A Massachusetts Parole Board voted in October to grant parole to Gerald Amirault who was at the center of the Fells Acres child care sex abuse case which marked the start of a nationwide hysteria over alleged ritual sexual abuse.
Amirault still maintains his innocence and his conviction, to put it bluntly, was a travesty. Police in the case used techniques to elicit testimony from child witnesses that would simply not be tolerated today. Police told parents to question their kids about sexual abuse and instructed not to take no for an answer, while a pediatric nurse used dolls to elicit tales of sexual abuse from the children and informed them that they were in “denial” if they said that no sex abuse had taken place.
Police maintained that the Amirault’s abused the children to produce child pornography, but never turned up a single such example of this alleged child porn.
The Amirault case was a contemporary witch hunt and it is outrageous that Gerald Amirault had to spend 17 years in jail based on such a miscarriage of justice.
Amirault is slated to be released on parole in April 2004.
Source:
Gerald Amirault gets parole after 17 years. Tom Mashberg, Boston Herald, October 24, 2003.