Pedophile Exoneration Project
(National Center for Reason and Justice)
Founded in April 2002, the NCRJ describes itself as non-profit organization that supports people who are falsely accused or convicted of crimes against children. In the nation that leads the world in incarcerating its citizens—one in 100 adults is behind bars—we ally ourselves with others seeking to reform the criminal justice system to defend and promote the civil and human rights of all offenders.
Jesse Friedman is listed on the NCRJ website as a case for “sponsorship” i.e., as a possible miscarriage of justice. The President is listed as Michael Snedeker, Esq., “an attorney who has successfully overturned numerous wrongful sex abuse convictions and obtained money damages for several of his clients.” Snedeker is co-author, with “former board member [and Jarecki consultant and friend of the Friedmans] Debbie Nathan, author of Satan’s Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt.
I found out about the NCRJ via a site called The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence (LCCAIV), specifically the page titled “Capturing the Friedmans: annotated Bibliography.” While the NCRJ still links to Jesse Friedman’s site, some of the links at LCCAIV are no longer active, such as one that references NCRJ’s first fundraiser event, at the Chelsea Clearview Cinema in New York City, on September 18th, 2003. The fundraiser featured a private screening of Capturing the Friedmans, followed by speakers, discussion and a reception. Jesse Friedman is quoted at the LCCAIV link:
Andrew Jarecki generously granted permission for a private screening of Capturing the Friedmans. [He] brought a film crew to record portions of the event, most likely for inclusion on the DVD for Capturing the Friedmans. . . . It has always been important to me that Capturing the Friedmans would raise awareness about the issue of imaginary crimes and help those less fortunate then myself—namely those still in prison.
On January 8, 2004, Jesse filed a motion to overturn his conviction based on “the 3-year investigation done by the filmmakers in the course of making Capturing the Friedmans.” Jesse is quoted again at the LCCAIV page:
I was subjected to a horrible injustice, regardless of what anyone has to say about my father, Arnold Friedman. I am endeavoring to realize a complete exoneration. While this process will be a difficult one, people seeing this film is a crucial first step towards this goal . . . Capturing the Friedmans leaves room for the viewer to hear all sides; to judge truth from lies.
As we’ve seen, Jarecki’s campaign, with and since the film, has been highly effective, if not in exonerating Jesse (who after all has done his time), then in the far more encompassing agenda of invalidating claims of organized child sexual abuse by reinforcing the idea of mass hysteria-fed miscarriages of justice (a.k.a. “the witch-hunt narrative).
This is from “It’s About Time We Freed the Friedmans!” at Huffington Post (2013):
One of the main reasons that Jarecki made the film was to help Elaine’s son Jesse. There was never a single bit of evidence to suggest that Jesse, who was a teenager at the time, molested anyone. He has maintained his innocence all along, and now Jarecki is leading the fight to have Jesse’s verdict reversed. . . . Jarecki has provided the DA’s office a ton of new evidence supporting Jesse’s innocence. Indeed, he tracked down and interviewed numerous individuals who were supposedly molested by Jesse and his father in the computer class. Now grown men, they deny ever having been touched by either of the Friedmans (emphasis added).
[MORE]
https://childrenofjob.substack.com/p/redacting-the-friedmans-a-decades