* Forwarded from "CHILD_ABUSE_ISSUES"
Scanned from Reader's Digest LARGE TYPE EDITION January 1994 Pages 1-26
SPECIAL REPORT
A system meant to protect children threatened to destroy Bobby Fijnje
Justice Gone Crazy
BY TREVOR ARMBRISTER
ON THE MORNING of May 4, 1991, jurors in the child sex abuse case of
Florida v. Bobby Fijnje (pronounced FAIN-ya) announced that they had
reached a verdict. After more than three months of trial and scores of
witnesses, judgment time had arrived. Sitting in a holding room,
15-year-old Bobby's heart was pounding. A guilty verdict, he knew,
could mean the rest of his life behind bars. What was taking so long?
he wondered.
For 90 minutes, Bobby waited. Family members, clergy and the media
gradually assembled. And State Attorney Janet Reno - who approved of her
prosecutors' decisions to indict and try him as an adult and to oppose
his release on bond - had made it clear that she wanted to be present.
The tall, imposing woman strode into court.
It had been one of the longest, most expensive criminal trials in Dade
County history. It had everything: lurid allegations of child sex
abuse, medical evidence that seemed to buttress the charges and a
confession by the defendant.
Bobby took his seat at the defense table and the jury entered. Then
Dade County Circuit Court Judge Norman S. Gerstein asked the jury
foreman, "Have you reached a verdict?"
"We have."
THE FIRST HINT of trouble came early in 1989, when three-year-old
Debbie Smith (not her real name) started behaving abnormally. She was
having nightmares about the "Big Bad Wolf' and was afraid to be
touched. She was also suddenly afraid of Bobby Fijnje, a baby-sitter at
church, and refused to go to Sunday school. When Debbie's mother sought
advice from the church, Old Cutler Presbyterian, a minister urged her
to contact parishioner Suzanne Keeley, a state-licensed psychologist.
Keeley had seen only one alleged victim of sex abuse under age five
before. When she questioned Debbie, the child did not mention she'd
been abused. Nevertheless, Keeley suspected Debbie had been. Under
Florida law, anyone who sees children professionally and suspects abuse
must notify authorities. Keeley referred the case to Florida's
Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.
Caseworker Sylvia Santos interviewed Debbie and concluded that the case
was unfounded. The fear of the Big Bad Wolf, Santos felt, may have been
triggered by a videotape of "Little Red Riding Hood," which Debbie's
parents had played at home. A forensic interviewer in State Attorney
Reno's office also failed to elicit any allegation of sexual abuse.
But Keeley still suspected that Bobby Fijnje had somehow abused the
child. During months of therapy sessions, she encouraged Debbie to
disclose if anyone had done terrible things to her and what those
things were. Eight weeks into the sessions, Debbie told Keeley that
Bobby Fijnje had touched her.
Debbie was taken to Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital where an
examination appeared to confirm sexual assault. Meanwhile, other
mothers had been questioning their kids, and claims of further crimes
emerged. One five-year-old girl alleged that Bobby had urinated in her
mouth and forced her to eat feces. A five-year-old boy said that Bobby
had flown him to New Zealand and abused him. A six-year-old said that
he and his brother had watched a woman give birth. Bobby, he claimed,
had forced him to eat the infant's arm at the church.
The distraught parents spoke to Keeley. She referred them to
psychologists who, like her, encouraged the kids to provide more
details.
In July Debbie's mother called the Metro-Dade Police, and the case was
assigned to Mark Martinez. For six years, the 27-year-old officer had
worked street patrol. A detective for just six months, Martinez was new
to sex crime cases. He was also new to the business of questioning
kids. He let the therapists dictate the direction of the inquiry.
For months, the therapists interviewed the kids and reported to
Martinez. The alleged crimes became ever more bizarre. Psychologist
Deborah O. Day, for example, reported that a five-year-old "has
described events where adults were costumed and doing things like
killing babies, chopping up the babies, killing animals." Day believed
that ritualistic activities were actually taking place.
THE FIJNJES were only vaguely aware of the storm clouds gathering
around them. Bob Fijnje had had a distinguished career in the foreign
ministry of the Netherlands Antilles before moving to Miami with his
wife, Vivian, and their two children, Nannette and Bobby. The family
attended Old Cutler, where Bob was elected an elder. Vivian helped in
the kitchen and both children baby-sat in the child-care center.
Shortly after 10:30 a.m. on August 28, 1989, Martinez and three other
police officers arrived at the Fijnje home. They wanted to talk to
Bobby and search his room for pornographic pictures. Bob Fijnje was
shocked by the request, but he knew that his son wouldn't collect
pornography. "No problem," he replied. "Bobby's room is the first door
on your left."
A slender youth who played football and loved computers, Bobby was
dressed in his Burger King uniform, preparing to go to work. Martinez
took him outside.
Although Martinez would later deny it at trial, Bobby testified that
Martinez told him, "Before I saw you, I knew you were guilty. But now I
definitely know you're guilty." Bobby began to cry.
The search of Bobby's room turned up nothing unusual, but the police
still took Bobby to their office. For 40 minutes, with Bobby's father
present, Martinez asked about church, school and friends. Then, after a
break, the parents agreed to remain outside, and Martinez stepped up
the pace: "Did you do it?" he demanded. Angry and bewildered, Bobby
denied the accusations. He said he didn't even know Debbie Smith.
A juvenile diabetic, Bobby needed regular meals and two shots of
insulin every day. Without them, he could suffer from hypoglycemia. His
parents had told this to Martinez, who stopped the questioning several
times for Bobby to eat. But Bobby had eaten no more than a bite of a
sandwich in nearly seven hours when, at 2:30, he admitted guilt "It
just happened," Bobby said. "Now can I go home?"
Although not required by Metro-Dade police policy, detectives elsewhere
typically tape a confession, or get a stenographer to take down the
suspect's words and present them for his signature. Martinez did
neither. He even destroyed his notes without showing them to anyone.
"These are things you absolutely do not do in these cases," says former
Miami Police Chief Ken Harms, who calls Martinez's performance "inept,
incompetent."
When his parents returned to the room Bobby said, "I didn't do it, but
they made me say I did."
Bobby always carried a glucometer to measure blood sugar levels. Below
70 was cause for concern. During the questioning, his blood sugar level
had plummeted to 50.
Bobby was booked on molestation charges and sent to the Juvenile
Detention Center. A court-appointed psychologist, Edward Sczechowicz,
examined him and reported that Bobby exhibited none of the
characteristics typically found in adolescent sex offenders.
Sczechowicz concluded that Bobby posed no risk of flight and
recommended he be kept under house arrest while awaiting trial, and
that he be tried as a juvenile. "I see absolutely no benefit in sending
this child into the adult system," Sczechowicz concluded.
Nevertheless, the prosecutors, with State Attorney Reno's approval,
decided to try Bobby as an adult. Bobby's name could now be used by the
media. The floodgates of publicity opened wide.
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