Jurors Are Urged to Convict Buckey : McMartin: The prosecution nears end in preschool molestation case. Jurors told to discount testimony of former teachers in favor of students who claim they were abused.

A prosecutor urged jurors Monday to convict Ray Buckey of child molestation and to discount the testimony of teachers who were falsely accused and acquitted in the 7-year-old McMartin Pre-school case.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Pam Ferrero said former teachers who testified for Buckey “have an ax to grind” and should not be believed.

“I think it’s quite possible that people in this case were falsely accused,” she said. “I’m not here to apologize for anyone that came before me. Nor am I going to say the investigation in this case was perfect. But I think it’s clear that anyone who’s been accused in this case has an ax to grind. They in their own minds feel they have been wronged by the system.”

Ferrero and Deputy Dist. Atty. Joe Martinez took over the case after two other prosecutors bowed out--apparently the point of her remark about others who came before her.

Ferrero was particularly biting in her remarks about former defendant Peggy McMartin Buckey, Ray Buckey’s mother. Mrs. Buckey, 63, who was acquitted after a 2 1/2-year trial with her son, was called to testify by the prosecution.

Ferrero said Mrs. Buckey saw herself as “a woman who never made a mistake.”

“Peggy Buckey was a real work of art,” the prosecutor said sarcastically. “If I were her son I don’t think I’d like her very much and I don’t think I’d have liked to work for her.”

She ridiculed the 32-year-old Buckey as “a young man who worked for his mommy, a woman who was quite dogmatic.”

“Why would you work for her unless you wanted to be around children?” she asked.

In her closing argument, which nearly ends the three-month retrial, Ferrero repeatedly cited the testimony of three girls who claim that Buckey molested them as many as 11 years ago.

She urged jurors to believe the children but not to convict solely on the basis of their testimony.

“I would not ask you to convict the defendant in this case based solely on the testimony of the children,” she said. “The children’s testimony is corroborated by the circumstantial evidence in this case.”

Yet, at another point, she said, “This particular case boils down to credibility. Who do you believe? If you believe the children, then the people have proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Buckey is being tried for the second time on eight counts of child molestation in what has become the longest and costliest criminal proceeding in U.S. history.

The first trial ended Jan. 18 with Buckey’s mother acquitted and Buckey acquitted of 40 counts of molestation. Jurors deadlocked on 13 other charges against Buckey, however, and prosecutors refiled eight of those counts.

As Ferrero spoke, Buckey, wearing a dark suit and tie, sat at the counsel table with his lawyers and looked directly at jurors. He had testified that he never molested any children while he was a teacher at his family’s now-defunct preschool.

His lawyer has called the marathon case “a witch hunt” by Manhattan Beach parents, an accusation Ferrero alluded to in her remarks.

“This is not a witch hunt. These are damaged but rational people,” she said of the parents who testified. “Their children have been damaged not only at the preschool but by the (court) system.”

Ferrero conceded that the three girls who took the stand in the second trial gave sometimes contradictory testimony.

“These children have been questioned and questioned and impeached so much it’s a wonder they could come into court seven years later and remember anything,” she said.

Under the circumstances, she said, their testimony should be believed.