Posted on 03/01/2004 12:01:16 PM PST by chance33_98
Drifter Spent Eight Months in Jail After Being Falsely Accused by Three Girls
By Jeremiah Marquez Associated Press Writer Published: Mar 1, 2004
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (AP) - A homeless Eric Nordmark was baffled and terrified when police arrested him last May and accused him of attacking three 12-year-old girls in a park. The police were "high-fiving, calling me a creep, calling me a bum, calling me a wino," Nordmark said. "I've never been so freaked out in my life. I have no clue what's going on."
The 37-year-old Nordmark was so scared of being sent away to prison - so afraid of being preyed upon and brutalized as a child abuser by the hard-core inmates - that he resolved to cut his throat if found guilty.
But it never came to that.
After nearly eight months in jail, Nordmark was set free when one of the girls admitted they made up the story as an excuse for coming home late from school.
Police in this Orange County community have charged the three girls with conspiracy, and one of them with perjury as well. They face an appearance in juvenile court on Thursday. The charges carry up to four years and eight months in custody.
Some critics say police sought to cover up their own missteps by bringing charges against the girls and removing them from school in handcuffs. Garden Grove officials put the blame on the girls.
"We made an error in believing, but so did a lot of people," said Mayor Bruce A. Broadwater. "They fooled the judge, they fooled the district attorney's office, they fooled everybody."
Nordmark's case dramatized the dangers of relying on child witnesses. But while some of the most lurid child-molestation cases of 1980s involved youngsters who told false stories after being subjected to suggestive interviewing, this case is alleged to involve out-and-out lying.
Raised in Wisconsin by a teacher and a psychologist, Nordmark dropped out of college after a semester and enlisted in the Army before he took to roaming, often following the Grateful Dead around. At the time of his arrest, he was sleeping behind a Kmart in Orange County.
On May 15, the day of the alleged attack, Nordmark had been released from a night in jail after being arrested for public drunkenness in Anaheim.
According to the girls, he choked them, pulled their hair, threw one of them down on the ground and got on top of her. He was charged was assault and child annoyance, and if convicted could have gotten nearly 7 1/2 years in prison and would have had to register as a sex offender.
His family said they never doubted his innocence.
"He's a peace-loving person not given to violence," said his father, Torberg Nordmark. "Eric's always been mild-mannered, somewhat shy. He likes to keep a low profile."
Nordmark said he was so afraid that he made plans to cut his carotid artery with a razor blade if convicted. He said he told himself: "I'm going to end up acquitted or I'm getting out of here in a body bag."
But his trial was cut short after one accuser admitted lying, just days after she testified that he had choked her.
Police said fear of punishment prompted the girls to concoct the attack story as an excuse for coming home late from school. Prosecutors dropped the case and Nordmark was released Jan. 26.
Attorneys for the girls declined to comment or did not return calls. But the mother of one of the girls, Veronica Mendez Ochoa, said her daughter is "very, very sorry and wants to say sorry to Nordmark. She said to me, 'To say sorry is not enough, but it's coming from the heart.'"
Nordmark's lawyer claims police botched the investigation by showing the girls photo lineups with the same order of suspects and by letting at least two of the youngsters confer after one of them saw the pictures. That gave them a chance to get their story straight on which suspect to pick.
Jerry Steering, Nordmark's civil attorney, has threatened to sue the police and seek compensation from the girls' families as well.
Police have denied Nordmark was mistreated during his arrest and defended the investigation.
"Knowing what we now know, would we have done something differently? Yes," said Lt. Mike Handfield. "But there's nothing that suggests we didn't follow the letter of the law. The blame needs to be shifted back on these girls for lying."
Nordmark blames the police more than the girls.
"Who's the only victim? Me. And why am I victim? Because the cops bungled their case," he said in a telephone interview from Seattle. "My civil rights obviously didn't count."
Still, the experience may be a turning point for Nordmark.
"I had eight sober months to think about my life," he said. "I'm 21 years old with 16 years of practice. Maybe it's time to take stock of my life and see what's most important."
Bump
Not saying he deserved to be in prison, but he certainly got a chance to reflect on how he was going to spend the rest of his life.
7 1/2 years (same as he would have gotten), plus they have to register as sexual liars.
God help them if they're ever really attacked once they're registered.
There's a crime called "child annoyance"? Is that all professional politician parasites have left to do - come up with ridiculous permutations of time-tested, straightforward existing laws?
Methinks yes.
The story doesn't depict the police in a good light and, if you ask me for good reason. It's understandable the police were duped by the girls. They were very convincing. At one point the cops drove a girl around in a police car having her look at derelicts and when she saw Nordmark (the guy who was jailed for 8 months) she burst into tears. So it makes sense the cops would believe the girls. But then, convinced they had the right guy, the cops let the girls confer when identifying Nordmark's photo just to make sure the case was air tight.
Someone here mentioned that the prosecutors ought to go after the girls' parents as well. That's the truth. Apparently one of the girls was giving great convincing testimony on Friday and was still on the stand when the trial recessed for the weekend. Monday, when the case is to resume, the girl doesn't show up in court so the clerk calls the girl's mother and asks where she is.
"She's in school," says the mom.
"In school??? She's supposed to be in court." It's only then that it comes out that the daughter had told the mother over the weekend that she'd made up the story about being attacked. But rather than call the judge or the district attorney she just just sends her daughter off to school instead of to court.
When the cops find out the girls lied, they're so outraged at beind made to look so foolish (and knowing that their slack behavior in the lineup will certainly come out) they go to the girls' classroom to handcuff them in front of the whole school before taking them away.
Still no one will learn any lessons here. In the McMartin case, the kids told investigators that businessmen were flying into Santa Monica airport in their Lear jets and rushing over to the McMartin school for an afternoon of pedophilia. Then jumping back in their jets so they'd be home in time for their usual martini. At various times the kids claimed they'd been molested in speed boats, hot air balloons, car washes and convenience stores. They said they'd seen babies killed on the alters of local churches and zebras killed with swords. The woman who started the whole McMartin fiasco told investigators that not only was her son molested (her evidence was he had a red bum) but that an AWOL marine had come by her house and sodomized the family dog (I guess he had a red bum too).
Prosecutors aren't stupid. They know that none of the above stuff could have happened. But they are so determined to make their case they throw away all the wild stuff and pick the charges just plausible enough to make a jury buy them. They don't care about the truth and they don't care about justice. If a case comes in the door, they consider it their job to win the case, not to see that justice is done. And the result is you end up with a case like McMartin, which was the longest and most expensive trial in California history (just the pre-trial went on for a year or two) and in the end, after all the defendants lost their homes, their livelihood, their reputations, no one is convicted of anything.
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