March 16, 2016

“Thank you for providing a site to keep this tragedy alive….  I was a daycare/preschool owner/administrator for 20 years ending in 1995. The primary reason I retired early was watching (“Innocence Lost”) on PBS and realizing anyone at any time could accuse me of abuse lies and my life and career would have been ruined….”

– From a letter from a Wisconsin reader

Such fears were not unfounded, of course – or uncommon.

June 12, 2014

“He thinks the continued treatment of these cases as a modern-day episode of mass hysteria does disservice to children and even puts them in danger.

“ ‘We have, over the last 20 years, discounted the word of children who might testify about sexual abuse,’ he writes. ‘We have become more worried about overreacting to child sexual abuse than we are about underreacting to it.’

“If that were the legacy of the day-care cases, it would be a damning one. But when I spoke to psychologists in the field – those Professor Cheit cites respectfully, as well as those he attacks – they gave a different account of the science at the heart of this history….”

– From “Abuse Cases, and a Legacy of Skepticism” by Emily Bazelon in the New York Times (June 9)

Thank you, Ms. Bazelon. In the category of “fat books in desperate search of a reason to exist,” Cheit’s “The Witch-Hunt Narrative” belongs right up there with William D. Cohan’s contemporaneous “The Price of Silence,” an account of the Duke lacrosse case that sympathizes not with the railroaded (and later exonerated!) defendants but with District Attorney Mike Nifong, who was disbarred and briefly jailed for conspiring to rig the case against them.

At the core of each book is the unsubstantiated contention that something surely must have happened, either at a Durham party house and at countless day cares. Fortunately, Cohan and Cheit can only gratuitously smear the reputations of innocent defendants, not put them in prison – unlike Little Rascals expert witness Mark “where there’s smoke there’s fire” Everson.

Feb. 24, 2014

Why would Dr. Richard Kluft “take exception to” and “(raise) the issue of legal liability” over “When Psychiatry Battled the Devil”?

It’s not as if the record of Kluft’s involvement in promoting “satanic ritual abuse” and “multiple personality disorder” could be any longer or better-documented.

And it’s certainly not as if he has ever acknowledged the error of his ways.

In this exchange from a 2009 interview on CBS “Sunday Morning” he confidently posits a nationwide epidemic of undiagnosed cases of MPD:

Tracy Smith: So do you think that there are, what, thousands of people walking around out there with MPD who don`t even know it?

Kluft: Oh, easily.

Smith: Tens of thousands?

Kluft: Easily.

Smith: Hundreds of thousands?

Kluft: Easily.

Smith: Millions?

Kluft: We might be at that level.

Passing off such fantasy as expertise would be knee-slappingly funny, of course, had it not typified the thinking that fostered scores of wrongful prosecutions and ruined thousands of lives….

I remain baffled – what exactly has Richard Kluft done to deserve such obeisance from Psychiatric Times?

Aug. 5, 2013

The little-publicized North Carolina Justice Academy describes itself as “one of six divisions of the N.C. Department of Justice under the administration of Attorney General Roy Cooper… charged with improving the professionalism and effectiveness of criminal justice personnel throughout the state, through training and support.”

Among the academy’s services: an audiovisual library (downloadable here) designed “to provide criminal justice personnel in North Carolina with training and public information materials (including) over 2,573 videotapes, CDs and DVD programs….”

And quite a varied collection it is, ranging from the practical (“Body Searches: Clothed and Unclothed,” “Dusting for Latents”) to the uplifting (“Climb the Ladder of Success and Take your Family with You!”) to the wholly unexpected (Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First?”).

What caught my attention, however, were such titles and descriptions as these:

• “Devil Worship: The Rise of Satanism” (1989) Former satanists, practicing witches, and law enforcement experts explain the vastness and diversity of the movement. Parents are given clues to determine if their children are involved.
• “Treatment of the Ritually Abused Child” (1992) Sophisticated mind control techniques employed by cult members leave their young victims fearful, confused, and deeply traumatized. The special treatment needs of these children are examined in detail through both session segments and on-camera discussions with the therapists.
• “Satanic Cults and Ritual Crime” (1990) Reveals the symbols used by members of the occult world,  highlights criminal activities associated with ritual practices and ceremonies and gives important dates when these crimes are most likely to occur during the year.

Is it possible these documentaries informed the beliefs of the Little Rascals prosecutors? Could Assistant Attorney General Bill Hart have checked them out and hosted a ritual-abuse film festival for Nancy Lamb and H.P. Williams? Sounds crazy, sure – but not a bit crazier than the claims ginned up by the therapists and prosecutors.

Footnote: I had hoped to borrow these films myself – I was especially eager to watch those “on-camera discussions with the therapists” – but a library technician at the Justice Academy told me she was “only allowed to send materials to folks in law enforcement.”