Mother released from prison; Daughter may follow today

By Zachary R. Dowdy, Globe Staff, 09/01/1995

EWBURYPORT -- Saying it would be "improper" for Violet Amirault and her daughter, Cheryl LeFave, to spend "even one minute more" in prison, a Superior Court judge yesterday ordered them freed, eight years after they were imprisoned for child molestation. "Their conviction is null and void," said Superior Court Judge Robert A. Barton, who on Tuesday ordered a new trial after ruling that their constitutional rights were violated during the first trial.

Amirault, 72, LeFave, 37, and Amirault's son Gerald, 41, who was tried separately, were convicted of sexually assaulting children at the Fells Acres Day School in Malden, which the family operated.

Amirault was set free yesterday while LeFave, who is serving a 90-day sentence on a charge that she assaulted a fellow prison inmate, could be released today. A hearing is scheduled for this morning in Framingham District Court.

Barton, conducting a bail hearing, released Amirault on personal recognizance pending trial. The judge also barred the women from having contact with witnesses in the case.

"These women have spent approximately eight years in prison," he added. "I intend to place them in this case back in the position they were in until they were put on trial in 1987."

Amirault was overcome when she learned of her release, weeping and collapsing into her daughter's arms. Later, as she stepped out of the courtoom into the daylight, she stumbled slightly as she walked down the courthouse steps.

"I never, never, never did it," she said, her shoulders shaking. "It's been such a long, hard battle."

"It's a great triumph," said Patty Amirault, wife of Gerald (Tooky) Amirault, who is serving up to 40 years in prison. He, too, is seeking a new trial in a motion filed before Judge Elizabeth Dolan.

"The inevitable day is here," Patty Amirault said.

Last night in a press conference at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility, Gerald Amirault expressed joy over the successful appeal of his mother and sister.

"I believe if you keep plugging and keep fighting someday something good will happen," he said. "If it worked for them it will work for me."

He told reporters that he believes the case against him was fabricated. He said the images of magic rooms and clowns where implanted in the heads of the children who testified against him.

"It's not like they did it on purpose," he said. "The case was mishandled. Children are very suggestive. You can get a child to say anything you want."

Gerald Amirault said there was no physical evidence against him and that if there had been expert testimony available to him at the time of his trial he would not have been convicted.

"This a whole new field," he said. "Cases are being overturned across the country."

Martin Murphy, Middlesex County first assistant district attorney, said he believes the Amiraults received a fair trial when they were convicted in 1987.

"The records show that these people are child molesters," Murphy said after arguing before the judge that Violet Amirault and LeFave should be held without bail pending the new trial. "I'm convinced that these women had a fair trial."

Reilly's office filed an appeal this week seeking to overturn Barton's ruling on the new trial.

Barton ruled that Violet Amirault and LeFave should be granted a new trial because the witnesses -- ages 5, 6 and 7 -- who testified against them did sit with their backs to the defendants.

Barton retroactively applied a 1994 Supreme Judicial Court ruling that found such a seating arrangement unconstitutional. Prior to his decision, the Amiraults were unsuccessful in five appeals.

Reilly this week called Barton's move a "bombshell" and vowed that "this is not over."

In a statement, Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, who was district attorney at the time of the 1987 trial, said the women were being released on a "technicality" and that he is "shocked" that more stringent conditions were not placed on their release.

Violet Amirault and LeFave were serving eight- to 20-year terms at MCI- Framingham based on testimony given by children who said they were inappropriately touched at the Fells Acres Day School in 1984.

"I'm very happy, ecstatic," said Albert LeFave, Cheryl's husband, adding that his wife was "happy with today's ruling and it brings back her faith in the system."

Parents of two of the four children who testified in 1987 have said they will not testify a second time, leaving the prosecution with little evidence.

Daniel R. Williams, a New York City-based attorney who has agreed to represent the Amiraults without charge, said he doesn't believe the case will be retried -- or that it should.

"There should never be a case when the evidence is so weak," he said, adding that his clients were victims of a national hysteria over child abuse in day-care centers.

The children who testified sat in a child-sized chair in front of a table before the jury. A parent sat in front of the judge behind the child. Prosecutors and defense attorneys sat on the left of the child when asking questions of the witnesses. The session was closed to the public.

Reilly said that although the children were not facing the defendants all the time, the children turned and pointed to their alleged molesters when asked to identify who had hurt them.

The Amirault case was tried as the country was focused on the McMartin Preschool case in California, which involved charges that dozens of children were molested by their caretakers. About 20 cases nationwide, involving charges of varying degrees of abuse against children, were adjudicated, but many convictions were later overturned.

"I think the age of zealotry in these cases is a thing of the past," Williams said. "This will stand out as cancerous boil in the history of the criminal justice system."