The Defense of Iliana Fuster
While awaiting trial, Iliana Fuster was kept in isolation for
nearly eleven months. She was not yet eighteen years old. During most of that time, she
requested and was granted contact visits with Mr. Fuster. She also wrote to Mr. Fuster
frequently, expressing her deep love and commitment to him.
From the date of her arrest in August of 1984 through most of
August, 1985, Iliana insisted upon her innocence and upon Mr. Fuster’s innocence. She
was not reticent on the subject, either. The chaplain at the women’s detention
center, with whom Iliana had a close relationship, testified at deposition that she
believed there was a 0% chance that Iliana would ever say anything but that she and Mr.
Fuster were innocent. Dep. of Shirley Blando (8/1/85, 73, 120-121) Ms. Blando believed
this to be a sincere denial of wrongdoing.
Mr. Von Zamft, however, continued to engage in plea negotiations
with the state. In early July, Chief Assistant State Attorney John Hogan sent the
following memo to State Attorney Reno:
On July 11, 1985, Iliana Fuster was seen by Dr. Charles Mutter.
The interview was conducted in Dr. Mutter’s office and videotaped. The purpose of the
interview was to see if Dr. Mutter could elicit information from Iliana that would
facilitate pending plea negotiations.
On Friday, July 12, 1985, Dr. Mutter called me. We set up a
three-way call where Dr. Mutter, Michael Von Zamft, and I could all speak. In that
conversation Dr. Mutter summarized his conclusions. Dr. Mutter was of the opinion that
Iliana is extremely immature for her age. According to Dr. Mutter she is "like a six
year old" when it deals with maturity. Although Dr. Mutter indicated he doesn’t
know if she’s telling the truth or not, she clearly does not have any sort of
amnesia or memory disturbance. According to Dr. Mutter, she either doesn’t know
of any misconduct on behalf of her husband or she is simply trying to protect him. . ..
Iliana’s attorney, Mr. Von Zamft, apparently decided at
about this point that Iliana’s only defense could be that she had been forced by Mr.
Fuster, under duress, to sexually abuse the Country Walk children. He conveyed his
decision to rely upon this defense to prosecutors no later than August 5, 1985. Assistant
State Attorney Dan Casey wrote this memo to the file on that date following a meeting with
Von Zamft during which they discussed the possibility of Iliana pleading guilty:
Subject: Country Walk
In discussions with Michael Von Zamft today, Michael mentioned
that the basis that he anticipates we will use in striking his duress defense would not
wash.
He mentioned that he anticipates the State will object to his
duress defense because of the inability of Iliana Fuster to admit the underlying charges.
Michael questioned our ability to do so if he proffered that
Iliana had told him in confidence that she would be able to admit the facts.
Michael then went on and stated that he would so proffer, regardless
of the truthfulness of that proffer.
When questioned as to his desire to so proffer untruthfully,
regardless of the truthfulness, Michael stated that if it got Iliana off he would do
it.
This conversation took place in the presence of Christina
Royo, investigator for the state attorney’s office.
At some point shortly before or after he had this conversation
with Dan Casey, Mr. Von Zamft arranged to have Iliana counseled by psychologists Michael
Rappaport and Merry Sue Haber, who operated under the trade name of "Behavior
Changers."
These two psychologists met with Iliana for at least thirty hours
over the course of approximately a month. They told Iliana, who continued to assert her
and Mr. Fuster’s innocence, that she was actually blacking out the horrible memories
of what had taken place inside the Fuster home. They told her she had repressed these
memories because they were too difficult for her conscious memory to bear. The doctors
said that they would help her recover these memories. They also provided incentive for her
to work at recovering the memories, reminding her that if she were convicted of the crimes
with which she and Mr. Fuster were charged, she would probably spend the rest of her life
in jail.
Over the course of the next weeks, the Behavior Changers led
Iliana through daily relaxation, visualization, and guided imagery exercises, during which
they recounted for her descriptions of abuse that had been reported by some of the
children for whom she had baby-sat. The doctors also taught Iliana how to relax herself
and instructed her to follow these procedures before going to sleep at night and to
visualize the same descriptions of abuse as she was doing so.
Eventually, Iliana reported to the doctors that she had begun
having nightmares in which she saw the types of abuse happening that the doctors had told
her to visualize. She was confused, however, because she still had no waking memories of
these things having happened. The doctors told her not to worry; these nightmares were
her memories. One day, they might surface into her conscious memory.
On August 23, 1985, nine days after the start of jury selection,
Iliana Fuster pled guilty to 12 charges of sexual assault and battery. In mid-September,
1985, Iliana testified at deposition for a total of 5 1/2 hours, relating for the first
time stories of how horrible her life had been with Mr. Fuster, how he had abused her
physically and sexually from the beginning of their relationship, how he had sexually
abused the children who had come into their home, and how he had forced her at knife point
to perform acts of sexual abuse upon the children -- which she did only out of fear for
her own life. Michael Rappaport, one of the Behavior Changes sat on one side of Iliana
through her deposition. Janet Reno sat on the other side of Iliana through the deposition,
frequently offering her hand to Iliana for support. Iliana acknowledged, in response to
several questions, that State Attorney Reno had visited her in jail on several occasions.
On the last day on which testimony was given, Iliana took the stand against Mr. Fuster.
Shortly thereafter, she was sentenced to ten years in prison. She was released after three
and a half years and deported to her native Honduras.
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