Keeping A Pedophile Behind Bars

The trial is over, and the verdict, which came in Tuesday after more than 10 hours of deliberation, was guilty. Andre Rand, considered by many to be Staten Island's Hannibal Lecter, has been found guilty of the murder of Holly Ann Hughes. This is most remarkable because Holly's body has never been found and there is no physical evidence linking Rand with the 7-year-old who disappeared 23 years ago.

Rand, who is already serving 25 years to life for the abduction and murder of Jennifer Schweiger, 12, in July 1987, describes himself as Ted Bundy with a preference for little girls. It can be hoped he will never, ever be released.

A combination of eyewitnesses and jailhouse braggadocio by the defendant served to bring about the conclusion to a tragic case, but I also discovered a profile in courage of a man, however flawed, whose conscience led him to do the right thing.

I had gone to state Supreme Court a few weeks ago expecting to sit in on the trial proceedings and also to catch a glimpse of Rand, a man some consider evil incarnate. Justice Stephen Rooney's courtroom was surprisingly empty of spectators, except for court staff and two reporters from the Staten Island Advance. What caught my eye when I entered was the large golden lettering on the wood panel behind the judge's bench. It read, "In God We Trust." In this age of atheistic domination of the court system, the words seemed strangely anachronistic.

Then the side door opened and several correction officers came in, escorting a man in an orange jumpsuit who had his hands and legs shackled.

The prisoner was led to the witness stand and the prosecuting attorney came over to us and cautioned us about identifying the man or where he is being held. He seemed calm, and an officer came over and unlocked his handcuffs. The witness flexed his hands a bit and waited for the questioning to begin.

Another door opened and a goateed Andre Rand, dressed in a dark blue suit, entered with his two attorneys. He wore glasses with heavy lenses, which gave his eyes an owlish expression. A prison guard has testified that Rand molests pillows he fashions to resemble children.

I found out later that what I was watching was actually something called a Massiah Hearing, used to determine if any laws had been broken in obtaining the testimony of this witness. The jury is absent during this deliberation. Questions were asked by the defense attorney to try to determine if the witness had been made any promise to testify against Rand. The man's responses seemed quite credible, and the defense was unable to shake him.

The man testified that he was in prison with Rand for about five months while they both were awaiting trials, for different offenses. The witness said he already had been convicted and sentenced before he decided to contact the district attorney about what he had learned from Rand.

He said he had come forth to help bring closure to the victim's family and possibly to give them information on where her body was buried, because Rand had indicated on a map where... Unfortunately, the witness's remarks were stopped short because the purpose of the hearing was solely to determine if he would be allowed to testify.

One thing I gleaned from all this is that the man was a reluctant witness. He had put his life in danger, since a snitch is a prime target within the prison community.

The defense asked if the prosecutors had promised him anything, like protection or immunity, and the man answered in the negative. He said he had voluntarily come forward because it was the right thing to do.

Whatever else this particular prisoner is guilty of, he had done the right thing. He helped keep a predator of children securely behind bars forever. As I watched him being handcuffed again and shuffled out of the courtroom, I had more respect for him than I have for a society that refuses to protect our children from sexual predators.

We live in a culture that considered a 1960s novel describing the lechery of a pedophile, "Last Exit to Brooklyn," to be a work of art. The ACLU fights to protect the rights of the "man/boy lovers" and to allow porn voyeurs in our public libraries. In an upcoming film, Nicole Kidman is naked in a bathtub with a 10-year-old boy, and that's considered all right.

We are sowing a fertile ground for more Andre Rands to roam.