
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 7, 1990                   TAG: 9003071756
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: associated press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                 LENGTH: Short

BUCKEY LAWYER ASKS TO RETAIN SEX CHARGE

Raymond Buckey pleaded innocent Tuesday to eight revived charges involving three girls in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case after his attorney requested that a sex charge scheduled for dismissal be retained.

"I am innocent, your honor, I plead not guilty," Buckey told Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg. The judge formally dismissed four unresolved charges against Buckey and held in abeyance one contested charge.

The case now has been reduced from hundreds of counts that once involved 41 alleged abuse victims from the now-defunct Manhattan Beach preschool.

Defense attorney Danny Davis asked the judge not to dismiss one allegation against Buckey involving the son of Judy Johnson, the mother whose complaints triggered the investigation, saying it would allow him to present to jurors "the genesis of this case."

The defense has previously said the case was the result of community hysteria churned by Judy Johnson, who also accused a Los Angeles School Board member of molesting her child. She has since died of a liver ailment related to alcoholism.

by CNB