The head of the county’s Sex Crimes Unit, began questioning children from Arnold Friedman's computer classes.
In the end, 17 students, boys mostly between 8 and 10, testified before a grand jury of abuse that was said to have taken place in front of other students. Allegations included a game of naked leapfrog in which children were sodomized as they leapt around the computer desks in a crowded room. One boy claimed 56 instances of sodomy in a 10-week class. An 8-year-old boy claimed he was forced to sodomize Jesse Friedman and a friend of Jesse’s named Ross Goldstein. The court characterized the allegations as “increasingly bizarre, sadistic and even logistically implausible.”
In the end, 17 students, boys mostly between 8 and 10, testified before a grand jury of abuse that was said to have taken place in front of other students. Allegations included a game of naked leapfrog in which children were sodomized as they leapt around the computer desks in a crowded room. One boy claimed 56 instances of sodomy in a 10-week class. An 8-year-old boy claimed he was forced to sodomize Jesse Friedman and a friend of Jesse’s named Ross Goldstein. The court characterized the allegations as “increasingly bizarre, sadistic and even logistically implausible.”
Jesse Friedman,a troubled 19-year-old, not only confessed to the crimes but also gave a television interview saying he committed them because his father had sexually abused him as well. At the center of the case, he was an admitted pederast, Arnold Friedman, regularly spending time around young boys.
Arnold and Jesse Friedman were indicted on 54 counts of sexual abuse in December 1987 and were arraigned before Judge Abbey Boklan, a former sex crimes prosecutor