In 1984, while at Channel 6, Hollingsworth became interested in "ritual" daycare sex abuse, which had exploded into the national media after the McMartin Preschool case surfaced. The station, she writes in Unspeakable Acts, frequently took calls from Joseph and Laurie Braga, local child development specialists who offered tips for stories concerning child-welfare issues.

In May, according to Hollingsworth, the Bragas phoned Channel 6 and suggested the station do a "tie-in" story to McMartin. The idea piqued interest, and Channel 6 staffers began researching an investigative series on daycare regulation. Hollingsworth spent almost three months helping to produce it. The finished piece was sharply critical of Florida's failure to check criminal records of people applying for positions in daycare centers, and of prosecutors' inability to bring accused perpetrators to justice because of children's perceived inability to testify in court.

The series, with its damning view of the child-protection prosecution system, was broadcast in mid-July. Joseph and Laurie Braga appeared in a follow-up story and stressed the need for reforms. The couple then approached State Attorney Janet Reno. Hollingsworth writes that Reno, who faced an election in November, was concerned about the competition to her incumbency posed by challenger Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, a Miami attorney.

Apart from that, there is absolutely nothing in my comment that justifies your lashing out at me and attribute to me things I didn't write/never wrote, and opinions I don't have and never expressed, something that, fwiw, in my book is a despicable behaviour. I can't take responsibility for opinions other TLers may or may not have expressed in the past. Also there's no need for you to lecture me about sexual abuse ... really.

casey, OR: "Yes, false accusations are deplorable. They are also rare. Whenever this comes up here on TL the citation used to condemn Dylan is always the just McMartin case, which was a travesty, but not indicative of a trend."

... indicative of a trend, and in fact served as the primary catalyst for the subsequent public hysteria about child sexual abuse which first swept through Southern California, and then the nation.

As I noted on Thursday, within one year of the story breaking in the media, police in Los Angeles County were dealing with over 5,000 reports of alleged child molestation that had been filed with various Southland departments.

And this sort of unbridled hysteria still rears its ugly head from time to time. In 1994-95, a Wenatchee, WA police lieutenant became convinced of the existence of a child sex ring in his small city of 22,000, and took the local D.A.'s office along for the ride. Eventually, 43 people were indicted on more than 29,000 counts of child sex abuse, leading to 18 convictions, nearly all of which were subsequently set aside by the end of the millenium.

Such so-called "crimes against nature" tend to summon forth from within us our very worst fears and instincts about people, sometimes to the point where logic and caution are summarily tossed aside in the supposed pursuit of justice.

In that regard, we ought to keep Jeralyn's admonition to us in mind, and not require those who are so accused to provide us with evidence of their own vindication, and not convict Allen in the court of public opinion by citing statistics.