Massachusetts governor seeks pardons in 1980s sex abuse case

By STEVE LeBLANC
Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts Statehouse panel is weighing whether to approve Gov. Charlie Baker’s recommended pardons of two individuals at the center of one the nation’s most high-profile sexual abuse trials of the 1980s. Gerald “Tooky” Amirault, his sister Cheryl Amirault LeFave and their late mother, Violet, were convicted in 1986 and 1987 of abusing young children at their Fells Acres Day Care in Malden. The two did not appear at Tuesday’s public hearing held by the Governor’s Council, which must approve the pardon requests. The Amiraults have argued they were victims of a sex abuse hysteria that swept the country in the 1980s.