Did Someone Else Abuse Peter Hanes?

If one reads the trial transcript and the police reports, it becomes obvious that five of the six child witnesses were never sexually abused by anyone. The case of Peter Hanes, the original accuser, is ambiguous. Peter may have been sexually molested — by someone other than Bernard Baran.

In addition to having been violent drug addicts, both David and Julie Hanes appear to have been sexually promiscuous. Shortly after Baran’s arrest, Julie threw David out for the final time, allegedly because David was sleeping with someone else. And shortly after that, their friend John Wilson (not his real name) moved in with Julie and the children. Wilson was no recent acquaintance — he and Julie had grown up together. Peter and his little brother were soon removed to a foster home, but eventually one or both were allowed to spend the weekend with Julie and John.

After Baran’s conviction, Julie Hanes sued ECDC for negligence. The case did not come to trial until 1995, when Peter Hanes was 14. ECDC’s insurance company hired a private investigator named Johnson to dig up information for their lawyers. This investigation is, thus far, the only thorough investigation ever done of this case. The investigator and lawyers discovered a great deal of information that would easily have been available to the police after Baran’s arrest, had the police any real interest in discovering what was really going on. In fact, much of the information found was obviously known to the police, as both Julie and David Hanes had extensive histories with the police, and also because both Haneses were drug informants at the time. But the police and DA’s office apparently had no interest in evidence favorable to Bernard Baran.

The insurance-company lawyers discovered that Peter Hanes had disclosed sexual abuse by John Wilson to a foster mother. The foster mother reported the alleged abuse to the Department of Social Services (DSS), but no one bothered to tell Baran’s lawyers. (This happened a few days before the start of Baran’s trial.) DSS substantiated the accusation on 1/21/85, the day jury selection began. By law, DSS was required to report the abuse to the DA’s office and to the police. But DSS didn’t do so until 1/30/85, the day Baran was convicted.

The DSS report was the basis for the following interrogation of Peter Hanes. The abuse account that emerges from the transcript and report — with the details describing masturbation with soap and washcloth, ejaculation, and fellatio — certainly rings truer that the trial accounts of dead baby birds and the scraping of a three-year-old’s vagina with a pair of scissors. If John Wilson in fact had ejaculated in Peter Hanes’ mouth, this could be the cause of Hanes’ gonorrhea of the throat. (We can never know for certain, however, whether Peter had gonorrhea, because of the unreliability of the test used on him.) Wilson and the Haneses might well have had gonorrhea. (Wilson was never tested.) Baran’s trial, in fact, contains a sidebar in which Baran’s lawyer discloses that he might produce witnesses who heard Julie accuse David Hanes of having gonorrhea. But witnesses were not produced, nor were relevant medical records obtained.

The insurance-company lawyers apparently concluded that John Wilson had abused Peter Hanes, and that Julie Hanes even knew about the abuse. (Although she did not condone it, neither did she report it.) In her opening statement during the civil trial, defense attorney Jocelyn Sedney said: “There is no dispute in this case as to whether or not Peter Hanes was molested and that what happened was wrong. There is a dispute as to who molested him, and there is a dispute as to if it was Bernard Baran who molested him…” Later in the same statement, Sedney said, “You’re going to hear what he [Peter] said in October of 1984 Bernie Baran did to him, but you’re also going to hear what he said other people did to him.”

The following testimony and the DSS report are disturbing. If one investigates the high-profile daycare cases of the 80s, one comfortably concludes that no abuse took place. We are denied that comfort in the case of Peter Hanes. I don’t know whether or not there’s substance to Peter’s accusation of Wilson. But either it is true or it is not. If it is true, it is highly relevant in that it provides an alternative explanation of what happened. And if it is false, it is highly relevant in that it destroys Peter Hanes’ credibility. What most disturbs me is how differently the Baran and Woodger accusations were handled and the role played by homophobia.

April 5, 1995

RICHARD BRODY: And very shortly thereafter [Baran's arrest] do you remember that you and your brother were taken from the home?PETER HANES: Yeah.

RICHARD BRODY: And you were placed in another home, weren’t you?

PETER HANES: Yeah.

RICHARD BRODY: And you were there for a little while?

PETER HANES: Yeah.

RICHARD BRODY: And then you went into another home; do you remember that?

PETER HANES: Yeah.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember the name of the foster parents of the Murphys [an alias]?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: You don’t remember Mrs. Murphy?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember one time that you came home — strike that. Do you remember that while you were in the foster home they would let you go back to see your mom on weekends?

PETER HANES: Kinda.

RICHARD BRODY: And do you remember your mom living with a man named John at the time?

PETER HANES: Yeah.

RICHARD BRODY: And you called him Daddy John, right?

PETER HANES: Yeah.

RICHARD BRODY: Okay. And that was John Wilson?

PETER HANES: Yeah.

RICHARD BRODY: And John Wilson lived with your mom while you and your brother lived in another house; is that right?

PETER HANES: Yeah.

GERARD DISANTI: [Attorney for the Haneses] Objection. I don’t know if he knows that, Your Honor.

RICHARD BRODY: He just said yes.

THE COURT: Well, he can answer the question. Overruled.

RICHARD BRODY: And do you remember one weekend you went home and you were with mom and Mr. Wilson, and you came back to your foster home and your mom — foster mom asked you some questions about what happened?

PETER HANES: Yeah.

RICHARD BRODY: One moment, please, Your Honor?

THE COURT: Certainly.

(Pause)

RICHARD BRODY: Approach the witness, Your Honor?

THE COURT: Yes.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember telling your foster mom that John touches you and it was a bad touch like Bernie?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember telling your foster mom that John rubs you in the bathtub and in your bedroom?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember ever saying to your foster mom that “John touches my pee-pee.”

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember telling your foster mom that it was a bad touch?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember telling your foster mom that your mommy hit John with soap when he did it?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember telling your foster mom that this was a secret and John will get angry and break the house if anybody knows?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember telling your foster mom that “mommy told me when the — to keep it a secret”?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember your foster mom getting a bowl of water for you to show how John washes your penis?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember that Peter — that you then asked for a bar of soap and a washcloth so you could show her better?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember your foster mom holding out her finger as if it were a penis and you rubbing it with the washcloth and the soap?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember being with your foster mom and taking some liquid soap and putting it — squirting it our of a dispenser and saying that it comes out just like the soap out of John’s penis?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember that your foster mom squirted some liquid soap into your hand, that you looked at it, and you were asked if John had soap like that?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: And your saying yes.

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember your foster mom asking you where John keeps his soap, and you said in his pee?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: You don’t remember that. Do you remember being asked if you ever saw John’s pee and you said yes?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember being asked if John ever made you do anything and you said, “Yes, kiss his pee”?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember being asked by your foster mom and another man where the soap came from, and you said, “John’s pee,” and where the soap went, and you said, “In my mouth”?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember saying that when it went in your mouth, you would spit it out because John hurt you and scared you?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember being asked if your mommy knew what John did to you and you said yes?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: And do you remember saying mommy hit John when she found out?

PETER HANES: No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember being asked if John did the same thing to you that Bernie did?

PETER HANES. No.

RICHARD BRODY: Do you remember saying that John did do the same thing to you that Bernie did but John did it one and Bernie was two?

PETER HANES: No.

[On my first reading of the transcript, I'd assumed that Peter was accusing Wilson of molesting him once and Baran, twice. But according to the DSS report, what Peter meant was that Wilson had molested him first and Baran second. In all probability, neither man molested Peter Hanes.]