live behind facades so respectable that even the parents of their victims are shocked by the disclosures of abuse. The father died in prison in 1995. Police realized that they had found something that went far beyond pornographic magazines. and Mr. Friedman said to me to be quiet. Once this determination has been made, the court turns to whether any condition or [**4] combinations of conditions of release will protect the safety of the community and reasonably assure the defendant's appearance at trial. ", She said the popularity of the documentary and Friedman's return to court asking that his conviction be overturned was "disgusting" and "nauseating.". He worked for a short time as an engineer, his wife said, but quit because he detested the odors. Sean Penn took best actor for "Mystic River," and best actress went to Charlize Theron for "Monster." Partly because the story was told at the time in such a simplified way. But here's the problem, filmmakers say: Telling a story, any story, demands a dizzying number of difficult, subjective editorial choices. They think people can see they've been sexually abused." Nassau County Court Judge Abbey Boklan recommended that, despite Friedman's abused childhood in a family "devoid of love," he should serve the full 18-year maximum sentence behind bars. I was open to whatever I might find. Jarecki shows off this footage as evidence of a truly dysfunctional family in various stages of denial. However, the judge who heard the Friedman case, the detectives who worked on it and Jesse Friedman's attorney at the time said filmmaker Andrew Jarecki's examination was incomplete and biased. "Jesse is such an unusual guy," Mr. Jarecki says. "Your son was a wise guy, and I didn't like his answers," Detective Hatch tells the mother after the boy adamantly denies ever being abused or witnessing abuse. When asked for comment, Nassau County prosecutors told "Nightline" their report spoke for itself. All of which is true. (2) In 1986, Arnold Friedman mail-ordered "Boy Love," a magazine featuring graphic pictures of men having sex with children, which led to a sting operation. "Fundamental fairness" requires a change of venue, Friedman lawyer Mark Gimpel is telling the Nassau County Court. At the trial, defense lawyer Allen Brown maintained that Herbort thought he was making a legal purchase. Herbort, he argued, was "an old man being manipulated" by the Feds. Stan sent two photos and on Feb. 8, 1986, Arnie mailed a large envelope with a handwritten note. The documentary reveals Arnold had abused his younger brother when he was 8 and admitted having sex with boys. A little shabby, a little seedy, but a real classroom," said a woman who enrolled her two sons. Friedman, who now says he is innocent, was 19 when he pleaded guilty. How it could have happened without anyone knowing it was going on? Yet Arnold. He talked to the judge, the detectives, the prosecutor, some of the people who were in the computer classes, [and] once I knew that Andrew knew that I wasn't a child molester, I could trust him again - because I knew he wasn't going to make a movie that he thought was a lie.". He was a retired 42-year journalist, associate editor of the Long Island Press in New York, editor of the Springfield . Patricia Brimlow, who also worked on the case, denied any police pressure on the victims, saying, "The children, witnesses, or their families were never coerced or manipulated by police.". Compulsive masturbation and fear of going to a specific place can also occur. "There's no way to know at this point what that will mean," he explains to Jewsweek. One person who apparently did consider himself too close for comfort is Nassau County Judge David Sullivan, who stepped aside in January from hearing the post-trial motions. "I have the best memories of my childhood," Friedman began, before trailing off. ", In "The Thin Blue Line," he says, "you never see my investigation. This is an open letter to the 13 former children: You are the invisible actors in "Capturing the Friedmans." Though the film does not try to hide Arnolds homophobic tendencies, it does question whether he did molest his students and if his son was actively involved in the same. For the past year, Andrew Jarecki, the maker of the documentary movie "Capturing the Friedmans," has recommended his work to the attention of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with an energy and originality worthy of his film. Imagine they are one and the same. Goldstein, 18, has pleaded not guilty to 118 similar counts and is free on bail. 47 mins. CYNTHIA McFADDEN, NIKKI BATTISTE and GEOFF MARTZ. In that recording, the detectives made the mother leave the room while they told the boy that Arnold Friedman had confessed that "he sodomized a lot of children," and that two other boys "both say that they saw [you] engaged in it." For example, the compulsive habit of documenting every aspect of their lives on film or videotape suggested a level of narcissism and sense of self-importance above and beyond that of families who document special occasions. Four other victims who have retained a lawyer to fight Jesse Friedman's motion to vacate his guilty plea also criticized the film. Arnold Friedman Birth 28 Dec 1921 Death 19 Aug 1999 (aged 77) Burial . Arnold was born in New York, NY in 1931, child of the late Barbara Friedman and the late Martin Friedman, an expressive impressionist. We were just goofing around for the camera. The reason for his death hasn't been disclosed. Gary and his brother both wrote supportive letters to Mr. Friedman while he was in jail. Dreamy sequences of al fresco Great Neck are interwoven with the case's various talking heads - who include detectives, journalist Debbie Nathan, prosecutors, defense laywers and other alleged victims - the resulting tone being one of verite unreality. Agents entered a house thick with garbage and reeking from urine. Sometimes I respect the fact that a front line expose would have gone a long way to establishing my innocence, but that doesn't mean that many people would've ended up seeing it. When he was 8 or 9 years old, Jesse said, he stumbled upon his father's cache of kiddie porn. What he wound up with couldn't have been more different. What was your impression when your brother David first brought out the video camera after the police had begun investigating you and your father for molesting children in your father's after-school computer class? The sentence is to run concurrently with a similar federal one that Friedman received earlier for sending child pornography through the mails. The children were unable to identify the two positively in police line-ups. He has been in the prison since March 28, when he was sentenced to 10 years for sending child pornography through the mail. Despite Friedmans efforts at normalcy, his exoneration fight means a stream of legal filings and meetings with lawyers. We help them to understand they're victims. The project he started in early 2000 -- on the lives of birthday party clowns -- was to be his first full-length documentary. My prediction has proved accurate," Boklan said. Frustrated because no arrests had been made, a group of parents decided to confront the teacher at his home. Fifteen minutes later, government officials and Nassau police, armed with a warrant, raided the home. The plot gets even murkier after it is made clear that parents used questionable methods like hypnosis to bring out a confession from their child. The smile gleaming on his tired face is captured on video by his eldest son David, who keeps fidgeting with the zoom dial. He went to therapy out of fear that he would molest his own children. Jesse Friedman, 19, during an appearance before Nassau County Court Judge Abbey Boklan, admitted he fondled and sodomized 13 youths, and photographed one of them in a sexual scene. What else do we know about the Friedmans? The ruling strongly criticized the judge, prosecutors and police and suggested the case be reviewed. "He was almost in tears because they took his books. He was 81 years old and lived in Tucson. "They are very loving people. A motion seeking such detention is permitted only when the charge is for certain enumerated crimes, 18 U.S.C.S. It was during his teenage years that Jesse helped his father teach the computer classes in their home. For verisimilitude, he borrowed the euphemistic language and complicated ordering instructions from the mailings of real Scandinavian distributors. When one came to a CBS 17 viewer, they asked consumer investigator Steve Sbraccia to check it out. At that time I did not understand the dynamics of human sexuality. As the boy waited in a courthouse corridor to be sworn to testify before one of three grand juries convened in the case, a prosecutor asked if he believed in God. Another's stutter has grown worse. Police said the children were extensively videotaped and photographed. Dr. Arnold J. Friedman is an obstetrician-gynecologist in New York, New York and is affiliated with Maimonides Medical Center. Agents report that most suspects are ashamed and contrite. "I'm a perfectly healthy, adjusted heterosexual.". annotated Bibliography on "Capturing the Friedmans". But with funding from Jarecki, who apparently became a believer while making the film, lawyers for Jesse Friedman, now 34 and free after serving 13 years behind bars, filed a motion in Nassau County Court last week to vacate the younger Friedman's conviction. Others, myself included, have come, via the film, to the precisely opposite opinion: that the case against Friedman - and his son Jesse, who was indicted with his father and served 13 years in prison - was largely a matter of law-enforcement overkill and communitywide hysteria. If he claimed he was innocent, the parole board would consider him a potential repeat offender and keep him in jail. What Arnold and Jesse admitted under oath: The film shows--but minimizes the fact- - that Arnold and Jesse admitted to molesting 13 boys, ages 7-11. -Affidavit of Judd Maltin, 440 motion, January 8, 2004, In addition, a former computer student states in his affidavit that he never used pornographic computer games in the Friedman home.]. We were never hypnotized to tell our stories. [Eugene Hernandez contributed to this report. He said Arnold and Jesse made him and others play leapfrog naked. Look at the system then and now responsible for this case. Thirty minutes after police arrived, she got home to find neighbors, reporters and camera crews gathered out front and her husband inside in handcuffs. No jury ever sat in judgment over Jesse. "This is the constant reminder I live with every day," Gregory said, "that I was abused. (She and Arnold eventually divorced.) OPINION: [*48] Arnold Friedman appeals from Judge Costantino's order of pretrial detention. It became, in some ways, an extension of the film, which raised questions about the fairness of all aspects of the case, from the police investigation to the conviction to the media coverage. The festival hit is Russia's submission for the foreign-language Oscar, and it also has a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign film. A.G., according to Gary, said that as far as he knew Mr. Friedman never did anything. "It hit me like a bolt from the blue," she says. Hope Davis figured out one way to avoid anxiety on the set of "American Splendor." "I've thought of prequels and sequels," he said. You were thrust into the spotlight recently when ''Capturing the Friedmans,'' the documentary movie about your family and the conviction of you and your father on charges of sexually abusing students who came to your house, had its premiere in New York. 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? Though he was not one of the 14 accusers, he said he also lied to police to get them off his back. "I'm standing strong, and I'm-- I have more fight in me than I've ever had before. The oldest films, taken by Arnold's father, show little Arnold, his brother and a sister who died in childhood. The odds are, you wouldn't imagine Jesse Friedman. Abuse experts claim the film distorts the truth and perpetuates myths about child sexual abuse that will harm victims and benefit perpetrators. The games that were discovered by the police were in common circulation among the community of Great Neck youth who used personal computers and with whom I had traded software. He said he couldn't help himself," says Schoren. In other words, the makers of Capturing the Friedmans made a studied decision to minimize the historical context of the charges for the sake of drama.
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