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INTERVIEWS
Arthur Cohen
He was Frank Fuster's appeals attorney from 1992 to 1995. He traveled to Honduras in 1994 and conducted the deposition in which Ileana Flores recanted her damning trial testimony against her husband, Frank Fuster. Cohen recounts how the recantation happened, why he believed Ileana was telling the truth and his shock at hearing, not long after, that Ileana had suddenly repudiated her 60 page recantation in a one-page letter which Cohen doesn't believe she wrote. This interview was conducted in July 1998.


Frank Fuster
He was convicted in 1985 of sexual battery, lewd assault and aggravated assault involving children in Miami who attended the in-home day care center run by his wife Ileana. He was sentenced to six life terms plus 165 years in prison. He talks about the evidence against him in the trial, why he refused the state's deal of 15 years in prison in exchange for a guilty plea, and his previous criminal record. This interview was conducted in July 1998.


Ileana Flores
In 1984, Ileana Fuster was arrested with her then-husband Frank, and charged with sexually abusing children who attended the Country Walk day care center Ileana ran out of their house. The following year she pled guilty to 12 counts of lewd assault and sexual battery; however she told the judge, "I'm pleading guilty not because I'm guilty but because it's best for my own interests, for the children, for the court, and all the people working on the case." She received a 10-year sentence and was deported to Honduras after her release. In 1994, she gave a sworn deposition to Frank Fuster's appeal lawyers in which she claimed that nothing happened at Country Walk. However several months later she repudiated this deposition in a letter she now tells FRONTLINE she was pressured into signing. Currently in hiding in the U.S., she now says that neither she nor Frank committed any of the acts they were accused of, and alleges that Janet Reno personally participated in a campaign to break her down psychologically in order to force her to testify falsely against Frank. This interview was conducted in July 2001.


Noel Goodman
Noel Goodman is the son of Frank Fuster. Following his father's arrest in 1984, prosecutors announced that 6-year-old Noel had tested positive for gonorrhea of the throat. The testing method, however, was later called into question. After Joe and Laurie Braga -- child experts hired by the Dade County state attorney's -- questioned the 6-year-old Noel in a videotaped session, he reluctantly admitted his father might have molested him while he was sleeping. Now 24, Noel talks about the Bragas' interviewing tactics and how they "were playing games with a 6-year-old's head."


Dr. Charles Mutter
He is a forensic psychologist who was retained jointly by the district attorney and defense to examine Ileana Fuster while she was in prison awaiting trial. He tells FRONTLINE that his assessment of her was that "she looked like a very frightened individual, who seemed to have the thinking of a much younger individual, more infantile." Dr. Mutter agreed to share his impressions after watching a videotape of Ileana's interview with FRONTLINE. He said that if Ileana was given "guided imagery, and then given other suggestions about things happening, that could have impressed her memory in some way where she could believe that certain things that were suggested did in fact happen." This interview was conducted in January 2002.


Robert Rosenthal
Robert Rosenthal is a civil rights attorney who has worked on appeals for several defendants convicted of mass allegations of sexual abuse, including Grant Snowden and Frank Fuster. He is currently serving as an attorney for Ileana Fuster. Rosenthal tells FRONTLINE Ileana is now telling the truth because "she finally feels free of influences on her that were paying her tuition and frightening her from telling the story." This interview was conducted in January 2002.

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