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July 2003
Gerald Amirault's Ordeal
In Massachussets, innocence is no defense
By
Jim D'Entremont
The first conviction in the '80s wave of misbegotten daycare molestation cases occurred in January 1985, when the Berkshire County DA's office won its case against Bernard Baran, 19, an openly gay employee of Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) in
Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Baran was charged with raping six children. During the week-long trial, chief prosecutor Daniel Ford (now a Superior Court judge) played on the jury's prejudices, describing Baran as predatory homosexual who behaved like "a chocoholic in a candy factory"
when entrusted with toddlers in daycare. Judge William Simons sentenced the young defendant to three concurrent life terms. Baran was immediately sent to MCI Cedar Junction, where he was brutally raped four days after his arrival.
The next-to-nonexistent physical evidence in the case has been discredited. The children were subjected to flawed, suggestive interviews; at least one has recanted. Lawsuits filed by accusing parents against ECDC in the late '80s were settled out of court as they
unraveled in the face of fresh evidence of Baran's innocence.
Battling roadblocks erected by Gerard Downing, the present DA, attorney John Swomley is now seeking to obtain videotaped child interviews and other evidence being illegally withheld. In Baran's new trial motion, now in the works, charges of prosecutorial misconduct
occupy the foreground.
Other trumped-up evil-sex-predator cases are surfacing in the Pittsfield area, the most egregious of which involve elderly school-bus driver Robert Halsey, still incarcerated, and divorced father Bruce Clairmont, recently paroled. The cases were prosecuted under the
auspices of DA Downing.
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