Opinion ID: 173346
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Petitioner's Guilty Plea & Sentencing

Text: Petitionerwho was then only nineteen years oldalleges that he faced enormous pressure to plead guilty. The motion he made for a change of venue had been denied. The leak described above significantly added to the already hostile atmosphere that made a fair trial impossible. The Nassau County District Attorney's office did everything it could to force petitioner to plead guilty. After the second indictment, for example, Assistant District Attorney Onorato advised petitioner's attorney, Panaro, that if petitioner refused to plead guilty his office would obtain a third indictment which would include many more charges than both previous indictments combined, and those charges would be much more serious. [Panaro Aff. ¶ 5, A-762.] When petitioner declined to plead guilty, Onorato followed through with his threat. Petitioner was also aware that investigations were brewing against his two brothers and many of his high school friends, a threat which he took seriously in light of the growing magnitude of allegations. Moreover, Judge Boklan acknowledged that [t]here was never a doubt in [her] mind as to petitioner's guilt. [ Capturing the Friedmans Tr. 33, A-313], and even before she had heard any of the evidence she expressly informed Panaro that, if petitioner went to trial, she intended to sentence him consecutively on every count. Petitioner had until then strenuously resisted the efforts to coerce a plea and vehemently maintained his innocence. Panaro had also been convinced that petitioner was innocent: I already found it quite incredible that sexual abuse of that scope and severity alleged could have taken place without a single child complaining or showing other signs of abuse. I also believed that the hysteria surrounding the case could well be responsible for the ever growing number of charges.... My common sense and logic told me that scores of children, including the 14 children who were complainants against [petitioner], could not be repeatedly sodomized and sexually abused hundreds of times, over a period of four years, day in and day out, and say nothing. After all these were not 3 and 4 year old boys. They were between 8 and 11 years old. I felt that the idea that no one would have said a word, and that in fact some of the most significant complainants would sign up for multiple classes after having been violently abused in the prior classes, was ridiculous. [Panaro Aff. ¶ 19, A-766-67.] Nevertheless, after Judge Boklan's threat, petitioner told Panaro that he wanted to plead guilty because he believed that if he went to trial he would be found guilty and would spend almost the remainder of his life in jail. [Panaro Aff. ¶ 12, A-764.] Panaro told him that he would not represent him on a guilty plea unless he was guilty and that [Panaro] could not ethically allow [petitioner] to plead guilty if he was maintaining his innocence to [Panaro]. [Panaro Aff. ¶ 12, A764.] In response to Panaro's erroneous insistence on an admission of guilt, [1] petitioner told Panaro that he had committed the charged offenses, that he had been a victim of sexual abuse by his father, and that his father had coerced him into molesting students. On December 20, 1988, petitioner pled guilty to Sodomy in the First Degree (seventeen counts), Use of a Child in a Sexual Performance (one count), Sexual Abuse in the First Degree (four counts), Attempting Sexual Abuse in the First Degree (one count), and Endangering the Welfare of a Minor (two counts), in full satisfaction of the three indictments filed against him. The minutes of the plea are not available. [2] Judge Boklan sentenced petitioner to multiple concurrent terms, the longest of which was six to eighteen years. Petitioner did not appeal. A few weeks after petitioner pled guilty, he gave a televised interview to Geraldo Rivera in which he repeated his confession and the story that his father had sexually abused him. Petitioner explains that he confessed to Panaro only so that Panaro would permit him to plead guilty, and that he submitted to the television interview in what [he] believed to be a last-ditch effort to obtain public sympathy and explain [him]self in some way. [Pet'r Aff. ¶ 40, A-161-62.] Specifically, he made up the story about his father molesting him as a child because he believed it might insulate him from attacks in prison and might persuade Judge Boklan to ask the parole board for leniency on his behalf. While in prison, petitioner was denied parole four times apparently because he refused to reiterate his guilt during a sex-offense therapy treatment program, as would have been required to successfully complete the program. See Susan Bandes, The Lessons of Capturing the Friedmans: Moral Panic, Institutional Denial and Due Process, 3 Law Culture & Human. 293, 304-05 (2007). After serving thirteen years in prison, petitioner was ultimately paroled on December 7, 2001. Judge Boklan held a sex offender registration classification hearing on January 7, 2002, in which she classified petitioner a level III violent sexual predator under the Sex Offender Registration Act (New York Correction Law article 6-C).