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He lied to survive in prison: Child molestation conviction overturned
By Brian Skoloff of the Associated Press, The Kansas City Star (Sunday, May 9, 2004)
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Not even murderers and rapists can stand
child molesters. Behind bars, they are the marked men, constantly
living in fear.
Found guilty of child molestation, John Stoll knew he would never survive with that stigma. So he lied, posing as a drug runner for 20 long years, and managed to avoid attack until his conviction was overturned.
"I was terrified," he said. "I knew the odds weren't real good that I wasn't going to get stabbed going to prison as a convicted child molester."
Stoll walked free Tuesday after most of his alleged victims recanted and said they had lied about being molested in 1984. Prosecutors maintained that Stoll is guilty, but said they would not refile charges because of a lack of evidence and the recanted testimony.
Stoll disclosed details of his life behind bars as he joined his attorneys for a celebratory meal on his first night as a free man -- his 61st birthday.
He recalled a close call one night: A fellow inmate came to his cell and said he knew Stoll's secret. The man had discovered Stoll's case in the prison law library.
"He says to me, 'I've got paperwork on you,'" Stoll remembered.
The cell doors closed for the night. Stoll thought it would be his last.
"I could feel the blood draining from me. I was scared. I sat all night and didn't sleep," he said. "Who's going to let a child molester walk around? It's a pretty disgusting crime."
By a stroke of luck, the next morning there was a riot in the mess hall, and the inmate who had threatened to expose Stoll was whisked away. A guard later came to Stoll's cell and handed him a bundle of the other inmate's papers: the details of Stoll's conviction.
"I tore it up and flushed it down the toilet," Stoll said. "More than once, a prison staff member saved my life."
Stoll was convicted as part of an alleged child molestation ring that supposedly involved sodomy, group sex and pronographic photography. No pictures were found. In fact, prosecutors presented no physical evidence at the trial. None of the children, ages 6 to 8, was examined by doctors. The case rested on testimony alone.
Two Innocence Project groups in California won Stoll's freedom after tracking down his alleged victims and persuading most of them -- now adults -- to come forward once again. Four of those accusers testified in January that investigators pressured them until they lied. A fifth testified he has no memories from that part of his childhood.
The sixth accuser, Stoll's own son, Jed, still insists that his father molested him. Stoll blames that on a bitter custody dispute, saying his wife at the time filled the boy's head with lies.
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