Modahl Case News Today

Still, prosecutors insisted these people were guilty. and all the while two things remained unchanged. the d.a. who oversaw the prosecutions was still in office and john stoll was still in prison. jeff modahl, after his release in 1999, tried to throw a lifeline to his old friend. >> its important to realize that john stoll had no record before this started. >> modahls attorneys contacted this group of lawyers with the california and northern california innocence project. >> we began looking thr...

Months passed, the wait seemed interminable. and then finally the decision. motion granted. a judge would rehear the case against stoll. no cameras were allowed during the testimony. but outside the courtroom, those little boys, now men, described circumstances in 1984 which they said were surreal. terrifying. so how did all this stuff get started? >> the sheriffs came to my house and told my parents that other kids had seen stuff happen to me. >> what kind of stuff? >> that sexual acts occurred...

48-year sentence. and when carla at age 10 took her letter to court and begged to have her dad released, it didnt work. >> they didnt believe me. >> they only believed that story. >> what i said the first time. >> 14 years later in 1999, there was another strange twist in the modahl case. exonerating evidence surfaced. a medical examination given to carla shortly after her dad jeff was arrested said there is no evidence at the present time of sexual molestation. that information was never shared...

>> sampley and the others say they were finally told what to say. not only by social worker morillo, but also by a prosecutor. >> they did coach us totally. they made us go over stories over and over. >> children, manipulated says sampley, by powerful authority figures. now as adults, they took the stand and proclaimed john stoll innocent. grown men reverted to little boys. they exhumed humiliating guilt riddled memories. they sat up on the stand and they looked down at john stoll in the courtro...

Now, she implied that they -- that they anticipated gaining money, that they were going to sue and get rich off of this. >> part of the lawsuit, you bet. >> first of all, that meant each of them independently came up with this idea. because when we asked them about the case, they recanted. >> well, maybe you suggested they might want to sue. >> we suggested it? >> how would that conversation go? we would sit down and say theres this guy in prison and we know he molested you a bunch of years ago,...

The case that captured the nations attention in 1984, though it eventually fell apart, was the mcmartin preschool trial in los angeles county. that case broke just weeks before stolls. but just 100 miles away in bakersfield, where john stoll lived, it was different. the story came in just under the national radar, and yet it was even bigger. in bakersfield, during the mid-80s, the district attorney ed jacobs investigated not just one molestation ring or two, or even three. he and his staff event...

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