The prosecution relied heavily on testimony from young children extracted through long sessions with therapists. Dorothy Rabinowitz, of the Wall Street Journal, wrote that "Other than such testimony, the prosecutors had no shred of physical or other proof that could remotely pass as evidence of abuse". Among the accusations were, as summarized by Rabinowitz from court records, Amirault The Amiraults insist they were victims of the day-care sex-abuse hysteria that swept the US in the 1980s. In 1995, Judge Robert Barton ordered a new trial for Violet, then 72, and Cheryl, who had been imprisoned eight years. He ordered the women released at once. Barton expressed his contempt for the prosecutors. Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein presided over a widely publicized hearing into the case resulting in findings that all the children's testimony was tainted. He said that "Every trick in the book had been used to get the children to say what the investigators wanted." Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly published a scathing editorial directed at the prosecutors "who seemed unwilling to admit they might have sent innocent people to jail for crimes that had never occurred."
Parole refused
In 2000, the Massachusetts Governor's Board of Pardons and Paroles met to consider a commutation of Amirault's sentence. After nine months of investigation, the board voted 5-0, with one abstention, to commute his sentence, although no exculpatory evidence was presented. Still more newsworthy was an added statement, signed by a majority of the board, which pointed to the lack of evidence against the Amiraults, and the "extraordinary if not bizarre allegations" on which they had been convicted. In 2002, then-Acting Governor of MassachusettsJane Swift refused to commute Amirault's sentence, despite a unanimous vote in favor of his release by the state's parole board. Amirault's case had previously been upheld by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Martha Coakley, then Middlesex district attorney and subsequently State Attorney General, lobbied Swift to keep him in prison and Swift denied Amirault's clemency.
Release
Amirault was released on parole from the Bay State Correctional Center on April 30, 2004, 18 years after his conviction. Accusers criticized his early release. His sister and mother, Cheryl Amirault LeFave and Violet Amirault, were convicted of related charges in a separate trial, and both released from prison after their charges were overturned in 1995.
Personal
Amirault and his wife Patricia, a schoolteacher whom he married in 1977, have three children: Gerrilyn, Katie, and P.J.
