Debunking Frontline’s
Did Daddy Do It?
"Frank Fuster was living the American dream." Or so claims Frontline in the first sentence of promotional material for the April 25, 2002 program, "Did Daddy Do It?" Fuster had "a new house in the suburbs, a successful landscaping business, and a new wife." Then, according to the highly-acclaimed PBS program, Fuster "found himself" charged with sexually abusing children in their home day care. His subsequent conviction, considered ironclad by many, was the target of this hour-long program.
But Frank Fuster was not living the American dream. He was on probation for a 1982 child molestation conviction for a lewd and lascivious assault on a nine-year-old girl. Fuster also served four years in New York for manslaughter, after shooting a man after a traffic accident and then threatening an off-duty policeman with his loaded rifle. His "new wife" was also his third wife, a girl barely sixteen years old whose status as an immigrant was unsure. His business was not profitable. And he gained custody of his son after threatening his ex-wife’s life if she contested the matter.
These are not the only facts that PBS got wrong. Detailed research into all three of his convictions indicates that Frontline overlooked a substantial body of incriminating evidence against Frank Fuster, while credulously accepting the word of a man with a documented history of deception about this case.