In another case covered in Boston area papers, prosecutors in Boston announced that they would not extend the imprisonment of a man convicted in 1986 of molesting eight children (some sources say nine). Gerald Amirault, 50, was working at his family's Fells Acre daycare center in Malden, MA, with his mother, Violet Amirault, and sister, Cheryl Amirault LeFavre. They supervised as many as 70 children at a time and had been in business for 18 years without a complaint.
Then one day in April 1984, Gerald, who ran errands and did maintenance for the school, was asked to change the pants of a boy who had wet himself, and that was the source of the initial allegations of abuse. When the boy was later discovered in sex play with his cousin, according to an Internet site, he offered accusations against Gerald.
That triggered a wide scale investigation in which, similar to the McMartin case, the police told parents of children at the school to question their kids. They brought in social workers, therapists, prosecutors, and a nurse to assist. Also similar to the McMartin case, the questions were leading and coercive, and anatomically correct dolls were improperly used. No child made a spontaneous confession but parents were told that they had probably been abused anyway. As one source put it, yes meant yes and no meant yes, so any response was indicative of abuse.
An experiment done in 1990 using the same techniques in the Amirault investigation drew forth false confessions from 75% of three-year-olds and 50% of a group of children ages four to six. The possible implantation of false memories has also been demonstrated in subsequent research.
But no one knew that during the 1986 trial. In fact, the prosecutors against the Amiraults consulted with the McMartin prosecution team for ideas. Eventually the children produced accusations against the Amirault family and three teachers. They also accused an imaginary man and even the nurse who had been questioning them. Only the Amiraults were charged.
The prosecution maintained that the Amiraults were producing and selling child pornography. However no pornographic photos were found. The children said that they had rehearsed their stories, and in court they told about being threatened by robots, killing dogs, being slashed with knives, and swallowing frogs.
All three members of the family were convicted. Gerald received a sentence of 30 to 40 years in prison, while in a separate trial the two women received sentences of eight to 20 years.
Amirault's sister and mother won temporary freedom in 1995 on appeal, and two years later Violet Amirault died from stomach cancer. Then Cheryl's conviction was reinstated in 1999, but a judge ruled that the eight years she had served was sufficient. That gave impetus to the movement to free Gerald Amirault, saying that his extended prison term was unfair. He was granted parole in October 2003 after 19 years served and was released in 2004, but several former witnesses, now adults, claimed that their stories were true. They and their parents were disappointed to learn about his release.
Barbara's response was difficult because it seemed like she was trying to completely shut down a simple differing opinion. 
Like it just couldn't be stated, which is absurd. It wasn't like Sherri was going on and on that he was guilty, well in my opinion anyway.
That would be really sad if that is the situation with Dylan. 
