Ex-McMartin Defendant Takes Stand in Abuse Trial

Despite prosecutors’ objections, former McMartin Pre-School defendant Peggy Ann Buckey took the stand Thursday in the trial of her brother and mother, testifying that she never saw either of them molest a child or do anything that was remotely suspicious.

“Did you ever see anything that gave you the slightest suggestion that molestations might be going on?” she was asked by lawyer Dean Gits, who represents her mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey.

“No, I never saw anything,” the 32-year-old daughter replied.

Nor, she testified, did she ever see teachers or children naked or partially clad, except during summers when youngsters changed from wet swimsuits into dry clothing after playing in the wading pool.

Her brother, Raymond Buckey, 30, and their mother, 62, are charged with 65 counts of molestation and conspiracy involving 11 children at the family-run nursery school between 1978 and 1983.

Peggy Ann Buckey, formerly a teacher of handicapped children in Orange County who has been fighting to regain her teaching credentials since criminal charges against her were dropped in 1986, said she sporadically taught as a substitute at the Manhattan Beach school from 1977 to 1980.

Buckey is the second witness of five former defendants and teachers expected to be called during the defense phase of the trial.

Gits employed a painstaking, point-by-point attack on the prosecution’s case. For example, he asked her about items seized during a search of the Buckeys’ Manhattan Beach home, which the district attorney said indicated perversity--men’s stretch bikini pants with suggestive comments and pictures, a black robe that could have been used in satanic rituals and toys in a house with no young children.

Peggy Ann Buckey explained that the pants had been given to her by a friend to use as joke presents. The black robe, she said, was her college graduation gown. She also testified that the toys were actually puzzles or playthings for use by her cousin’s children, who often spent weekends with the Buckeys.

She also described a visit from her brother to Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota in 1983, when she was working there as a park ranger. Prosecutors have alleged that Raymond Buckey, already under investigation, hurriedly flew there and buried a suitcase of pornographic material, which has not been found.

But his sister described a normal, preplanned vacation trip and said she never saw any photographs, film canisters or other suspicious items in the single suitcase and small backpack her brother used.

Outside the courtroom, Gits said he is trying to show that the prosecution’s “inferences and innuendoes” are dead wrong. “These are normal, decent people,” he said.

Prosecutors had fought to prevent Peggy Ann Buckey from testifying, noting that she has been employed as a paralegal by the defense lawyers for the last three years and that she has both a “familial and economic interest” in the outcome of the case.

But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William R. Pounders ruled that she is a crucial witness for the defense, despite the legal problems the situation presents.