Reaction to Movie: Capturing the Friedman's

This movie made a very deep impression on me. I often watch the same movie twice back-to-back, as I am sometimes am overwhelmed by unfamiliar material or situations which the second viewing elucidates. This time, however, my second viewing was from a diametrically opposed standpoint from the first, an unheard of phenomenon. During my first viewing, I submitted to the subtle implications of the featured interviews and footage suggesting the Friedman's were innocent. In my second viewing, I revisited every single piece of evidence and interpreted from the newly-held guilty-verdict perspective.

My position now is that the essential charges filed against the Friedman's are valid. Both father and so are guilty on at least some accounts of sodomy committed in Great Neck (as opposed to the admitted guilt by Arnie of two sodomy incidents in the 50's during a beach resort vacation). To me, the most convincing evidence that Jesse is guilty is his own admission to his lawyer, Peter Panaro, that he was sexually abused by his father and in an attempt to endear himself to his father he participated in some of the sexual abuse incidents that (allegedly) took place in these computer classes. This admission, according to his lawyer, was accompanied by emotional tears of guilt and was done voluntarily by Jesse after he decided against taking the case to trial. Panaro even refused initially to plea-bargain the case claiming that he doesn't make deals when his client is innocent. Jesse insisted that he "can honestly admit to the 14 counts of sodomy" and that's when they agreed to the plea bargain. Jesse also broke down in tears during his sentencing and essentially repeated this statement to the full court in front of the video cameras. In his Geralso Rivera interview while in prison he also fully admitted his guilt. Thus, his backtracking on his admission during and after the production of the film claiming that he was forced to agree to the plea-bargain because he "ran out of options" and his lawyer pressured him to do so, is --in my opinion-- untrustworthy.

Also, the fact that the film completely omits the Geraldo Rivera interview is evidence that the director was not even-handed and objective in his presentation of the case. As Judge Boklan said in the post-screening discussion, Jarecki distorted the facts in order to create "theatrics" and a riveting movie.

Some other striking points follow:

David (Jesse's brother), who naturally had no first-hand knowledge of the atrocities committed by his dad and brother, succumbed to his emotion. Instead of facing the truth he perniciously assumed a state-of-denial approach to this scandal. To a lesser extent, this was also the approach of Arnie's brother Howie, but Howie never makes the claim that the charges are false. He just is incredulous about them and severely traumatized by the shock of such revelations. In some of the home movie scenes we see hos David is repeatedly being his dad's spokesman and claiming on his behalf that his dad never committed those crimes and he should therefore plead not-guilty, contrary to the advice of his mom, Elaine. In all this time, Arnie never backs up his son; he remains aloof of all the name-calling and back-and-forth accusations between the children and their mom. If he was really innocent, why didn't he speak up during those occasions?

It all started with the exposure of kiddy porn magazines delivered to Arnie. During the first search of his house, nothing else was known or being charged against him. However, it rightly prompted the cops to interview the children who attended Arnie's computer classes. I don't believe that the cops had a prior agenda against him at this stage. Why would they? He was a very well-respected member of the community! There would have been absolutely no motive for the cops to basically put those vivid descriptions of sodomy into the mouths of the children through cuing, as the defense claims. There must have been --at some point-- (seemingly the first children interviewed on the class list), children who freely volunteered information against Arnie when asked whether Arnie did anything inappropriate to them (and remember, there was probably cause for such questioning based on the porn magazines).

Having said this, I should also point out that from what I gather, it seems that the cops employed shoddy interviewing techniques by leading the children on through inappropriate forms of questioning like: isn't it true that Arnie did so-and-so to you? If I were a judge I would seriously consider not admitting such evidence in court. The cops should have operated more prudently. There is a possibility/likelihood that some of the sodomy accounts were simply made under pressure in order to satisfy the demands of the cops from the children. But on the essential question of whether Arnie committed some acts of sodomy against at least some children some of the time, I have to say that the answer is "yes, beyond a reasonable doubt". Under the circumstances, it is actually quite normal for kids not to report such incidents and for there not to be any physical evidence. Lack of discovery of the photographs and videos allegedly taken of the sexual acts is also not an indication of innocence. It is reasonable that the detectives would not discover such photos/videos during the first search or that he discretely hid them somewhere where they couldn't be found or that they had been destroyed/disposed by then. In this case I must say that discovery of this material would definitely strengthen the prosecution's case but lack of discovery is not evidence against it.