Our Cases
N C R J Fiscal Sponsorship
When you are accused of a crime, the prosecution has vast financial resources. An effective defense or appeal can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Only the very wealthy can match the power of the state. Community groups frequently set up defense funds to raise money for the falsely accused and wrongfully convicted. But anyone who has ever been involved in such an effort knows that they are seriously handicapped because donations are not tax-deductible. The IRS does not grant 501(c)(3) status to groups established to help a specific individual. The NCRJ, however, is an educational organization that is also committed to protecting the civil rights of all accused persons. The IRS has declared us exempt from federal income tax as an organization described in Section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code. We can and do make donations to community groups working for specific prisoners, upon the approval of the NCRJ Board of Directors. Many of our donors do not deduct their NCRJ donations. If you make a tax-deductible donation to the NCRJ, you may leave it to us to distribute the money to those whose need is greatest at the time. Or you may request that your funds be used to help one or more of the people whose cases our Board has approved for sponsorship. We will take your desires into serious consideration. But to safeguard your tax deduction, we cannot promise to deposit any or all of the money into the fund.
At present, we have approved the following cases for sponsorship:
Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen
Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen were convicted of sexually abusing young children in August of 1994. Smith, a 37-year-old single mother with four children, was a bus driver for the...
The Amirault Family
The Amirault Family. For 18 years, Violet Amirault ran a thriving and well-loved daycare center in Malden, Massachusetts. In later years, she was assisted by her son, Gerald, and her daughter,...
Bernard Baran
Bernard Baran was 19 and working in a daycare when the panic ravaged the nation in the early 80s. He was sent to prison for 22 years, where he was raped,...
Khemwattie Bedessie
Khemwatie Bedassie. The daycare panic is not over. This tragic case was complicated by anti- immigrant bigotry.
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Jack Carroll
Jack Carroll. The accusations in this case arose after the then13-year-old daughter of Jack Carroll’s ex-wife reported to a friend that
she was having dreams that an...
Bruce Clairmont
Bruce Clairmont. Bruce Clairmont’s story begins in June, 1991, when he andhis wife of 18 years, Deborah, separated. At that time, two of the
children stated their...
Dr. Robert Bruce Craft
The case of Dr. Robert Bruce Craft meets our criteria for fiscal sponsorship, but there is no current fund-raising activity for his case. But please read about his case...Gunther Fiek
Gunther Fiek. On Sunday night, December 3, 2000, Gunther was lying on the couch with his wife, watching a movie, when he received a phone call from the father of...Jesse Friedman
. The story of Jesse’s wrongful conviction is told in theacclaimed motion picture, Capturing the Friedmans.
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Francisco Fuster
Francisco Fuster, of Miami, FL, aged 36, was convicted in 1985 on 14 counts of child abuse. The children described the chanting of prayers to Satan, eating someone’s head, and...
Robert Halsey
Robert Halsey drove a school bus for twenty years, delivering an entire generation of Lanesboro children to school. He and his wife raised one daughter and he had no criminal...
Fran and Dan Keller
In 1992 Fran and Dan Keller were sent to prison for sexually abusing achild in their suburban Austin Day Care Center. But parents have convinced
themselves that...
Ed Kramer
Ed Kramer is now in his 8th year of incarceration without trial (more than 14 years by Georgia’s algorithm for time served). Georgia’s longest pre-trial detainee, Ed was charged on...
Father Gordon MacRae
Father Gordon MacRae. Another bogus false memory case against a Catholic priest. Read More.
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Lynn Malcom
Lynn Malcom. It all started on a quiet, normal day in January 1987. I had opened a daycare for only 2 1/2 months before the month of April when I...
Elsie Oscarson
Elsie Oscarson. On Dec. 3, 2004, I went to Courtroom 2A of the Chittenden County District Court in Burlington, Vermont, to attend a re-sentencing hearing for Elsie Oscarson, who had...Bruce Perkins
Bruce Perkins. The frightening thing about “this nightmare” is that such a nightmare could happen to anyone. Once a sexual abuse allegation is made, and the wheels of the Child...
Elizabeth Ramirez and Others
Elizabeth Ramirez and others. The fallacious claims of a nine and a seven year old sent their aunt Elizabeth and three of her friends to prison. Read More...
James Rodriguez and Others
James Rodriguez and others. The allegations of horrific sexual abuse started when Randy claimed he had been raped by his father…Read More. Share on Facebook
Victor Rosario
Victor Rosario
On the basis of statements signed while in the throes of delirium tremens, Mr. Rosario was convicted 27 years ago of a crime he did not commit. The...
Father Paul Shanley
Father Paul Shanley, 76, became one of the highest-profile figures in the Catholic abuse scandal that gripped the state in 2002. But while Shanley’s conviction in February was widely interpreted...
Ryan Smith
Ryan Smith was arrested at 13. “On Friday, April 17th 1998, at 5:30 p.m., life as I knew it would change forever, as an Ashland police officer knocked at myOnsy Zachary
Onsy Zachary was falsely accused by his brother, who wants him deported. Onsy and his wife, Fadia, fled Egypt to escape religious persecution and sought religious asylum in the U.S.