Fuster’s son has been portrayed by defense lawyers as the victim of coercion by authorities. They claim that since acknowledging abuse in an interview with the Bragas, he has "steadfastly maintained his innocence" even when he could have profited through civil litigation by testifying he had been sexually abused.

Court records, never mentioned by Frontline, contradict this claim.

These records provide evidence of a different kind of coercion: the enormous pressures on Noel to recant and never again say that his father is guilty. The primary pressure appears have to come Martha Fuster, a woman who testified as to her own terror of Frank Fuster. She testified that she gave Frank custody of their son because he threatened to kill her. After living with Martha Fuster for essentially the first eight months of the case, the boy testified in a criminal deposition on August 7, 1985 that his mother told him "not to talk about things that may have happened with his father." (tr. 69) That this pressure might better explain the boy’s alleged recantation was not explored by Frontline.

Noel’s testimony in the civil deposition of October 29, 1992 was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an adamant denial. To the contrary, it portrays a painfully conflicted and confused teenager who says many incriminating things about his parents and then hastens to add that he remembers very little.

At one point, Noel says "Everything about my childhood is like in little frames, flash, flash, and everything between I can’t remember" (Videotape deposition of N.G. (ficticious name), N.G. v. Arvida Corporation [Case No. 91-35656], October 29, 1992; tr.107). Asked why he was a plaintiff in a civil suit, Noel responded "I never knew whether Ileana abused me or not." When the lawyer pointed out that the lawsuit was exclusively about abuse by Frank Fuster, Noel replied: "Or about my father" (Id., tr. 47). Later Noel referred to "this confusion I’ve always had" (Id., tr.. 73) about whether he was sexually abused. He even said "It might have happened, but I don’t believe it happened." He described his father as "breaking the law which he shouldn’t have done" and called it "a form of abusement towards me" (Id., tr. 44).

Frontline also neglected to mention any of Noel’s many disturbing statements about growing up in the Fuster household. He talked about how afraid he was when his father got mad, particularly when Frank would wear that mask and scare all the kids. He talked about how his father used to "take a snake and grab it by the head and he could do something with snakes" (Id., tr. 125). And he talked about strange and disconcerting, long kisses on the lips by Ileana (Id., tr.52-4). There is also rambling but haunting passage that includes Noel saying "I don’t know how, but I knew about sexual intercourse" (Id., tr. 56-7).

Columnist Alexander Cockburn ("Reno’s Victim," Nation, September 20, 1993; p. 272) overlooked all of these passages, devoting much of a column to other excerpts from Noel’s deposition— excerpts where Noel, as Cockburn fails to note, is asked a series of remarkably leading questions by the insurance defense lawyers. One wonders whether leading questions are only objectionable when they lead to answers that incriminate defendants.

When Noel is more specific, however, he provides the perfect opportunity to check the accuracy of his memory. For example, he makes a number of specific claims about his interview with Dr. Simon Miranda. Cockburn republished this passage with credulous approval:

The entire 14-page transcript of Noel’s interview with Dr. Simon Miranda—hired through the guardian ad litem, and unconnected to the prosecution in the case—was entered into evidence in those proceedings. That 1984 record allows us to check Noel’s more recent descriptions against the actual interview.

That transcript belies Noel’s description when he testified in civil proceedings at age 14—and when he embellished that testimony for Frontline at age 24. The only time that Noel says "no" on the first page of the interview with Dr. Miranda is to the question "Do you have any brothers and sisters?" Then, on the second page, when Dr. Miranda asks an open-ended question ("tell me some of the things he made you do?"), Noel’s immediate response is as sincerely offered as it is unassailably not the product of suggestion. He had not been worn down and there had been no repetitive questions.

"Do you have a knife in here?" the young boy asks, utterly unprompted. He then proceeded to describe things in detail that Frontline overlooked entirely. See the next few pages of this interview.

In short, the historic record of this interview proves that Noel’s revisionism—however understandable—is not born out by the facts. And, of course, the confirmatory test on his positive throat culture proved a 99.38% chance that Noel had contracted gonorrhea.

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