Rewind (2019)

[bunniefuu]

[tape whirling]

Hello, I'm Sasha Neulinger, the host of "sh*t Diaries," and today our lovely guest will be...

Excuse me, what are you doing?

What are you doing, Bekah?

[soft instrumental music]

I don't wanna curse to my parents.

I don't wanna be mean to my parents.

And I don't wanna hate my parents.

You know how you have a nightmare and you wish you could go back and change what happened in the nightmare?

[Sasha screaming]

[Boy] Look at me. [Sasha yelling] I'm sorry I did something bad, okay?

In the moment, when the footage actually was being filmed, I hated life.

I know vaguely how I got to this place, but there are pieces that are missing.

It's a puzzle made from my life and I feel like I have to put that puzzle back together if I'm ever going to really move on.

[soft instrumental music]

The real Sasha, the four-year-old Sasha, is coming back.

[tape whirring]

[hospital machines beeping]

[Jacqui] Late in my pregnancy I started having a medical problem so I found myself a month earlier than expected in the hospital being monitored and we came to this moment where there was no choice, but to have the child.

I've called my husband and asked him to come because we're gonna have the baby and he's not there, and my parents come down, my sister comes in.

I've got family around me.

There are people there, but still no Henry.

Everybody's wondering, is Henry okay?

Hours and hours and hours and hours are passing and finally Henry showed up, and turns out Henry had gone to buy a video camera.

[Henry] We're rolling.

[Jacqui] Hi, hello, you're making a face, what's the matter?

The camera immediately became a wall between Henry and the family.

[Henry] Does he look like his mom?

It was something that became intrusive to me because it was constant and it felt to me like I lost my husband.

My husband disappeared into this lens.

[Netta with Accent] Jacqui, are you walking away?

What's the matter, honey? Why don't you come here?

I would like to see you. [Henry] She's over there.

You know I'm not in this video.

[Henry] She's not in this video.

Henry, turn it around.

[Netta] Is it? [Henry] Oh.

He is laying here now.

[Henry] There you go. Very good.

[Henry] Well this is... Jacqui, what's the matter?

[Jacqui] Nothing, this is your time.

[Henry] Grandpa, what does it mean for you to have a great-grandchild?

Heaven. [Henry] Happy?

That's the only way I can express, heaven.

[Netta] That's right, that's right.

[Henry] What did you feel the first time you ever saw him, how did you feel?

I nearly fainted.

[laughing]

[Netta] Look at that.

It's wonderful.

[Henry] This is the world's most documented family.

[Jacqui] Coming from both sides.

[Henry in baby voice] Hello, hello.

Hello?

[Bubbie] Then bring it.

[Woman] Oh I'm sorry.

[Bubbie] Well yes and no.

♪ Happy birthday to you Here he is.

[child babbling]

Daddy, it's all finished now, of the tape.

Now, take the tape out.

[Henry] You want no me to take your picture anymore?

No. Why?

I just don't want you to.

[Henry] What do you want me to do?

[static buzzing]

Why do you have all of this footage?

Yeah, you know what, it's just stuff I've accumulated over the years and I got into it.

And I don't know some of the people that are in these films because some of them aren't marked, but to me I felt like these were people's lives.

Somebody took the time to record what they were in their lives.

Their happy moments.

That's what home movies were.

It wasn't, you didn't film things that were bad.

You took out the movie camera

'cause there was a celebration, because there was a trip, because there was a party and that, every time I videotaped you guys it was all that, except in the background stuff was going on and now when I look at them, I see that.

[child mumbling]

[Grandpa] Right here, you want to come up and get it?

Commercial, a little x-rated, let's, mixed company, let's go.

[soft instrumental music]

[Jacqui] Henry and Larry, they played off each other really well, but it was almost like a performance piece.

We've always been hooked as brothers.

[Jacqui] Larry was Sasha's godfather.

That was Henry's choice.

It was his brother.

I don't think that Howard was pleased about it.

[Henry] My brother Howard was the first born.

My brother Larry was born five years later and then I was born 1955.

There was no question in my mind that my brother Howard was my mother's favorite.

He was this budding opera star.

I would go to see him in operas and we would all go and Howard would get written up in the newspaper and his picture taken.

Wow, that voice and his demeanor and his like, strength of character on stage.

He was a dramatic and he was very strong and he had this deep baritone voice.

He was like somebody to be reckoned with.

[singing in foreign language]

[instrumental piano music]

Henry's the first Jewish man I ever dated.

My parents had always said you're gonna marry a Jewish man.

He was living in Maine.

He was creating programming for PBS up there.

I was living in Philadelphia.

I was a graphic designer.

[Henry] I loved her creativity, her intellectual capacity.

We could have these really interesting discussions about anything.

We moved into it really rather fast.

Let's hear it for the chef.

[people cheering]

Jacqui was born on Thursday, July 20th, 1961, and in the headlines, NASA put man in space, commander Alan Shepard Junior makes suborbital flight.

[Sasha] What was the time like for you then?

Was it a happy time?

[Jacqui] There was just so much happening.

We built this organic garden in the back and we were growing our own food and I mean it was really nice.

It felt like it was just this amazing, big playground where everybody could be happy.

We were renovating that house.

We were starting a business successfully.

The fabric of life, there was a lot that was beautiful.

It was early.

[Henry] Before Sasha was born, we wanted to find a place where there were good schools and some greenery around our house, some open space.

[Jacqui] In the 1800s they had built a railroad and the railroad would go out to what were the Philadelphia suburbs.

People wouldn't go near this house that we saw because it was kind of overgrown and you looked in the window, it hadn't been painted or anything done in 30 years.

And Jacqui and I looked at it and we saw through that.

We saw what the potential was.

[Man] Have you heard about [people chattering drowns out man].

[Man] Yeah.

[Henry] Suddenly we found ourselves kind of like the meeting house, the meeting place for the family.

♪ I love you

♪ Words wouldn't come in an easy way ♪

[people cheering]

[Henry] We had this beautiful home, and this yard, and this porch.

It was bliss.

It was like, and everything was like a fairy tale.

How are you?

Can you tell us who we have there?

Who is that?

Rebekah.

[Henry] Rebekah, and who is Rebekah?

Rebekah.

[Henry] And who is she?

Rebekah Anne.

[Henry] Is it your sister?

Bekah was born shortly after we moved into the house in Rosemont and Sasha was really delighted.

He was so joyful to have a little sister.

He couldn't wait to come home from play dates or day care and run to find her and run to be with her.

♪ Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry ♪

[soft piano music]

It's all gone.

Sasha was an extraordinary child.

He was very interactive, he was very present.

Yeah.

We love you.

You love me. I love you very much.

And my daddy does. Yes he does.

There was a time early on, Sasha was a very little boy, and he said to me one morning, he said, "Mom, I chose you to be my mother

"because you're the person who can help me become

"the person that I'm supposed to be."

And I'm looking at him and thinking, wow, what does he mean?

He was a little kid.

Then he paused and he said, "And I had to wait

"a really long time for you because you weren't ready."

♪ Miss America

[Jacqui] He was an unusual child, very intense, very focused and very joyful.

[Henry] Sasha, you're on TV now.

Can I see? Can I see?

[Sasha] I would like to see.

[Woman] Scoot back.

Ready?

Swing.

[Jacqui] There was a tremendous change in Sasha between kindergarten and first grade.

In kindergarten they called me into school and told me that they've done some standardized testing and that Sasha had scored at an extraordinary high level.

The teacher said that he clearly was gonna need special support because of his incredible gifts.

[children chattering]

By the following year, Sasha was increasingly struggling being able to read or write.

He was quickly moved into a support system for kids that were not keeping up.

Sasha didn't want to go to school anymore.

He started to have episodes where he would seem withdrawn.

[Henry] All right, let me see your real mask now, Sasha.

What about your real face?

Here it comes.

Those trains are really doing some damage work out there come from city to city.

[Henry] Yeah, what do you think they're doing?

What do you think they're carrying?

I think they're carrying lots of stuff serious.

Medicines.

So why, when the first thing happened, why didn't you come to me and tell me?

Certainly you felt safe and you felt that I loved you and you knew that I would protect you.

I didn't.

I mean you can see it.

Me right there in that moment, I had never been abused.

After I was abused and I walked downstairs with my abuser

after it had all happened, the first thing was you offered him food and gave him a hug.

[Jacqui] But we didn't know what he did.

I didn't, I was just a little kid.

[fireworks exploding]

Dad, get the video camera.

[Henry] What do you think I'm doing?

He started asking for the camera as he got older more often than me just showing up with the camera.

He started to see that the video camera wasn't just something that you recorded happy times, but it was a tool.

And do a close action, make it look like I'm really far up.

[Henry] Climbing up the mountain, oh my God!

"Dad, take the camera and I wanna say something."

Come here a minute.

Let me tell you where I want him to be buried.

Tell us what we're doing. Look, right here.

We're having a funeral for my guinea pig.

Why can't we open it up and see?

I'm not gonna remember him like that.

[Henry] We don't wanna open up.

It's my guinea pig.

[Henry] I know, but it's not good for you to look at him now, okay, trust me.

It's all right, dad. Trust me.

It's all right. It's three against one.

Yes, Sasha. How about we all shut our eyes because I want him to be like in there, not with the box 'cause he needs to like take the plants and the veins up with him.

Yeah. In other words, he doesn't think he should be in a box, he should be planted in the earth?

Yeah. And go back to the earth like naturally?

Yeah, why do you wanna bury someone in a box.

I order you to put him back in the earth.

The earth is The box is-- how he was made.

The earth, Mother Earth.

A box is like a thousand times smaller. I just feel like that's really good for him.

[Henry] Tell me why, explain that to me.

I order him to be buried without the box.

The freedom to be feeling the plants.

[Henry] Here's the box.

Shall we take him out and put him in?

He was a great guinea pig.

[guitar strumming]

[Henry] Justin, son of Sasha.

♪ I can't get no satisfaction

♪ But I try, try, try

[static buzzing]

It was across there.

[soft instrumental music]

It was so huge and grown with the leaves to the ground.

I don't know whether it is still alive, it's been a lot of years.

Did you, did you pick the tree or did I pick it?

I think you went over to play in it.

You were at day care and I came to pick you up one day from day care and we went home and I gave you a bath and I put you in the tub and you started crying the minute you hit the water and what you said was, "There's swords in my penis."

And there was an abrasion on your penis.

So I called the pediatrician and I took you right to the office.

You wouldn't say anything.

All you would say was, "Another boy pinched me."

I said to him, "Is there any chance that there's an adult that is acting inappropriately with Sasha?"

He said, "You don't wanna open that door."

This is the doctor saying?

The doctor said to me.

He said, "If you open this door and we report this, "they're gonna, they're gonna come to your house.

"They're gonna remove your husband from the house.

"This is gonna become public.

"It's gonna be terrible for your family.

"You don't wanna open this door."

[soft piano music]

Is this it? Yeah.

It's not a willow, but a weeping something.

I think it's a weeping cherry.

[piano music]

[birds chirping]

Why did we come to this tree?

You were becoming increasingly dangerous to yourself.

Like, we'd be driving and you would open the door and try and jump out.

You were expressing that something was awful and you didn't want to continue living.

So that's why we came here.

It was completely free from any possible connection to what might have happened.

I said, "You know that good people do good things?" and you said, "Yeah," and I said, "And you know

"that bad people can do bad things."

And you said, "Yeah." and I said, "Well, sometimes bad people do good things." and you kinda looked at me and I said, "And sometimes good people do bad things."

And you looked at me and said, "Are you gonna k*ll me now?"

[soft instrumental music]

[Bekah] Okay.

[humming]

[Henry] What's your name?

Hey, get to the movie!

But I'm not normal.

[Henry] You're not normal?

Yeah. Why?

Because my name is Squeegee Luigi

'cause I go like this.

Sasha, do you wanna go to...? Bekah, get out of the movie!

Do you wanna go to the dog?

I'm in a movie theater.

[Henry] Go get the dog.

[Sasha screaming]

[Jacqui] Hey!

Sorry.

Sorry.

I'm sorry I did something bad, okay?!

[wipers swiping]

I can make you a cup of espresso.

Yeah, sure.

You want espresso? Sure.

I can even do a latte.

Actually I'm really into soy lattes right now.

Oh my God, really? Uh-huh.

Well, I'm not politically correct.

I don't use soy.

It's not about politics.

I know. It's about not wanting dairy.

I have a soy latte.

You got the judgment... Free range milk.

On the soy latte people? No, no, no.

If you're gonna have coffee, have it with some cream for God sakes.

So how are you?

Well, let's see, it's like this whole revisiting all of this has kinda displaced me, and it's kind of like, it's been a struggle to keep track of where I am today and having to revisit the past, so that we can talk about it... it's caused me some depression and some anger.

I start to feel like it reminds me.

I feel like I'm slipping back.

[soft instrumental music]

When I think about my mother, I was sort of tolerated

more than loved.

My mother was inaccessible emotionally.

She compensated by being very gregarious.

Do they know how to make love?

[laughing]

[blow tickler blowing]

♪ In the army now, woo

[Man] And it rubs off.

You know it works both ways.

[Henry] But when there weren't people around.

Are you not talking about that?

All I can remember is my mother berating my father every single day of his life.

She ridiculed him, emasculated him, and he just stood there and took it.

My father hated confrontation.

My mother, she avoided anything emotional.

[humming]

'Cause I lived in an environment of judgment and pain I became a very angry child

and I manifested that way in becoming kind of like a joker.

Trying to make people laugh all the time.

[Henry and Larry chattering] [Henry's mother laughing]

[Henry's mother] Did you ever see two nuts like that in your life?

And I think it was because I could make people laugh and I could be somebody else.

[Henry's mother] He's filming.

Oh my. Henry, Henry.

[Henry and Larry chattering]

[laughing]

We're being watched by other people across the way too.

[Man on TV] And just let us.

[Sasha] Dad, give me another funny face.

[Man on TV] So I might have to make a small adjustment to the drop, a touch painful on reentry.

[Sasha] Funny face.

Take off your glasses and let me see your eyes roll.

Oh come on, Sasha.

Finger, come on!

[Man on TV] Any boast, by chance?

Come on, the string.

I don't wanna do the string now.

I wanna watch the TV with Bekah.

Why don't you go sh**t something that's interesting instead of me?

I got a call at the office from a therapist he was seeing at the time and Jacqui said you have to come over here right now.

This was important.

I remember walking into that office and he never made contact, eye contact.

Dr. Vogelson, I went to shake his hand.

He kinda acted like, it was weird.

It's like wouldn't you like look at somebody that comes into your office and at least acknowledge they're, you know?

So he was acting very strange to me.

I said, okay, whatever.

Sat down and then, of course, he proceeded to tell me that you said some things and that they implied that something happened to you by someone in the family.

Sexually?

Something sexually happened to him.

He's been abused sexually and you're the prime suspect at this time.

He kept looking at me very strangely.

"I suggest that you have an attorney.

I suggest that you have a lie detector test."

It was like he--

He says, "My job is to protect your son" and he threatened to say if they thought I was a thr*at that they would have me removed from the house.

I was sh*t because I was the prime suspect.

[plastic bag crackling]

I'm a spoiled brat.

I'm a bitch.

I suck.

I am a-- Loser.

Loser.

I remember being in my bedroom watching the ink kind of spill into the fabric as I was writing.

And you came down into the kitchen with those as a mask over your head.

You wore this part more like around your, under your mouth and this came up over your head.

Yeah, like that.

Oh my God.

Yep.

Oh my God. But you were little and it covered your eyes then and I asked you to take it off and you wouldn't and you got a Kn*fe and you were threatening to k*ll yourself.

I remember Stewart was like, come on, dude, take it off.

Come on, and he was like really pushing you to not do this.

My nephew Stewart, Larry's second son, he was discharged from the Air Force and he wanted to go back and live with his parents.

Well, his mom had remarried and his step-father said, "No, you can't come back here.

"When I was 18 I was thrown out of the house.

"You're a man now, you're not coming home."

So Stewart came to live with us for a few months and he helped me around the house.

He was very happy to watch the kids.

I was outside having a softball catch for a while.

[blow ticklers blowing]

[people chattering]

[ominous instrumental music]

[Child] Yeah.

[child chattering]

[sorrowful instrumental music]

Is that everything?

That, these are my complete medical records.

Of our time.

Of your treatment with me.

Okay. Or our encounters.

Our encounters.

10 years of encounters.

When I first saw Sasha

he was a cute little boy

whose parents were confused and desperate and the boy himself was spewing vituperation, anger.

Whatever the problem was that you were having, it was very deep

and you weren't saying a lot.

A child often is not able to express in words what sort of dysfunction they're experiencing.

They usually show it in their behavior.

It's really helpful to ask the child to draw pictures.

I did not get any attention and there's, I don't even know what these creatures are.

They're like angry dogs maybe.

Anything on the back?

Let's see.

This is a picture of how I felt when I wanted to jump out of the window.

So Bekah, Mom and Dad are together and I'm alone.

It's not that I didn't get love, it's that I didn't feel lovable.

Oh!

We left Dr. Lustig's place, one afternoon, we got into the car, you were both in the back seat and Bekah started crying and I turned around and she was screaming and you were grabbing her chest and I said, "Stop that, what are you doing?"

And you said, "I'm doing a titty twister."

And Bekah was hysterical crying at that point.

You said, "Bekah has a private club with Stewart

"and if I were you, I'd wanna know what was going on

"in that private club."

That was all that you said, and you didn't touch her again the whole way home.

So we sit down and I said to Bekah, "Sasha said that you have a private club with Stewart."

And she said, "Yep."

And I said, "Okay, what happens in the club?"

She said, "I can't say it."

[laughing]

She was so little, Sasha.

And I said, "Could you draw it?"

And she said, "Yep."

So I got her a piece of paper and a pen.

I was just coming down the stairs and I remember my brother kind of came around the corner and I locked eyes with him and I was just terrified and at that moment I knew that he knew.

No words were exchanged.

[soft piano music]

While the abuse would happen, it would, for the most part, be in his room in the attic and there was this picture of a cat.

I would just look at this picture.

I would feel everything that was happening, him touching me, penetrating me, making me touch him, but I would still just be lost in that picture.

I wasn't even present, I wasn't there.

My mind wasn't there.

Someone turned the lights out.

You know, it was scary for me to draw that picture and tell her, but at the same time, I felt like in a way death would be better than having to endure that.

I don't think I've ever said that.

Ever in my life, not even to Doc.

But it's the truth.

[heartbeat pulsating]

Thank you.

Thank you.

[eerie instrumental music]

This is what I imagined my sister was going through.

This is what I, these are the images I saw in my mind.

The only reason I felt comfortable starting to even talk about what was happening to me was because I felt obligated to tell my parents or hint to my parents what was happening to my sister.

I knew that Bekah was the most beautiful person in the world and if he was doing that to her, then maybe what he was doing is wrong and also, I don't want him to do it to her anymore.

[Bekah] He had the courage to talk to my mom about what was happening.

Not exactly what was going on, but kind of b*at around the bush and said you should talk to Bekah.

And I just remember after that,

everything just kind of exploded.

[Dr. Lustig] In the confines of this office, which he regarded as safe, he began to tell me what had happened.

[tense instrumental music]

And this is it, July '98.

This is the drawing.

This is the drawing, this is the drawing that revealed... Larry.

Larry.

Holy sh*t.

[ominous instrumental music]

Is that your candle?

Cameraman, cameraman.

Photographs events whenever he can.

[dark instrumental music]

"If you tell, I'll k*ll you" and there's someone hanging from a noose peeing blood, a woman on spikes and a devil in flames.

10/7/'99.

Uncle Howie in hell.

This drawing.

The Thanksgiving where Howard pinched my penis.

[people chattering]

[singing in foreign language]

[piano playing]

[Howard singing]

[Howard yelling]

[Bekah] I overheard my parents yelling and my mom said something along the lines of like, "How could you let them come into our house?

"Your brothers.

"How could you let this happen?"

And I knew that Sasha was being abused as well by more people than I was.

"How could you let this happen" meant how could you let these people into our house that would abuse our children?

If I could.

[Jacqui speaking drowned out by ominous music]

[Cousin] We have all this here.

This is the introduction to the what's wrong with Henry video, starring Henry Nevison as him frigging self.

Myself, not not myself because I have to be me if I'm gonna play my--

Of course it's himself.

But sometimes I'm not myself when I'm normally myself.

♪ You're never the person you think you're not ♪

♪ I'm never the person you know I am ♪

♪ I'm not the person who know you are ♪

♪ We're always the people we know we're not ♪

[Cousin] Errors be with them.

Now, Stewart?

[ominous music]

[phone ringing]

[Receptionist] Okay, that's all we need.

Okay, thank you.

Hi there, I'm here to see Detective Ohrin.

[Receptionist] Elevator, second floor.

[water pouring into cup]

[Woman] Terry breaking.

[Man] Okay.

[Man] It's not like--

October 29th, 1998, your parents came into the police station.

They laid out this general timeline and I just sat there like, oh boy, oh geez.

This is gonna be a mess.

You know?

Realistically.

Okay, you have all this information.

Now what do you do?

We have Larry, we have Stewart and we have Howard.

Howard was in New York City.

That would create its own set of problems.

He's a cantor in Temple Emanu-El.

It's the largest synagogue in the world.

Every mover and shaker in New York is there.

It's a high profile place.

[singing in foreign language]

The guy sang for the pope.

He's well respected, and to lock up somebody like that, you have to start getting all your ducks in a row.

Stewart, Stewart was MIA.

He was somewhere, but nobody knew where he was.

He was around the area.

I would get to him.

Larry, I knew where Larry was.

He lived about an hour away.

So I went up to see him.

What are you doing? Who's that?

[people chattering]

I'll say, who in the world are you?

Just showed up cold on a whim.

He could have slammed the door in my face.

We talked to him and confronted him with the issues about abusing you and he was adamant that this didn't happen.

No, you got the wrong guy and he said, "Give me a polygraph examination.

"I wanna take a polygraph exam."

He doesn't do too well so we just tell him he really didn't do too well and it's time to maybe clear the air, and his lips started quivering and he basically told the truth.

He confessed.

It was like a burden was lifted off his shoulders.

[kids yelling in distance]

[door slamming]

Wow.

I'm Lawrence Nevison from BBC Broadcasting.

I'm here, I'm feeling rather well.

The television would be running and every Sunday night my parents would go out and my brother would be home babysitting me and he would put a blanket over me and the blanket would kinda come up to about here and then he'd pull my pants down and then he'd put my penis in his mouth.

I have to say that obviously it was somewhat pleasurable, but at the same time very strange and awkward and then it got to a point where I didn't want him to do it to me anymore and he'd get angry.

Of course, I didn't know it at the time, but no wonder because my brother Howard brutalized him and I don't know how many times r*ped him his entire life.

I remember kinda looking up, wanting it to end

and

just feeling so dirty.

He called it the lollipop game.

Yes.

Sounds like they both did the same parallel things.

They did the same things because, yeah, 'cause Larry was gentle, but I felt so dirty, so disgusting and so confused.

What he did was his distorted idea of expressing his love for me.

We really had this loving relationship even though I was also afraid of him.

But Howard, on the other hand, to me, I don't even think it was sexual.

I think for Howard it was just an act of dominance.

"I will make you know that I am the boss."

[Woman] They're older.

Here it snows. It's just the snow.

Would you please stay tuned if you possibly can stand it.

I can't any longer, but I've got to be here

'cause it's my job.

You people, you can get up and you can change the bloody station.

I can't, I'm stuck here with all these insane individuals and I've got to do this and I'm foaming at the mouth and I've got to compose myself.

[distorted laughing]

I remember Dr. Lustig put us on speakerphone and dialed Dad's phone.

Dad answered and you told him that Howard had hurt you and there was this long pause and what Dad said was, "Well, I know it's true

"because he did it to me when I was a kid."

That was the first time that your father made any reference or disclosed that he had been a victim of abuse or that any abuse had occurred in his family.

In all of this, before we were married, the years of our marriage, therapy sessions, and your increasing awful trouble and Dr. Vogelson's theories that Dad was abusing you.

In all of this, you becoming suicidal and staying that way for a significant period of time, Dad never shared with me that there was any history of any kind of sexual abuse in his family or that he had been abused at the hands of his brothers who had been frequent visitors with open arms to our home and who had had access to you, and I was furious.

I was furious with him.

["Yesterday" by the Beatles]

There's something on it.

There's something on it, on the drive.

You want caffeine or decaf?

[distorted speaking]

[tape rewinding]

You want caffeine or decaf?

[videotape squeaking]

[ominous instrumental music]

I just wanted to crawl into a deep hole because the guilt.

For a while I was suicidal, but

I couldn't check out because I love my kids too much and I couldn't hurt them again.

[eerie instrumental music]

Larry, he confessed and this sort of got the balling rolling.

That started the whole show.

Six days later we end up tracking Stewart.

Like this, I have none.

No imperfections. You can't.

That's great, that's great. Now move here, Ted.

Now we charged Larry early February.

We charged Stewart the end of February.

He had 16 counts, two felonies, two misdemeanors, but 16 different offenses.

[soft piano music]

At each moment you think you've hit this milestone where you think, okay, now it's just, we gotta run through the process, but soon we can get on with our lives.

Not the way it works.

It was this endless process of having to appear, going into the police department.

The children have been interviewed by Detective Ohrin, by third party doctors, by Children and Youth and by the DAs themselves, by various DAs in the sex crimes unit.

What that does to the victim is throw them right back into the place where they were when they started.

Larry's trial was relatively swift.

There was the confession.

The confession was allowed and I remember the anguish of Larry's wife.

She finds herself with her husband in handcuffs being taken away for 17 to 22 years.

Let me out, let me out.

I've got to get out.

I can't get through the prison wall.

I can't get anything to eat.

Stewart was scheduled to go on trial November of that year.

He saw what his father had received back in July, and said, "Huh, I'm gonna take a plea."

I think at that time, he admitted being abused by Larry.

He did like a one and a half years or two years and he had to go to a half-way house.

There were rules set for probation.

I think he violated them, I think they put him back in for I don't know how long.

[ominous instrumental music]

Child sexual abuse is the vile gift that keeps on giving and we know that Larry had received it from Howard and we know that Stewart had received it from his father Larry.

The big question is, did anyone give the gift to Howard?

[Child] Let's go, Howie.

It was never revealed in their household or certainly his younger brothers, Larry and Henry, knew nothing about it.

[screaming]

[Howard shushes room]

Can't hear the rhythm.

[people chattering]

[Larry] That Billy goat has no milk and I'm on a straight account. Go and answer the baby.

[child chattering]

You know, successful conviction of Stewart, Howard's the only one left and Howard's just sitting there.

[Detective] Right.

[Dr. Lustig] It was two years from the time that Larry and Stewart were convicted until Uncle Howard's preliminary hearing.

Why?

Because the nature of his abuse of Sasha is different than those of Larry and Stewart.

Much more violent.

[ominous instrumental music]

There was something about you being upstairs in the bedroom with Howard when everybody else was downstairs that just felt off to me, and I went up the stairs and I approached the door to your bedroom and it was closed, and I knocked on the door and I said, "Hey, what's going on?

"How's everybody, what are you doing in there?"

And Howard said, "Oh, we're good, we're playing.

"We're having uncle, nephew time."

And I walked away.

Why didn't you open the door?

Howard's voice, the tone of his voice, the ease with which he responded

felt very normal to me.

In my room the door was closed, he laid me on the floor, pulled my pants down, he was on top of me in a push-up position.

What he stuck up my butt was wet, it hurt.

He was taking it up and putting it back in.

He got off, pulled up my pants, pulled my pants back up, then he pulled up his pants and said, "Tell anyone and I'll k*ll you."

[Sasha] You know, I really believed that it was only a matter of time before Howard would crawl through my bedroom window and k*ll me.

[ominous instrumental music]

Sasha was frightened to death of having to face Uncle Howard and testify publicly that Uncle Howard had violated him.

If that mocking bird don't sing.

Mama's gonna buy me a mocking bing.

A what? A what?

[laughing]

What's a mocking bing?

A diamond ring. A diamond ring.

[Jacqui] Sasha, don't do that sh*t, okay?

Please, I have no patience for that.

What do you think?

Am I too hot? Sasha, please.

Am I too hot for ya?

Look what I made it into. Quiet!

[music fading in background]

[Sasha] Smile.

Bekah?

Come on, you're on tape.

You're on live TV.

She doesn't feel like smiling right now, Sasha.

What happened? She's upset.

[Sasha] About what?

You mean I did something bad?

[muffled camera noise]

What are you doing?

[Bekah] I was sad 'cause I didn't know why he was hurting me.

I didn't know what I had done wrong, but I wasn't angry because I knew that he was just having a really hard time like I was, but I was dealing with it differently.

[melancholy instrumental music]

We were in big trouble.

His behavior became scary.

Just turn off the thing!

[Sasha screaming]

He was completely unpredictable and completely uncontrollable.

So Jacqui had to stop working.

We had to do everything to keep Sasha alive, not destroying himself.

We went from being very prominent to having to close our doors.

And then, of course, eventually it destroyed our marriage.

The kids were primarily at Jacqui's house.

They weren't living with me, but it was a very, very difficult time.

[somber instrumental music]

Go, Sash.

Go, Sasha.

[children screaming]

[people screaming]

All right, Sasha!

Yeah, Sash.

[Man] Get up.

[Henry] Is that a face that's gonna win a game?

Yeah.

[Henry] This is your chance, Sasha.

There you go.

[Man] Everybody's name will be announced.

[ice scraping]

Uh-oh.

[people chattering]

[ominous instrumental music]

[Player] Awesome, you're on fire tonight.

I'm feeling it, I'm feeling it so much.

It's awesome, man. Thank you.

It's just so cool to play for my dad.

You don't have to, if you don't want to.

It's not...

You do whatever you need to do.

Well, I want to because I want to really share with you what I felt.

[stairs creaking]

[sighing]

What are you gonna do, Howie?

I called him Howie.

What are you gonna do, Howie?

How old were you, Dad? What?

[Sasha] How old were you?

Probably no more than six or seven.

And I'm like, I'm leaning over the tub like this naked, butt naked, my shirt's still on, and I'm like wondering does he want me to throw up or what is it that he wants me to do?

It was such a searing pain.

I literally saw stars.

People say I saw stars because there was so much.

I did, I saw them and I focused on the tiles that are still there now.

And I prayed that that pain would leave me as soon as it possibly could.

I prayed that that pain would go away.

How could you, on your watch, let this happen, again, to your own children?

In your home.

It's that question that's taken me a really long time to answer to myself, let alone explain it to someone else.

Let alone someone giving you the opportunity to even answer that question because many times people didn't want to ask me why, they just looked at me and wondered, how?

To me, what they did to me was some sort of anomaly.

No one told me, Henry, that's child sexual abuse and you suffer from PTSD.

Did you even know what the term child sexual abuse was?

No, no one--

Look, if I knew that what they did to me was an indication of something that could be repeated, they would not have been within a mile of you guys and they wouldn't have been in my life.

A year after I was born my father had a nearly fatal heart att*ck and couldn't work, so my mother had to go out to work in a sweat shop making sweaters and my father stayed home and he became Mr. Mom.

So my father had a much greater influence over me than my mother did.

My father was a much more giving, emotional, compassionate, generous person.

My two brothers, of course, were under my mother's rule.

My father worked a lot of hours.

He had a grocery store and a butcher shop.

So it was a big change when my father became my primary caregiver.

[instrumental music]

I know in my heart that the reason why I turned out differently than both of my brothers was because of my father.

My father taught me different things than my mother would have taught me.

My father taught me about love.

[soft instrumental music]

Your father did his self-appointed task very well.

He just didn't consider that he might have to protect his kids from a person other than himself.

[soft instrumental music]

[footsteps tapping]

What was the main sticking point?

What was the main reason why we weren't ready to go after Howard?

I know there was the concern about your fear and your ability to stand up to that and our ability to get the appropriate conviction based upon your ability to come into court.

I talked to your mom and what she shared with me was, over a number of conversations, you needed this to heal.

You and me together are still gonna see much more good, beautiful stuff.

Don't give up on me yet.

[ominous instrumental music]

We had decided to proceed.

In February, we had approved the arrest.

Detective Ohrin went to New York to arrest Howard Nevison.

Went to Howard's condo about 4:30, took him back to their police station.

He ended up calling the head DA in Manhattan at the time on his cellphone.

His name was Morgenthau.

He was a prosecutor in Manhattan forever.

People had told me the "Law and Order" show was based on him.

The district attorney from Manhattan at the time, Robert Morgenthau, had allowed Howard to not go through the normal process for arrest.

So instead of bringing him back to Montgomery County, they were going to go through extradition proceedings up in New York.

And that was really the first window that I had into the kind of power that this individual held.

[cameras clicking]

[people chattering]

[Woman Newscaster] That is the powerful voice of Howard Nevison.

Cantor Nevison is seen here helping to celebrate the high holidays at the largest Reform Jewish temple in the United States.

As a cantor, he's been a central figure in the Manhattan temple leading Jewish congregants, young and old, in song.

[Male Newscaster] Nevison is accused of sexually molesting a boy between 1993 and 1997 when the boy was only seven years old.

Nevison's brother Lawrence, and Lawrence's son Stewart are already in jail for molesting the same child.

[Woman Newscaster] The victim's own father and his Uncle Lawrence tell police they were also violently sodomized by Howard Nevison when they were young boys.

[singing]

[tense instrumental music]

[Male Newscaster] Howard Nevison posted bail and is free until his preliminary hearing.

What's the turning point then?

At what point did I decide, hey, you know what, I can do this, I can face Howard?

The person who had the greatest respect in the Neulinger family was your maternal great-grandfather.

The one who took the family out of Europe.

[Henry] So what do you think about your great-grandson?

My zayde? Your zayde.

[soft piano music]

I wanted to have Joseph protect you.

You're able to get a skullcap of his.

You mean a yarmulke? Yarmulke.

So you had your zayde's yarmulke.

I had already changed my name.

Your name had already been changed.

I didn't wanna share a name with my abusers anymore and that's why letting go of the Nevison name was so important to me.

You see there's no more boys to carry on the name Neulinger

and I'm gonna take your name.

My name is going to be Sasha Joseph Neulinger.

My dad changed it with official law.

[Woman] That's right, he did.

My name is now Sasha Joseph Neulinger.

And why the Joseph?

Because I love you. Because you love me?

[Jacqui] He said the Neulingers are always so loving and kind and it would be an honor for him to continue this name, and especially that he loves you so much.

It's unbelievable when you tell that to somebody.

[Jacqui] We already filed it with the attorney.

And right before you were to testify against Howard, we did this prayer here in the office.

Praised be thou, oh Lord our God, king of the universe, who has kept us in life and has sustained us and privileged us to reach this season of justice.

We had practiced that whenever you were feeling unsure of yourself, at least with regard to testifying against Howard, you could put on his yarmulke.

[soft piano music]

And he would be able to protect you.

Three years ago the district attorney's office arrested and prosecuted the real perpetrators.

This child has put different faces and different names on these kinds of allegations.

They tried every which way to confuse you.

You testified for about an hour and a half, and then the defense attorney, one of them said, "Well, this person that abused you

"looked like your Uncle Howard."

And you said to the effect of no, that was Uncle Howard.

He said, "Well, the person that abused you, "was he heavier than your Uncle Howard?"

You go, "No, that was my Uncle Howard."

"Well, was he skinnier?"

You said, "No, that was my Uncle Howard."

You said something along the line of, look, after this went on for a few minutes, "Look, if my mother gains or loses 100 pounds, "I know it's my mother, all right?

"This is the guy that did those things to me.

"That's him, that's my Uncle Howard.

"He did those things to me."

Well, I'm looking at the gallery and everybody, like to a man, is going, "Holy sh*t, man, "this kid is solid."

It was truth.

He testified I think better than anyone else could about how devastating it was, how frightening and unpleasant and scary it was.

The acts committed against him were truly disgusting and have indelibly affected his life.

Do you have anything to say in your own defense, sir?

Anything to say, sir? No.

The judge is allowing Howard Nevison to return to New York while he awaits trial.

He is out of jail under a $250,000 bond.

His next court date, June 13th.

So Philadelphia Inquirer article the day after the preliminary hearing.

It's incredible.

"Mid-way through his testimony

"he pulled out a white black-rimmed yarmulke, "as if he'd forgotten it whilst sitting during services

"and placed it on his curly brown hair."

And then he continued and he hurt Uncle Howard.

That took two years.

I still have

my yarmulke in the drawer.

Incredible courage

from that little boy.

[soft instrumental music]

[birds chirping] [water gushing]

It's my grandpa's backyard.

Hi, this is the day of my bar mitzvah.

I'm still in my pajamas, but who cares?

Anyway, you know.

Today I become a Jewish man.

I just, I am so happy to be surrounded by people that love me.

I mean, it's like I have this huge wall of people that I love and that love me, but I'm gonna see you guys today.

Adios, see you at the bar mitzvah.

Rumble. Come on, let's hear it for Sasha, come on.

[people cheering]

We need you out of your seats.

Everybody up, come on, let's hear it for him.

[people cheering]

♪ Be aggressive, B-E aggressive ♪

♪ Hit it

♪ Y'all ready for this?

♪ I like to move it, move it Come on, let's hear it for the man here.

♪ I like to move it, move it He did a great job today.

♪ I like to move it, move it

♪ I like to move it, move it

♪ I like to move it, move it

♪ Give it up

How's everyone tonight?

[people cheering]

I'm happy, I'm really happy.

[soft instrumental music]

My mom said that after the preliminary hearing with Howard she noticed a difference in me.

Of course, you won.

Well, I hadn't won, 'cause he wasn't convicted of anything. It doesn't matter.

[Sasha] How do you mean I won?

You testified about what that man did to you in front of him, quite capably, and whatever happened subsequent to that was the responsibility of the judicial system.

It had nothing to do with Sasha.

[soft piano music]

[Newscaster] Temple Emanu-El issued this statement today saying the cantor has been a faithful servant to our congregation for 23 years, and never in all of that time has there been any suggestion of improper behavior on his part.

We continue to presume Cantor Nevison innocent until proven otherwise.

All right, so that's 2002 though and it's 2006 by the time we finally...

Then there's four more years.

What happened? There's four more years.

Four years of your life disappeared, what happened?

You came to law enforcement at a time when the way that we handled cases like this was that a child would be interviewed by many different people.

So the first report comes in and there might be a responding police officer who has some communication with you, and there might be a social worker and a detective and a prosecutor and the people at the hospital who you talk to, both a social worker and a nurse and a doctor, and at the end of this whole process, I mean, there were dozens, dozens of different statements being attributed to you, some of which probably didn't even reflect what you said to anybody at a different time.

Recollecting the same story for the 47,000th time in this series of endless people that you have to talk to and maybe the shade of the color of the shirt that you were wearing that day four years ago is recollected as a different shade of blue and then the defense attorney's gonna jump in and say, "See, this is not a viable witness."

Howard's two attorneys, they filed motions, since you and I spoke a lot over the years, that somehow I coerced you into your statement.

They filed motions that you were hypnotized by the psychiatrist.

It got to the point where playing youth hockey you had a concussion so there was some motion they filed that basically that because of the injury you were confused.

The lawyers in this case represented the defendant very zealously.

But what that zealous representation revealed is that it was just gonna be an all-out w*r against you.

A letter was sent out to the members of the Temple Emanu-El up in New York City, so they had a fundraiser for Howard and they were asking the congregants to provide money to his defense fund.

When you have two attorneys that have an unlimited supply of funds, they can file a lot of motions.

It delayed the process over years.

Drew it out to a point that it was absolutely unnecessary and caused additional harm.

Ultimately we got through all of those motions and got to the place where we were actually getting ready to go to trial.

So there was one felony charge and four misdemeanor charges against Howard Nevison and it was with that framework where we had a trial date set and we were ready to go that the defense attorney approached me about trying to resolve it and a possible plea.

The most significant penalty would have come from the one felony charge, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

The proposal that was suggested by the defense was a plea to they're five different misdemeanors and not to the felony.

They always want to plead to the misdemeanors if they're gonna plea.

In fact, I've probably rejected it more times than I can even think of as I'm sitting here.

Did you do what he said you did?

Speak to my lawyer. Is he lying?

But in this case, it was different.

For me, it was one of those decisions I wanted to leave to Sasha, so that he could figure out what the next step of his life was gonna be.

Sasha's first reaction was nope, we're gonna go to trial.

It's all or nothing.

And it was a couple days later I got a call back from Jacqui saying they talked about it and they thought about it and they wanted to move forward with a plea.

[footsteps on stairs]

I made the decision to accept the plea bargain because I didn't want to go to trial with the possibility that he'd get off completely clean, completely clean and have a chance to hurt other people and I also wanted to move forward with my life.

I remember... The doors.

These doors.

So our final day in court was the sentencing hearing.

It was September 19th of 2006.

[Newscaster] Hearing appeals could go on for years, the victim's family earlier agreed to a deal dropping felony charges with Nevison pleading guilty to lesser misdemeanor counts.

For the family, that was enough.

But before the cantor could return to New York today, the judge directed him to first take a tour of the county prison.

The apparent reason behind the unusual court ordered field trip, to make clear to the 65-year-old convicted molester that should he get in trouble again, prison is where he will likely end up.

Probation of 12 years and I'm gonna make sure you get a tour of the prison before you leave today to show you what it would have been like, and I was like, what?

I felt the same like punch in the gut, like this case, the abuse suffered by the children by three different people, it was actually on three different levels.

Larry's level to Sasha was here.

Stewart's level to Sasha and Rebekah was up here.

Okay, right about here.

Howard's abuse to Sasha was here.

So you're talking extreme, middle, low level for the purposes of this.

The punishment dictated at the end of it was just the opposite.

Howard got this.

Stewart got this and Larry got this.

Was it fair?

f*ck no.

[engine revving]

This is our courtroom and you came up here to this witness stand.

Sasha, you've been living with this case for a long time, haven't you, and that's you asking me the questions.

That is.

Sasha, you've been living with this case for a long time, haven't you?

Yes.

How old are you today?

I'm 16, but I'll be 17 tomorrow.

As we bring this entire episode in your life to a close, do you have any thoughts or words?

I do.

And then you said, keep your voice up.

[soft piano music]

There was a time in my life when I didn't have trouble smiling.

I trusted everyone, especially my family.

But at the age of three, I lost my trust and happiness because of one man who betrayed me.

I was so scared and tormented by what my Uncle Howard was doing to me that I repeatedly tried to k*ll myself, but I have so much to live for now because I didn't take the easy way out.

I fought the beast and I won.

I won because I spoke when he swore he'd k*ll me.

Uncle Howard, as a cantor in the Jewish religion, you should know that what you did does not sit very well with God.

And as we approach the season of our Jewish high holidays, I hope you ask God to have mercy on your soul.

[blowing air against cheeks]

Is he laughing?

[Henry] I don't think so.

[orchestral instrumental music]

Oh.

[singing in foreign language]

♪ Nothing is hoid, but the son of a boy ♪

♪ La, da, da, da de

♪ La, la, la de

So what do you think looking back?

Did you say what you wanted to say?

I said what I wanted to say and at the same time, I look back and I still see that I was an angry person about it.

I was very angry and revisiting this story again for the purpose of making a film has been challenging at times, but this is happening everywhere.

I really hope that children don't have to go through what I went through, but there are a lot of children that are going through that.

So let's stop.

Let's do what we can to prevent it.

Let's talk about it.

I'm motivated because I realize, I realize how incredibly lucky and blessed I am to have my whole life ahead of me, you know?

He didn't destroy it.

It's done, man, it's amazing.

It's cool to be in there all by myself and just say thank you, goodbye.

Moving on.

Good. Feels good.

All right.

Let's, uh, peace out of here.

Can I grab something?

Thanks.

[wheels rolling]

[people chattering]

[crew] I got the camera.

[soft instrumental music]

[Woman] He'll be right back?

[Man] Yes, he should be here.

Now, what you do, save the tape.

Wait for, there's gonna probably be a small ceremonial type thing.

[cousin] Oh, there's more video cassettes.

So in other words, you're just wasting this on?

You know it takes time to watch these too after they're photographed, you know?

[Bubbie] I'd like you to speak with an English accent.

[Larry] I can't do that.

I implorably refuse.

[laughing]

Shocked, I shocked.

Look at that.

He shan't do that. Thank you.

[hands clapping]

This was taken with him and there I am here.

He put his hands on my shoulders.

He said, "God has kissed your vocal chords."

[piano music]

[soft instrumental music]

So this is our team room.

This is where the team will come and watch the interview.

The interviewer, the child. Yes.

And that's the close-up. Yes.

That's the sh*t of where the child's sitting?

[Woman] Yep, that's it.

One person does the interview.

Ideally one time and everybody who has a part of that can go and watch.

So the police can go, the prosecutors can go, the social workers can go.

We can have medical and mental health people on site and everybody that needs to know for their profession what happened, can go listen and watch and they don't have to re-interview and re-traumatize the child over and over again.

The things that we do here at Mission Kids came out of what you lived that we felt, in this county, you shouldn't have had to live.

So it's better for kids now because of what you endured.

[people chattering]

The thing is every word's important, every single word is important.

Stop it. Tatala darling.

Tatala darling.

Darling, how are you. Darling, how have you been?

It's been so long.

[large crowd chattering]

What can be done to help present day survivors while working to create awareness and resources to help protect future generations of children?

As a survivor I know what a place like Dallas CAC would have done for me.

[soft instrumental music]

[soft orchestral music]