The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case in the 1980s, prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney, Ira Reiner.[1] Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with hundreds of acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983, with arrests and the pretrial investigation taking place from 1984 to 1987 and trials running from 1987 to 1990. The case lasted seven years but resulted in no convictions, and all charges were dropped in 1990. By the case's end, it had become the longest and most expensive series of criminal trials in American history.[2][3] The case was part of day-care sex-abuse hysteria, a moral panic over alleged Satanic ritual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s.
- ^ Shaw, David (January 19, 1990). "Where Was Skepticism in Media? : Pack journalism and hysteria marked early coverage of the McMartin case". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
longestwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Mathews, Jay (July 28, 1990). "MCMARTIN PROSECUTION HALTED, ENDING LONGEST CRIMINAL CASE". The Washington Post. Los Angeles. Retrieved April 27, 2020.