A New York man who spent 13 years in prison for the sexual
abuse of minors in the 1980s was rightfully convicted, prosecutors said on
Monday, a legal setback in a decade-long campaign to exonerate Jesse Friedman
after an Oscar-nominated documentary questioned his prosecution and guilt.
An extensive three-year review “has only increased
confidence in the integrity of Jesse Friedman’s guilty plea and adjudication as
a sex offender,” Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said in a
155-page report.
Friedman was 18 in 1988 when he and his father, Arnold
Friedman, were accused of molesting more than a dozen boys during computer classes
taught in their home in the upscale Long Island town of Great Neck.
Both Friedmans pleaded guilty, and Jesse served 13 years in
prison before being released on parole in 2001.
In 2004, he began efforts to overturn his conviction, saying
he had been railroaded by the criminal justice system amid a fervor to jail
child molesters.
He has been seeking revocation of his child sex offender
status, saying it restricts him from leading a normal life.
His father, who claimed he pleaded guilty in hopes of keeping
Jesse from behind bars, killed himself in prison in 2005.
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