Date:     Fri Sep 12, 1997 10:05 am  EDT
From:     Herman Ohme
          MBX: ohme@STIC.NET
Subject:  WSJ - Violet Amirault
 
from:  Carol Hopkins
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A Citizen of Massachusetts

[This editorial appeared in the *Wall Street Journal* for
September 11, 1997.  Copyright 1997 Wall Street Journal.]

The family members and close friends of Violet Amirault,
former owner of the Fells Acres Day School in Malden,
Massachusetts, came to say goodbye over the last few days.
Mrs. Amirault, whose inoperable stomach cancer was diagnosed
only a few weeks ago, is not expected to live out the week.
The world came to know her name, of course, because of the
sensational child sex-abuse case which the then district
attorney Scott Harshbarger brought against her and her two
children, Gerald and Cheryl -- a case built out of thin air,
political ambition and the relentless coercion of four- and
five-year-olds, pressed to make charges against the accused.

This, precisely, is what happened to Gerald Amirault, given
30 to 40 years, who has been behind bars since 1986, and to
Violet and Cheryl Amirault who served eight years before
their convictions were overturned in 1995.  By now, most of
the rational world acquainted with the facts of this case
understand that three innocent people were convicted in the
Fells Acre prosecution -- with its patently incredible
charges involving robots and animal slaughter, secret rooms
and the prosecutors' ludicrous charges of rape with butcher
knives and other sharp instruments that somehow managed to
leave no evidence of injury.

This comprehension of reality, needless to say, did not
extend to the exterminating angels who preside over the
system of justice in Massachusetts.  While the state no
longer burns witches at the stake, some quite similar
impulse explains how it came to pass that Violet Amirault
has spent most of the last decade of her life in prison --
and the remaining two struggling to survive the district
attorney's determined efforts to get all the Amiraults back
into prison and preserve their convictions.

It also explains the scenes at the end of Violet Amirault's
life.  That would include the last sight of her son Gerald,
released from prison for a final visit, in cuffs and leg
shackles and with two prison guards standing by, in addition
to the security guards outside the door, Gerald Amirault
said his final farewell to his mother.  He was given fifteen
minutes.

Violet Amirault, whose life of hard won success and
abundance, came to a crashing end with a prosecution begun
13 years ago, has come to the end of her struggles.  For
her, the justice delayed, in this case will be forever
denied.

That leaves for us the states political establishment.
Scott Harshbarger is now Massachusetts Attorney General and
the Democrats' gubernatorial choice to succeed William Weld.
District Attorney Tom Riley has spent the last months
pressing efforts to put the Amirault women back in prison.
And of course we had the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
Court's ruling reinstating the women's convictions.  All
these may be considered participants in the same lightning
of false accusation that seared so many other lives since
the early 1980s.

The sitting governor, who succeeded Mr. Weld, is Republican
Paul Celluci, who will be Mr. Harshbarger's opponent.  Mr.
Harshbarger expects to ride the Amirault bonfire into the
statehouse.  Governor Celluci, a huge underdog, could
extinguish his opponent's precious torch and do personal,
political and moral credit to himself -- and his state -- by
pardoning the two members of this family who survive Violet
Amirault.




Date:     Fri Sep 12, 1997  7:07 pm  EDT
From:     Herman Ohme
          MBX: ohme@STIC.NET
Subject:  AP *Boston Globe* - Violet Amirault, Dies at 74
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                             BOSTON GLOBE
                             *********************
                      Associated Press, 09/12/97

Violet Amirault, 12-year defendent in day care case, dies at 74

Violet Amirault (Globe Staff Photo / Tom Landers)
BOSTON (AP) - Violet Amirault, a tiny, silver-haired grandmother who spent
the past 12 years fighting charges she sexually abused pre-schoolers at her
Malden day care center, died Friday morning. She was 74.

Amirault had been diagnosed with inoperable stomach cancer in August.

Amirault and her two children, Cheryl and Gerald, who all worked at the
Fells Acres Day School, were accused in one of the most notorious
child-abuse cases in history. She served eight years in prison before being
freed in 1995 pending a re-trial.

Amirault's life was sent into disarray on Sept. 2, 1984, when a mother
called an abuse hot line and reported that her brother had seen symptoms of
sexual abuse in her 5-year-old son. Within days, Gerald Amirault was
arrested and the school was closed.

Based on the testimony of children who attended Fells Acres, Gerald
Amirault was convicted in 1986 and Violet and Cheryl were convicted in 1987.

Gerald was sentenced to 30-40 years in prison and Violet and Cheryl to 8-20
years.

The family has maintained its innocence throughout.

After a roller-coaster ride through the courts, Violet and Cheryl Amirault
were released on bail in 1995 pending a re-trial after serving eight years
of their sentence.

At issue was whether the women were deprived of their constitutional rights
to confront their young accusers ``face to face.''

The women then were granted a new trial in May after a judge ruled that
their lawyer did not represent them effectively during




Date:     Fri Sep 12, 1997  9:43 pm  EDT
From:     Herman Ohme
          MBX: ohme@STIC.NET
Subject:  remembering Violet Amirault
 
from Moira Johnston
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
September 12/97

The images of Violet and her family at Salem last January, their freedom
still tentative, their dignity and courage unquenchable, is etched forever
in my mind, eye, and heart. We who were there witnessed, and touched, a
witch hunt as few have done. Violet's force will be felt far beyond her
death in the quiet tide of committment to justice her spirit has generated
in us all. Carol Hopkins' post of Dorothy Rabinowitzs' eloquent call to
action
in the Wall Street Journal on the eve of Violet's death was a powerful and
appropriate eulogy.

Let us fight with deepened determination for the justice Violet and her
family were denied. Rest in peace.

Moira Johnston