Friends of Justice

“The doors to Gunther’s classroom were solid, but windows were installed so that people in the hallway could see into the room. The doors were never locked, and were often propped open. There were mirrors on three of the classroom walls. Children and parents came and went in and out of the classroom while classes were going on. Some parents watched while sitting on chairs inside the room. Others would watch through the windows.

“On May 20, 2000 Gunther Fiek got married. Life was good. But six months later, a panic-driven witchhunt would devastate his promising young life and the lives of those he loves.”

Of the many cases I’ve been involved with, few have bothered me as much as that of Gunther Fiek. Gunther was a popular and successful Taekwondo instructor who worked with over 2,000 kids. His life was destroyed late in 2000 by a false accusation of sexual abuse, followed by a panic in which more accusations were manufactured by improper interviewing techniques. In October 2001, he was sentenced to 90 years without the possibility of parole.

For more information, follow this link.

Gunther’s family is not wealthy and they are unable to pay for the kind of legal help he needs. The Georgia Innocence Project only handles DNA cases and I have been unable to find another Innocence Project to look into this. I know a first-rate private investigator who will work for an affordable fee, but if he uncovers new evidence there will be no way to pursue it unless a good lawyer can be hired.

If anyone out there has any idea of how we might proceed by contacting me via the NCRJ: http://ncrj.org/feedback-form/. Perhaps a journalist could look into this case. To my knowledge, nothing decent has ever been written about it.

-Bob Chatelle

“In the file of worst possible things that could happen to you, being falsely accused of sexually abusing young children, and then convicted and imprisoned for over a decade, is probably close to the top of the pile.

“This is the hell that was dealt out to a few dozen Americans in the great Satanic sexual abuse panic that burned its way across the nation in the 1980s and 90s. Rumors and media fervor, followed by wild and often impossible accusations from little children, methodically coaxed out by bogus experts, sent childcare employees and others to prison all over the United States. From the McMartin family’s preschool in Los Angeles—the longest criminal trial in US history at the time, which ended with nearly all charges dropped—to the saga of the Amirault family’s day-care center in Malden, Massachusetts, where prosecutors said about 40 kids were “tied to trees, sexually penetrated with knives, and tortured by a ‘bad clown’ in a “secret room,'” it was a dark time.”

Read the article by Chase Madar in Vice.

Readers can contact Bexar County Criminal District Attorney Nico LaHood at 210 335 2311 to politely but firmly request a full exoneration.

photo: debbie nathan

Here are some things you can do right now to help them find justice.

“What makes Southwest of Salem even more extraordinary is that it is Esquenazi’s first feature film. The Austin resident uses a sure hand to guide the viewer through a complicated narrative, laying out the facts while still deftly conveying the intense emotion behind a story in which many lives were damaged. It’s a tale that at times feels all too familiar to people who follow the twists of the Texas justice system—just how easily a case can spiral out of control when people get crazy ideas in their heads and the law plays along.”

Read the article by Michael Hall in Texas Monthly.

(AP Photo/Barry Chin-Pool)

According to Amirault, Baker spoke to him in 2014 while he was campaigning for governor in the North End in Boston. “He made a commitment to me in front of my whole family that once he was elected one of the first things on his list would be to take care of my situation,” Amirault said.

Read the article by Paul Leighton in the Salem News.

Photo: Jana Birchum

“Today, there are few true believers left who vocally insist upon this history. To many in the criminal justice system, it is now a source of embarrassment that there was ever a time when police and prosecutors were convinced that bands of Satanists had infiltrated the nation’s day care centers in order to abuse young children. Yet in the Kellers’ case, which I investigated for the Austin Chronicle back in 2009, I was startled to hear both a veteran cop and prosecutor say they still believed in even the most absurd of the children’s allegations against the Kellers.

Read the article by Jordan Smith in The Intercept.