CLT
UPDATE
Friday, April 8, 2005
Gerald Amirault joins CLT staff for
Prop 2˝ study
Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited
Taxation has hired paroled sex offender Gerald 'Tooky' Amirault to
work at her Marblehead office....
"Gerald did not commit this crime," Anderson said....
Recently graduated from Boston University with a degree in liberal arts,
Amirault is working on a study showing the impact of Proposition 2˝
on individual property owners. It's a six-month assignment, paying about
$13,000.
Citizens for Limited Taxation is an anti-tax advocacy group that strives
to "limit the size, growth, power and reach of government," according to
its Web site, www.cltg.org.
"I'm grateful to Barbara," Amirault said. He chuckles at the suggestion
that property taxes were the last thing on his mind the past 20 years.
He said he hopes that fact will allow him a fresh perspective.
The Salem News
Friday, April 8, 2005
Convicted molester 'Tooky' Amirault
working for CLT in Marblehed
Barbara Anderson's CLT
Commentary
November will be the 25th anniversary of the passage
of Proposition 2˝. Citizens for Limited Taxation has long been planning
a study of the impact of “the people’s law” on individual taxpayers,
which we expect to release this fall.
Long time members, and visitors to our website, know that one of our
past projects was
justice for the Amirault family of Malden, which was falsely accused
in the ‘70s during the national hysteria about child abuse at daycare
centers. Taxpayers in Massachusetts were paying for this injustice: the
prosecutors, the trials, the prisons, and we were inspired by the
indignant,
Pulitzer prize winning columns of Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall
Street Journal during the ‘90s. Gerald Amirault was the last of the
falsely accused to be released, almost a year ago.
These two projects are coming together this year, as we have hired
Gerald, who got his liberal arts degree from BU while in prison, to do
the research for our Prop 2˝ study. Using a grant from the Citizens
Economic Research Foundation (CERF), we have asked him to research the
property tax history of 25 taxpayers. We hope to have fresh copies of
this study at the CLT annual dinner in October, where we plan to have
CLT members meet Gerald and his family.
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Barbara Anderson |
The Salem News
Friday, April 8, 2005
Convicted molester 'Tooky' Amirault
working for CLT in Marblehead
By Alan Burke, Staff writer
MARBLEHEAD —
Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation
has hired paroled sex offender Gerald 'Tooky' Amirault to work at her
Marblehead office.
At the center of the sensational Fells Acre Day School case, Amirault
was convicted of child rape in 1986 and sentenced to 30 to 40 years in
prison. He was said to have abused a series of preschool children while
working at the Malden child-care center, which was owned by his mother.
But supporters, including Anderson, were long ago convinced that
Amirault, his sister, Cheryl, and his late mother, who were all
convicted, actually suffered an enormous injustice. Anderson believes
that none of them were guilty, that they were victims of poor police
work and a mid-1980s hysteria tarring child-care workers nationwide with
false accusations of abuse.
"Gerald did not commit this crime," Anderson said.
Many of those involved in obtaining his conviction, however, including
the parents and children who made the charges, and the prosecutors at
the time — now Attorney General Tom Reilly and present-day Middlesex
County District Attorney Martha Coakley — believe just as fervently that
the Amiraults are guilty.
A year ago, after serving nearly 18 years in prison, Amirault, now 51,
won parole. In taking the job with Anderson's office — his first
employment since his release — he has had to register with the
Marblehead police as a Level 3 sex offender. He is also forbidden to
have contact with children under 18.
"Our members love him," Anderson said. "And he's managed not to be
bitter. ... It's just a joy to work with someone who appreciates every
moment."
If she didn't reach out to help him now, she said, she could not sleep
at night.
Anderson doesn't expect a negative reaction from her Village Street
neighbors. Her new employee was at her home when interviewed yesterday,
although he generally works in the office next door.
"If anyone's concerned, they can come over and meet him, and they'll be
fine," she said.
Working on study
Recently graduated from Boston University with a degree in liberal arts,
Amirault is working on a study showing the impact of Proposition 2˝ on
individual property owners. It's a six-month assignment, paying about
$13,000.
Citizens for Limited Taxation is an anti-tax advocacy group that strives
to "limit the size, growth, power and reach of government," according to
its Web site, www.cltg.org.
"I'm grateful to Barbara," Amirault said. He chuckles at the suggestion
that property taxes were the last thing on his mind the past 20 years.
He said he hopes that fact will allow him a fresh perspective.
Eventually, Amirault expects to go into business for himself — "I'll
have to find something I enjoy." He's realizes that some still believe
he committed a terrible crime — "I'm being put in the newspaper as a
Level 3 sex offender. That's like a monster."
Level 3, the most serious of the three levels of sex offenders, is
designated for those whose risk of offending again is deemed high. By
law, a notice of his presence in the community must be put in the
newspaper.
Yet, he said, "I've not had a bad experience. People come up and hug
me."
In conversation with a reporter, he speaks almost compulsively about his
case, describing brainwashed kids and a media horror show. Attempts to
get a new trial, he said, were opposed again and again by the people who
prosecuted him.
'Many friends'
But Amirault has also benefited from the good will of many, starting
with friends and co-workers who testified on his behalf. In the
mid-1990s, Wall Street Journal columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz first
brought national attention to the case with a series of Pulitzer
Prize-winning articles.
Amirault remembers her promise: "You're going to feel free when I start
writing about your case."
In fact, after that, lots of strangers began to believe that Amirault
was innocent, including Anderson, who was working as a newspaper
columnist herself. She visited Amirault in prison.
"I thought I'd take a look at him and decide that he was guilty," she
said. "It didn't work that way."
For his part, Amirault said, "She looked like a person who was looking
for the truth."
She met his family and began to assess the evidence, finding stories of
"magic rooms" and "a naked clown" hard to accept.
In her writings, Anderson began to crusade on behalf of the Amiraults.
Moreover, she discovered that his circumstances struck a chord with her
anti-tax, anti-government allies.
"This bothered people on our side of the spectrum politically," she
said.
Citizens for Limited Taxation began including pleas for the Amiraults on
its Web site.
Meanwhile, Anderson said, day-care abuse convictions were being tossed
out across the country. "You'd just be amazed at how many of these cases
there were. ... And Gerald was the last one in jail."
Amirault said his life is fantastic now.
"I still live in the same house (in Malden)," he said. "All my neighbors
wrote letters in my support to the parole board. ... I have more friends
than I would have had if I hadn't gone through this."
Some helped maintain his house while he was in jail. A man donated money
to send his daughters to college.
"I'm free," he said. "I'm enjoying my family. I'm enjoying my life."
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