CrimLaw

A man is convicted of sexually abusing children. All except one have now come forward to deny it ever happened and

it is clear, according to a scathing report by the state attorney general's office in 1986, that Kern County had a history of using flawed interview techniques and improperly trained deputies in molestation cases.

. . .

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 former 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 one another. The children, ranging from 6 to 8 years old, never implicated adults in the sex play until deputies began investigating in 1984.

. . .

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.

The prosecutors have stayed the course using an affidavit from the man's estranged son as proof that all the events that everyone else is claiming never occurred actually did but it seems awfully weak.