Cost of Case Is Measured in Reputations and Emotions

Finally, it was over. After all the suspicions, the investigations, the court proceedings, it was over. Six years. Time enough for careers to be made, fortunes earned, reputations ruined and reputations restored.

And so it was for all those intertwined in the judicial saga that began in August, 1983, and became known as McMartin.

On Thursday, as the final verdicts echoed across America, the defendants, the parents of alleged victims, the attorneys, the jurors and others who had played roles in the historic case took stock of their lives, measuring their experiences not so much in years but in emotions.

For some, the outcome in court Thursday proved that the American system of justice works, albeit ever so slowly. For others, it showed how fallible that system can be. No matter their opinions, most acknowledged, life will never be quite the same.

“You can’t really imagine what this has done to the families of these children, the stress,” said Arvin Collins, the father of two Hermosa Beach boys who contend that they were molested by Ray Buckey. “There have been divorces; people have lost their jobs. Our family has hung in there. We’re still together, but it’s been really hard.”

His sons, Collins noted, continue to go through therapy as a result of what allegedly happened to them at the McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach.

On Thursday afternoon, nine children who were allegedly molested at the McMartin school attended a news conference at the South Bay Center for Counseling,where several former McMartin students have undergone therapy.

Said one 15-year-old, red-haired youth: “We all know that we are telling the truth. No matter what the jury says, whatever anybody says, this is the truth. We were molested.

“We were so scared a couple of years ago, and I’ve change a lot since then,” the boy said. “I don’t have bad dreams any more, but I know I did. I think just the idea of having gone through all this is going to stick with me. Someone will see me as a McMartin child.”

Those who sat in the jury box, weighing the fates of Peggy McMartin and Ray Buckey, expressed hope that they, too, could put their experiences behind them and get on with their lives.

One juror became a widower and remarried during the course of the trial. Another complained that his business went under during the trial, and he now needed a job. Several said that the trial had become a job and that it would difficult to cope with life outside jury duty.

Former McMartin teacher Babette Spitler, 41, who spent 2 1/2 months in jail before the charges against her were dropped, said Thursday that she would never work as a teacher again because she fears that someone will accuse her of some misdeed with a child. At the time of her arrest, she was adopting her grandson, now 8, and that process was interrupted for two years. The adoption has since taken place. Spitler also has a son, 14, and a daughter, 19.

She said she has moved out of Los Angeles County and that her family is recovering from what she described as her ordeal.

“It took away a career, it took away an extra income,” Spitler said. “But I feel now that the healing process has started.”

Spitler has a lawsuit pending against the city of Manhattan Beach, alleging false arrest, defamation of character and other charges.

Former defendant Mary Ann Jackson said late Thursday that for the last six years, she and her husband were unable to plot their daily lives without first taking into account the latest McMartin developments.

“When I knew there would be something on the 6 o’clock news, we wouldn’t go out to dinner,” Jackson said. “I knew also that I could wear dark glasses or a bandanna or put my hair up in curlers. And when everything died down, I could move freely again.”

Jackson said the ordeal has cost her “in the neighborhood of $350,000, plus insurance policies, property and a loss of trust in the system of justice.”

Her attorney, William Powell Jr., said the McMartin case caused him to “lose a few heroes.”

“When I was in law school,” Powell said, “I clerked in Superior Court and I always felt that system was there to defuse this kind of wrong. Let’s put it this way: I’m a little more cynical about that system now.”

Attorney Bradley Brunon, who represented Virginia McMartin before charges against her were dropped, shared a similar view.

“From the very beginning, people latched on to this case for political or monetary reasons and lost sight of what was happening to the children and the accused,” he said. “It illustrated all of the bad things that can happen . . . when simple common sense goes out the window. It’s a fearsome possibility. Fortunately, some cool heads prevailed.”

Brunon’s youngest daughter was conceived shortly before his client’s preliminary hearing began. Today, Brunon’s little girl is in kindergarten.

Wayne Satz, a former reporter for KABC television in Los Angeles, was widely credited with having broken the McMartin story six years ago. Today, spurred in part by his experiences in the McMartin case, Satz is putting together a cable television talk show that will satirize the news media and how the media, according to Satz, manipulates the news.

“So much of the McMartin experience crystallized my impression of how the news media functions (and) I don’t have a whole lot of respect for the news media today,” Satz said Thursday.

He said he believes that much of the media’s reporting of the story was heavily slanted in favor of the prosecution.

“I found the coverage to be pack journalism--relatively mindless, as if reporters didn’t trust (their) own perceptions,” Satz said.

Robert Philibosian was district attorney in May, 1984, when his office filed child-molestation charges against McMartin, Buckey and the five others. Today he is a high-powered, highly paid lawyer in private practice specializing in government law.

Sitting in his office on the 37th floor of Citicorp Plaza with a view of the San Gabriel Mountains, his portable television set tuned to the trial, Philibosian said he was “shocked and deeply disappointed” as the verdicts were announced.

“A caring prosecutor is affected by all of the cases that come and go,” Philibosian said afterward. “Those kinds of memories stay with you unless you are a callous person--and I am not. I still have considerable empathy for the children, their parents and the prosecutor, Lael Rubin. All have displayed incredible courage. . . . Why the jury did what it did, I don’t know.”

McMartin was a big case, Philibosian observed, but only one of many that “are a part of the fabric of one’s career.”

On Thursday, Philibosian was not dwelling on McMartin.

“The case is over, there’s nothing more to be done or said,” he said. “I will continue to remember and I will continue to perform the duties I have to my clients today.”

Contributing to coverage of the McMartin verdicts were Times staff writers Mayerene Barker, Stephen Braun, Nancy Hill-Holtzman, Shawn Hubler, Charisse Jones, John H. Lee, Kristina Lindgren, Victor Merina, James Rainey, Hector Tobar and Tracy Wilkinson.