Bernard Baran was a 19 year old aide at the ECDC (Early Childhood Development Center) in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His trouble started soon after one four year old boy's uncle told the Pittsfield Early Childhood Development Center's directors that he would not put up with having a homosexual teaching his son. Soon after- wards he and his sister in law called police to claim that the boy had accused Mr. Baran of molestation. Soon afterwards the boy tested positive for gonorrhoeae of the throat. Although Mr. Baran tested negative and an exhaustive search found no evidence that Mr. Baran had been treated for gonorrhea, a witch hunt was born. More recently the test for gonorrhea has been shown to have a high false positive rate.
Also significant is the evidence that the boy may have been molested by other people. The trial transcripts contain a side-bar [where the attorneys argue so that the jury cannot hear] where the defense attorney mentions a claim that someone overhead a fight where it was mentioned that one of the mother's boyfriends had gonorrhea. For some reason the appropriate medical records were never obtained by the defense attorneys or examined by the judge. Soon after this accusation, the boy was placed in a foster home because of his dysfunctional home life. Later, while Baran's trial was in progress the boy described to the foster mother sexual abuse by one of the mother's boyfriends during a home visit. Sources say this was a spontaneous, detailed, and credible disclosure. This information appears to have never reached any of Baran's attorneys.
At Mr. Baran's trial, charges were arising from this first child were dropped when the boy refused rebelled on the witness stand and refused to testify against Bernie. But this was after the prosecution had already presented to the jury the gonorrhea test and the mother's hearsay testimony.
Shortly after the trial, one girl told her therapist that nothing really happened and that her mother told her to say it did so they could get a lot of money. Again, it appears that this information was never made available to Mr. Baran for his appeal.
There is one girl who testified who exhibited possible physical evidence of molestation. The prosecution presented a doctor who claimed there was a 1-2 mm tear on her hymen. Aside from the case of the boy who made the first accusation, this was the only physical evidence claimed by the prosecution. Unfortunately the defense did not have a doctor critique this evidence and this was before medical research found that some normal hymenal features were being misdiagnosed as evidence of abuse. Furthermore, according to the insurance company the girl had watched the birth of a sibling and soon afterward had been observed inserting things into her vagina. Furthermore this girl's description of the abuse was rather bizarre and also at times she claimed a teacher watched.
Soon after Baran was convicted, one girl told her therapist that nothing really happened and she just said things because her mother said they would get a lot of money. This recantation, which was discovered by the insurance investigator, was reported to the DSS, but not to Baran's attorney.
Baran lost his first appeal. In the fall of 1995, Robert Rosenthal (who defended Kelly Michaels during a portion of her appeal and is now working on Frank Fuster's and Harold Snowden's appeals in Florida[two Janet Reno cases]), and John Andrews, a Massachusetts attorney, began to undertake a new appeal pro bono.
A busdriver serving two consecutive life terms. Mr. Hasley drove a small school bus for 5 and 6 year olds in the rural town of Lanesboro, Massachusetts. This case started after Mr. Hasley tickled a girl and she complained. According to his attorney, Hasley admitted to the incident and was transferred to another route. In the investigation which followed a bizarre story of sexual abuse emerged. The Globe had two stories on this, one alleging very bizarre and unlikely events as well as the usage of the bogus symptoms of sexual abuse (the ones which appear on normal children and often not in abuse ones). It turns out the same therapist of the Baran case was involved. Also the same insurance company handling the Baran case handled this one. The insurance company person seemed to feel that there was some medical evidence that supported the molestation charges (she said this was a "different" story but did not elaborate). I don't know enough about this one, but hopefully it will be critically examined eventually. Since this website was set up Lona Manning has done extensive research on this case and has entered into a lively debate with Ross Cheit. See "The Forgotten Innocent Man" and her rebuttal to Ross Cheit-Response to Ross Cheit's "The Legend of Robert Halsey".