Andrew Jarecki Secretly Recorded Conversation With Witness

A witness interviewed for Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, Conviction Integrity Review: People v. Jesse Friedman, reported director Andrew Jarecki had covertly recorded his conversation during a prior discussion.  The right of privacy for the victims and families involved in this case has been abused by Andrew Jarecki, for his own benefit in the production of his film and to gain media attention.

In the report, the witness stated to the filmmakers of Capturing the Friedmans, including Andrew Jarecki, explicitly that although he did not recall personally being abused, he knew others were abused:

" 'stuff really did happen,' the witness said, and added that pornography was present in the classroom. And Witness 14 also balked at participating in an attempt to exonerate Jesse Friedman: 'I’m certainly not, not going to sit there and let Jesse Friedman off the hook for what . . . he did to people that I know about.' "

In wanting to uphold his protection and privacy, the witness stated that he had not informed his family about his involvement in the case.  But when the witness learned that his previous conversation with Capturing the Friedmans director had been recorded and used for the film, he was upset that he had been tricked and his privacy violated by Andrew Jarecki.

Andrew Jarecki Concealed Evidence, Says Psychotherapy Network

Katy Butler from Psychotherapy Networker, compares “Capturing the Friedmans” to the book Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders,  written by clinical psychologist Dr. Anna Salter.

Butler analyses Dr. Salter’s findings and takes a deeper look at the production of Andrew Jarecki’s film.

Butler says Andrew Jarecki had eagerness to manipulate viewers to empathize with the Friedman’s. She notes that  Jarecki’s film is shot from a liberal, empathic viewpoint and that Jarecki stacked the deck in his favor in order to mask significant evidence of the Friedman’s guilt.

"This is a struggle that Jarecki himself didn’t master.  In his eagerness to make his viewers empathize with the Friedmans’ humanity, he stacked the deck to conceal significant evidence of their guilt. He filmed one high school buddy vouching for Jesse. But he didn’t mention–perhaps because it would have damaged the movie’s dramatic uncertainty–19-year-old Ross Goldstein, a schoolmate of Jesse’s who helped out at the computer class and admitted that he, too, had participated in sexually abusing some of the younger boys.

Nor did Jarecki include footage of a Geraldo! program in which Jesse, by phone from prison, pled for a reduced sentence and described his own prior sexual abuse by his father. Jarecki has said in interviews that Goldstein didn’t want to be included and that he couldn’t obtain the Geraldo! tape."

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