<P> The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case in the 1980s, prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney Ira Reiner . Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care . Accusations were made in 1983 . Arrests and the pretrial investigation ran from 1984 to 1987, and the trial ran from 1987 to 1990 . After six years of criminal trials, no convictions were obtained, and all charges were dropped in 1990 . When the trial ended in 1990, it had been the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history . The case was part of day - care sex - abuse hysteria, a moral panic over alleged Satanic ritual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s . </P> <P> In 1983, Judy Johnson, mother of one of the Manhattan Beach, California, preschool's young students, reported to the police that her son had been sodomized by her estranged husband and by McMartin teacher Ray Buckey . Ray Buckey was the grandson of school founder Virginia McMartin and son of administrator Peggy McMartin Buckey . Johnson's belief that her son had been abused began when her son had painful bowel movements . What happened next is still disputed . Some sources state that at that time, Johnson's son denied her suggestion that his preschool teachers had molested him, whereas others say he confirmed the abuse . </P>

Longest and most expensive trial in us history