Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 31, 1992 TAG: 9203310152
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FARMVILLE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
Robert F. Kelly Jr., who owned the now-closed Little Rascals Day Care Center with his wife, Elizabeth, is charged with 100 counts of sexual abuse. He could get 40 life terms plus 600 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
The eight-month trial has cost North Carolina more than $1 million, and is described as the state's longest and costliest criminal prosecution.
It is sometimes compared to California's McMartin Preschool molestation case, which stretched over seven years and cost more than $13.5 million. In the end, no one was convicted in what was the nation's longest and most expensive criminal trial.
Since August, jurors have heard testimony from 143 witnesses, including eight boys and four girls who recounted tales of abuse at the preschool in Edenton, 120 miles east of Raleigh. They began deliberating Monday morning.
"This case is hardly ordinary so I have asked each of you to sign the verdict," Judge Marsh McLelland told the seven-man, five-woman jury. "You should let your verdict speak the truth as you are able to determine it."
The jury ended deliberations for the day at 5 p.m.
The trial was moved from Edenton to Farmville, 85 miles away, because of pretrial publicity. Defense lawyers argued that Kelly was a victim of small-town hysteria and that anxious parents badgered others into making false accusations after rumors circulated in the town of 5,800.
Kelly has been jailed since June 1989 in lieu of $1.5 million bail.
The children said that Kelly made them have oral and anal sex, that he photographed some of them having sex and that he had sex with other adults in front of them. The alleged molestations took place from 1986 to 1989, when the children were 2 to 7. Prosecutors said they didn't find any pictures.
Kelly, a former golf pro, was arrested April 14, 1989.
by CNB