This is the famous Country Walk Case, named after the affluent suburb of Miami where Iliana Fuster operated a small baby-sitting service. The case was triggered by a boy who was baby-sat by Iliana. He said to his mother that Iliana kisses the babies' genitals. Apparently this is common behaviour in the rural Honduras culture in which Iliana was raised. She admitted to the kissing. A police investigation followed in which investigators Joseph and Laurie Braga interviewed dozens of children. After "...patently leading, deceptive, and coercive questioning methods" (1) the children disclosed large numbers of allegations of bizarre and violent acts. Janet Reno, then head prosecutor, took a personal role in prosecuting the case. Ileana Fuster, then aged 17, was arrested and kept in solitary confinement in a tiny cell with 24 hour illumination. After 6 months, she was depressed, felt terrorized, and was suffering from inadequate medical attention, insomnia and sores on her skin. She was given relaxation and visualization treatments, and was incredibly manipulated by psychologists. A year later, she broke. She had been offered two alternatives: to plead guilty and testify against her husband and receive a light sentence, or plead innocent, be found guilty and spend the rest of her life in jail. She still maintained her innocence, but pleaded guilty in order to "get all of this over....for my own good". Medical experts found no anatomical evidence of sexual abuse, even though signs would have been present if the abuse had actually occurred. All of the children were tested for gonorrhea of the throat. One test came back positive, and provided the only "hard" evidence at the trial. After 7 hours of grilling, the 6 year old boy finally broke down and said that his father had abused him. He retracted his "confession" as soon as he was free from the interrogation; he maintains to this day that there was no abuse at Country Walk. Three years after the trial, the test used to detect gonorrhea was found to be unreliable; at least one third of the positive STD results were "false positives". The test could not differentiate between gonorrhea and benign bacteria that are often found in children's throats. The boy probably never did have gonorrhea.
Ileana was tried, convicted and served 3 years and 6 months in a juvenile prison before being deported to Honduras. She later recanted her confession and issued a lengthy sworn deposition, citing the abusive isolation and interrogation as reasons for having previously lied about the abuse. Her husband received a sentence of 6 life terms and 165 years in prison.
It is only in recent years that research studies have indicated the ease with which children can be persuaded to describe events that never happened and later internalize those statements as false memories. All that is required is an interview by an adult who believes that abuse occurred, and simple manipulative and suggestive questioning as is taught in many interview courses. Probably any police force in North America could randomly select a 17 year old baby-sitter and 50 of the children that she baby-sat, interrogate the woman and the children using the same techniques as were found at Country Walk and obtain with the same confessions and convictions.
In our opinion, criminal fondling did occur at Country Walk, but no other forms of abuse happened. Ileana's "body kissing" is a custom in rural Honduran culture and is considered a non-sexual act in that country. However, it would be considered as sexual fondling in North America.