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Satanic
Ritual Abuse, False Memory Syndrome, and Recovered Memories: Introduction Introduction: The fallout from FMS (False Memories Syndrome) continues in the US and elsewhere, as does the media's belated but welcome realization that these stories are indeed false. The PBS Frontline documentary (April 25, 2002) regarding the infamous Frank Fuster case (spearheaded by then-Dade County Florida State Attorney Janet Reno) is illustrative of the chaos such bogus psychological methods cause when entangled with accusations, legal cases, and the witch hunt mentality often engendered when child sexual abuse is alleged. Cornerstone has been tracking various aspects of FMS for over a decade, including various articles on alleged "satanic ritual abuse" and alleged "recovered memories" which in fact where produced by bad therapeutic techniques as well as downright fabrications.
One Woman's Story: A Journey Through Recovered Memories, by Jon Trott A Psychologist [Paul Simpson] Loses Faith in Repressed Memory Therapy, by Jon Trott The Grade Five Syndrome: Are You a Grade Five Personality? by Jon Trott The Myths of Satanic Ritual Abuse and Multiple Personality Disorder: Interview with Sherrill Mulhern by Jon Trott Selling Satan: The Tragic History of Mike Warnke by Jon Trott and Mike Hertenstein COMPLETE INDEX of Mike Warnke articles in Cornerstone Satanic Panic: The Ingram Family and Other Victims of Hysteria In America, by Jon Trott Satan's Sideshow: The True Lauren Stratford Story by Bob and Gretchen Passantino and Jon Trott And the bizarre Update to the above: Lauren Stratford's Re-Emergence as an alleged Jewish Holocaust Survivor by Bob and Gretchen Passantino
False Memory Syndrome Foundation Good resource on the topic, with variant views on why and what contributes to FMS. Elizabeth Loftus articles on Memory. Researcher on the unreliability of memory, her work is controversial and fascinating. Paul Ingram Organization. A website dedicated to fighting for unjustly convicted Paul Ingram, who went to jail on bogus SRA testimony. Answers In Action's Satanism pages (deal with SRA and related topics)
One day-care case has been touted as proof that bizarre, sadistic abuse does occur. In 1984, 36-year-old Francisco Fuster-Escalona, a Cuban immigrant, and his 17-year-old Honduran wife, Ileana, were accused of molesting children in their home-based babysitting service in Country Walk, Florida, an affluent Miami suburb. The children were subjected to the usual coercive interviews and produced the familiar allegations -- oral copulation and sodomy, mind-altering drugs, child pornography, and systematic terrorism. The Country Walk case was distinguished from others by three apparently damning facts: Fuster had been convicted in 1981 for fondling a nine-year-old girl; his six-year-old son tested positive for gonorrhea of the throat; and his wife confessed to the charges and accused him of abusing her as well. Fuster vehemently denies the 1981 charge. [1] Two other pieces of evidence have been seriously questioned by investigative reporter Debbie Nathan. First, she points out that the Center for Disease Control has found that the test used for the son's throat gonorrhea is highly unreliable. More than a third of positive findings sent to the CDC came from children who did not have the disease. More disturbing, however, is the manner in which Ileana Fuster came to "confess." Ileana, a frightened teenage immigrant, steadfastly maintained her innocence, as well as that of her husband, for nearly a year, despite being held naked in solitary confinement for much of the time. Her own lawyer, Michael von Zampft, pressured her to "confess" and turn state's evidence. Finally, Miami psychologist Michael Rappaport and his partner, Merry Sue Haber, who ran a business called Behavior Changers, were brought in to help persuade Ileana Fuster. During August and September of 1985, Rappaport visited Ileana in her cell at least 34 times, accompanied almost every time by Dade County State Attorney Janet Reno. Rappaport led Ileana in guided imagery and visualization sessions. Her account of this process is revealing: [The two psychologists] explained to me that I was having problems and that they were there to help me. . . . They diagnosed that I was having a blackout of events. . . they came almost every day. And then I started seeing them at nights. . . I kept saying I was innocent but nobody would listen to me. And they said that I was suffering from a blackout and that those things had happened because the kids said it and the kids don't lie. . . . And you know, before I know it, I was having nightmares. . . . And they said that that was a way of my system remembering what had actually happened. And then you know, I argue that a little bit, but I got to a point that I was believing that probably those things happened and I just didn't remember because they were so shocking. The teenager finally confessed, while Reno held her hand and offered encouragement. Eventually, Ileana came up with suitably outrageous allegations. Her husband had given her drugs and sodomized her with a cross, she said, while he had forced her to give oral sex to a child. Having confessed, Ileana Fuster was never tried. She did, however, testify against her husband. Before she took the stand, she met with her psychologists to rehearse her testimony. "They didn't want me to make no mistakes, they said," she explained later. Ileana served three years in prison and was then released and sent back to Honduras, where she refuses to discuss the case. In her speech in court during sentencing, she told the judge, "I am pleading guilty not because I feel guilty, but . . . for my own interest . . . . I am innocent of all those charges . . . . I am pleading guilty to get all of this over." Francisco Fuster was found guilty and sentenced to six life terms and 165 years in prison. He has now been in prison for a decade, having survived several attempts on his life. A book, Unspeakable Acts (1986), which was made into a 1990 movie, presented the abuse as completely factual. The resulting celebrity helped to cinch Reno's reelection, and her reputation as a child advocate later propelled her to the office of U.S. attorney general. Soon afterward, in her zeal to prevent child sexual abuse inside the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, she sanctioned an attack that resulted in the death of all those inside, including the children. For a few weeks in 1994, it appeared that Fuster would be granted a new trial. His lawyer flew to Honduras and took a deposition from Ileana in which she retracted her confession and accusations, making it abundantly clear how she was led into making them. Unfortunately, she subsequently became frightened of repercussions and retracted her retraction. Fuster remains in prison.
Footnote: [1] According to Fuster, he had attended a party along with Lydia Rivera, his sister-in-law's cousin. Lydia was babysitting for her daughter Laura's best friend, nine-year- old Ruth, while her mother went on her honeymoon. After discovering that his van had been towed and retrieving it late at night, Fuster ended up driving with Ruth in his van for ten minutes -- she was supposed to keep him awake -- as his wife followed them in her car. It turns out that Lydia's daughter Laura had been raped when she was five. Now the tipsy Lydia Rivera asked Ruth whether Fuster had molested her in his van. According to Lydia, the child denied it. "Well, men do things like that, you know," Lydia insisted. In the following days, Ruth and Laura discussed rape and molestation, and by the time her mother came to pick her up, Ruth was convinced that Fuster had molested her during their ride together. A year later, Ruth testified that she had complained of molestation that first night. Although Fuster passed two lie detector tests, the jury was never told, and he was found guilty. |
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