Despite Joey's revelations, the Normans continued to socialize with the Huttners. Larry and Alana brought Joey with them while accompanying the Huttners to the mountains for several weekend ski trips. They allowed Barbara Huttner to babysit over the New Year's holiday. And they joined the Huttners for another ski weekend in January.
Between November 1992 and mid-January 1993, however, Alana sought out two therapists--social worker Irma Ponti and Judy Fox, an incest specialist--to discuss Joey's accusations. Alana then contacted a third therapist, Annelle Norman (whom both she and Barbara Huttner had seen in the past), and asked her to arrange a three-way meeting with her and her mother.
Huttner, who says she'd never been told about Joey's allegations, claims she assumed the three of them were going to address the issue of Alana's renewed drinking.
But the meeting had nothing to do with AA. Says Huttner, "Anelle put her hand on my leg and said, `This is going to be hard for you, but you're strong and you can handle it.' She said, `Alana has made the accusation that her son is saying things and that she thinks you molested the boy.'"
"My first reaction was shock," says Huttner. "My second was anger. Overwhelming anger." That gave way to hysteria. "I saw my whole life, everything I'd worked for and dreamed about, being shattered," Huttner says. "I knew what happened to people who've been accused of things like that. I'd seen it on talk shows. And I couldn't believe it was happening to me."
When Huttner continued to rage at her, Alana rushed out of the office. It would be their last meeting until the trial.
Steve Rogoff says that when he learned that Alana had accused their mother of assaulting Joey, he decided that it was "just more of her nonsense. More of the same old crap from her."
But from that point on, the investigation--and Joey's allegations--began to escalate. The case took on a life of its own. Therapists are required by law to report cases of suspected child abuse to county social service agencies. In February, Judy Fox did just that.
Arapahoe County Social Services stepped into the case in March 1993. In an interview with a social worker there the following month, Joey said that "Danny" had put her thumb in his buttocks and sucked his penis. This happened, he told her, at his house.
The Cherry Hills Village police department was brought into the case the same month. Detective Ray Florom, who declined a request for an interview with Westword, testified in a pretrial hearing that he spoke to Joey on three occasions. The first visit in late April 1993, Florom testified, was intended solely to establish a relationship with the boy and gain his trust. The officer didn't ask Joey about his grandmother.
On the second visit, Florom testified, Joey became visibly upset--clutching a blanket and sucking his thumb--when he asked about Huttner. Initially, Joey told the detective that Huttner was "doing bad things to us." Huttner, Joey said, had touched his "tushie" and his penis, something he said happened at Huttner's house while his mother was in Canada.
On the third visit to the boy's home, Florom testified, the boy got so agitated when asked about Huttner that the detective chose not to pursue his questioning any further. Alana, however, later told the detective that her son had made additional allegations, including an accusation that Walter Huttner had put on lipstick and told the boy to kiss him and that "Danny" had stuck the nipple of a baby bottle up his rectum and then forced him to lick the nipple.
Florom also interviewed therapist Irma Ponti, who had continued to treat Joey through the first months of 1993. According to court files, Ponti told another therapist that Joey had "acted out sexual themes in therapy using dolls" and that she believed the boy was trying to "entice" her with his body language. But Ponti added that she never questioned Joey directly about his allegations and that Joey never told her he had been sexually molested.
However, when Joey was interviewed by yet another therapist in January 1994, he again expanded on his charges. The Huttners, he said, had a giant, walking, talking penis in their house. And, he told the therapist, his own house had burned down, forcing his family to take up residence with Marvin Rogoff and his wife (which was untrue). In addition, the boy undressed a pair of dolls that he referred to as "mommy" and "daddy." Joey then proceeded to act out a fight between the two, using the daddy doll to strike the mommy. According to the therapist's report, as the two "fought," Joey yelled, "I hate you, Alana! I hate you!"
end of part 1
