By Jan Hollingsworth
(Originally published in the Tampa Tribune, April 25, 2002)

In 1985, a jury convicted 36-year-old Francisco Fuster Escalona of sexually abusing 21 children at a babysitting service he and his teenage wife operated in the upscale Miami suburb of Country Walk.

Fuster, an ex-convict who served four years of a 10-year sentence for gunning down a motorist in New York, was on probation for child molestation at the time of his arrest.

For Floridians who remember it, the case is most notable for prompting the state Legislature to pass the law that requires fingerprinting and criminal background checks for all day care workers.

But for the producers of the PBS series "Frontline," the case is another example of innocent bystanders swept up in a nationwide witch hunt for child molesters. If the theme sounds familiar, it is: "Frontline" has been deconstructing day care child abuse cases for 11 years.

Tonight at 10, the tradition continues with "Did Daddy Do It?" a thinly disguised exercise in historic revision.

The script echoes the pages of Fuster's latest petition for a new trial.

Two state courts have upheld his conviction. Now he has turned to the federal courts - and to "Frontline."

In the hands of the series' producers, Fuster and his 17-year-old wife, Ileana, are transformed into tragic figures who were "living the American dream" before they fell victim to community hysteria.

The foundation of this thesis hinges on the arrest of Grant Snowden, a police officer charged with abusing children his wife babysat. This arrest, according to "Frontline," set the stage for Fuster's legal troubles.

But Fuster was already in jail when Snowden was arrested.

The show's credibility rapidly slides there.

We are told that "Frontline" has uncovered "new evidence" that the state coerced Ileana Fuster into a plea bargain through physical and psychological abuse.

But "Frontline's" investigators apparently didn't check news clippings to see there was no plea bargain and that the "new evidence" was old news in 1985, when a pretrial hearing on the Fusters' "cruel and unusual" incarceration supplied one of the few moments of comic relief in the case.

The list of errors and omissions goes on.

The narrative glides deftly from one sound bite to another in a seamless tapestry that would seem to be woven of whole cloth.

It is easy to overlook the defective chronology and gaping holes in fact and logic.

Where did the charges begin? We are told only that "rumors" began circulating and suddenly someone was in jail.

How did Fuster, a convicted pedophile, come to have sole custody of his preschool-age son? There is no mention of the boy's mother, Fuster's first child bride.

Nor do producers seem to realize that Fuster's son did not testify at his trial. However, Fuster's attorneys did show the son's interview tapes to the jury.

Fuster and his attorneys are given free rein to dismiss his prior convictions, the children's testimony, the physical evidence and Ileana Fuster's confession to multiple counts of sexually abusing the children.

But we are not told that four weeks ago a federal magistrate responded to these assertions in a blistering 125-page assessment of Fuster's federal petition for a new trial. U.S. District Court Magistrate Charlene Sorrentino calls the lawyers' arguments "sheer hyperbole" and a "convoluted and dubious" representation of the facts. Sorrentino's recommendation to deny the petition will move forward in the federal courts.

Citing "egregious examples of unsupported assertions," Sorrentino addresses all of the issues that "Frontline" failed to explore:

As for the children's testimony being tainted, the "new evidence" the lawyers cite duplicates "the extensive trial testimony of ... a [defense] psychiatrist who reviewed the [interview] tapes."

Sorrentino also rejects the argument that "new evidence" casts suspicion on the results of a test confirming Fuster's son's gonorrhea.

Even if it did, "it would have made no difference in light of the additional evidence of Fuster's guilt," she wrote.

And then there is Ileana Fuster, the centerpiece of "Frontline's" assault on the case whose testimony the producers say was so critical that then-State Attorney Janet Reno "personally participated in a campaign to break her down." Sorrentino notes that Ileana was not even part of the case in chief but was called as a rebuttal witness.

"By the time of the trial, she had pleaded guilty to the charges against her," Sorrentino wrote. "But there was no bargain and no promises, and at that point she was facing life in prison."

"Frontline" would have done well to consider Sorrentino's assessment of Fuster's lawyers' version "of the facts and "chronology of events' leading up to Fuster's conviction. This purported factual overview ... puts forth numerous sweeping, sometimes outlandish assertions, which are clearly designed to elicit sympathy for Fuster and call into question the motivations of those responsible for his prosecution."

Tampa Tribune Editor's Note: Jan Hollingsworth was working as a television news assignments editor in Miami when she broke the Country Walk story. She spent the next year following the court proceedings and authored a best-selling account of the case called "Unspeakable Acts," which subsequently was made into a television movie. She has worked for the Tribune for 17 years.