McMartin Prosecutor Attended the School

One of the two prosecutors in the retrial of the McMartin Pre-School molestation case attended the nursery as a child, a fact the district attorney’s office did not disclose until Thursday, three months after the case ended in a mistrial.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Pam Ferrero attended the preschool for a brief time in the late 1950s, before chief McMartin defendant Raymond Buckey was born, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner.

Buckey’s defense attorney, Danny Davis, said it was quite likely that some of the teachers and former teachers cross-examined by Ferrero at the retrial were her teachers at the Manhattan Beach nursery.

Gibbons said her office had known before the retrial that Ferrero had attended the now-razed preschool, but felt that Ferrero’s attendance there had no relevance to her role as co-prosecutor and therefore did not disclose it.