Ray Buckey

Prosecutors in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case ended two weeks of speculation and extraordinary public lobbying Wednesday with an announcement that they will retry Ray Buckey on the 13 molestation and conspiracy charges that had left a jury deadlocked. In a dramatic courtroom hearing, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Roger Gunson announced a decision made late Tuesday by Dist. Atty.

Dean R. Gits, who won an acquittal for his client Peggy McMartin Buckey in the infamous child molestation case of the 1980s and early 1990s and represented thousands of other clients during a lengthy career as a public and private defense attorney in Los Angeles, has died. He was 68. The chief deputy of the federal public defender's office for California's central district, Gits died Tuesday at his Los Angeles home of complications from cancer, said his wife, Christina Larson Gits.

A lawyer for Ray Buckey said the 32-year-old former teacher at the McMartin Pre-School intends to sue police and parents of former McMartin students as soon as a judge disposes of the eight undecided molestation charges filed against him. "To have this young man in jail for five years with no bail is very sad. . . . It has to be corrected," said Buckey's lawyer, James Davis.

In a low-key, anticlimactic court hearing Wednesday, a judge finally spoke the words McMartin Pre-School molestation defendant Ray Buckey had waited seven years to hear: "The case of the People vs. Raymond Buckey is hereby dismissed and the defendant is discharged," Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg said. "All right, that's it. That completes this case."

Nearly seven years since his arrest--and three months after being acquitted of most of the charges against him--McMartin Pre-School defendant Ray Buckey goes on trial today on eight unresolved counts of child molestation. About 400 jurors will be queried to find a panel of 12, and alternates, who can serve for an estimated six months and who have not formed--in the wake of massive nationwide publicity--rigid views about the guilt or innocence of the 31-year-old former nursery school teacher.

Nearly six years after his arrest on child molestation charges, McMartin Pre-School teacher Ray Buckey took the stand for the first time on Wednesday and denied that he ever molested, threatened or otherwise harmed children. Buckey's testimony, delivered softly but without hesitation under the questioning of defense lawyer Danny Davis, directly contradicted the testimony of nine of the alleged victims in the case.

Prosecutors said today they will dismiss a conspiracy count against former McMartin Pre-School teacher Ray Buckey, but intend to retry him on 12 remaining molestation counts. "We do not intend to proceed with the conspiracy count, which will shorten the trial considerably," Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph Martinez told reporters following a hearing in which Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ordered the retrial to begin March 9.

A woman who says she had a sexual affair with Ray Buckey came forward in his child molestation trial Monday and testified that she saw "no possibility" that he could have molested children. Barbara Dusky, 37, said she and Buckey had sexual relations after they met at a health and science fair in Reno in November, 1982. She said they shared an interest in so-called pyramid power and worked together at booths selling wire pyramids.

A 37-year-old Montana grandmother, claiming she had a sexual relationship with McMartin Pre-School defendant Ray Buckey seven years ago, testified Monday that there is "no way" he could be a child molester.

McMartin Pre-School defendant Ray Buckey, in his first public comments since he was acquitted last month on 52 molestation counts, vowed in a "60 Minutes" interview Sunday to "fight to my last breath" to clear himself of the 13 charges refiled against him.

A lawyer for Ray Buckey said the 32-year-old former teacher at the McMartin Pre-School intends to sue police and parents of former McMartin students as soon as a judge disposes of the eight undecided molestation charges filed against him. "To have this young man in jail for five years with no bail is very sad. . . . It has to be corrected," said Buckey's lawyer, James Davis.

Jurors in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case ended their first week of deliberations Friday without reaching verdicts in the retrial of Ray Buckey. The Superior Court jury of seven women and five men went home for the weekend after completing their fifth day of deliberations. The jurors are not being sequestered but were once again advised by Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg to avoid exposure to any media coverage of the retrial.

Adriana--you still don't get it, do you? But then, not having ever really lived here, even when you worked here, how could we expect you to understand California. Let's see if we can get it straight for you. Californians want to drive their cars, only faster. The only reason we vote for rail is so that other people will ride it, thereby allowing us to get to where we want to go faster in our automobiles. This may not work forever but it is what we want for as long as we can have it.

Final arguments began Monday in the retrial of McMartin Pre-School teacher Ray Buckey on molestation charges, with prosecutors focusing on circumstantial evidence they believe buttresses the testimony of alleged victims, and the defense attempting to portray Buckey as an innocent young man caught up in a national witch hunt. "I would not ask you to convict the defendant in this case based solely on the testimony of the children," Deputy Dist. Atty. Pam Ferrero told the jury.

Ray Buckey took the witness stand in his second trial Monday and denied molesting any children at his family's McMartin Pre-School. The 32-year-old Buckey, deeply tanned and clad in a dark blue suit, answered "No" and "Never" to questions posed by his attorney, Danny Davis, about whether he committed specific acts of molestation on children who testified at the trial. "Did you ever lay down on your back and have children romp and play on your body?" Davis asked. "No," Buckey replied.

In the first court day since prosecutors abruptly ended their case against McMartin Pre-School defendant Ray Buckey, defense attorneys asked the judge Monday to acquit Buckey of most charges on grounds that insufficient evidence was presented. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg said he will rule after hearing arguments from both sides today.

A prosecutor in the second McMartin Pre-School trial told jurors Monday that he has not interviewed the three former pupils who claim they were molested and cannot predict how they will testify. "I don't know in what condition these children will come to you," Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph Martinez said in his opening statement. "I have not talked to them. They are now young ladies on the verge of puberty.

Clutching a fuzzy yellow toy bear in her arms and nibbling on chocolate chip cookies, a 5-year-old girl testified Tuesday that Ray Buckey, the chief defendant in the McMartin Pre-School case, raped and sodomized her with pencils, forced her to perform oral copulation and threatened to kill her parents if she told anyone about the incidents.

After less than three weeks of testimony, prosecutors in the retrial of McMartin Pre-School defendant Ray Buckey rested their case Friday. The abrupt halt to the case, which heard testimony from only three alleged child victims, brought expressions of surprise and shock from some parents of former students at the Manhattan Beach nursery school who said they had expected a more extensive case. They promptly labeled the proceedings "a sham trial for political purposes, an appeasement trial."