When horrific allegations of sexual abuse were leveled against Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen in the early 1990s, it was a different time.

There had been a wave of hysteria across the nation as cases with names like McMartin Preschool in California, Fells Acres in Massachusetts and Little Rascals in North Carolina were pressed against day care owners and child care workers accusing them of sexually molesting children in their care.

Those cases still were dominating the headlines when allegations surfaced in Lorain that Smith, a Head Start bus driver, drove preschoolers in the program to the Lorain home owned by Allen, where the children said they were sexually abused.

Even though both repeatedly said the accusations were false — they didn’t even know each other, they protested — police pieced together a criminal case.

The trial of the single mother of four and the unemployed man was sensational and emotional — the evidence convincing enough for the jury to deliver guilty verdicts, yet shaky enough to leave lingering doubts.

Those doubts prompted The Chronicle-Telegram’s Paul Facinelli to review the case, examining how it was investigated, how the children were questioned and what evidence was gathered.

For three consecutive years starting in 1996, Facinelli — with an assist by another Chronicle writer, Pam McMillan — dissected the case and provided readers details that the jurors never knew.

The first series focused on how Lorain police dealt with the child witnesses. Often they were questioned without being videotaped, and sometimes their parents were present and allowed to answer police questions for their children.

The second series revealed that the children had difficulty picking Allen out of a lineup. One boy was given 12 different opportunities to pick out Allen and failed each time.

The third series focused on the credibility of an adult witness who was a drug addict with federal drug convictions on her record.

Later, the case was the subject of an episode of the Discovery Channel series “Guilty or Innocent?”

But Smith and Allen remained behind bars. Their appeals failed each time, and the Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

It wasn’t until Lorain County Common Pleas Court Judge James Burge, who soon after his election developed a reputation for his less-than-conventional approach to his job,  took on the case that a glimmer of hope surfaced.

Burge initially ordered Smith and Allen out of prison — granting them bond after determining that a sentencing mistake in the initial case gave him the ability to resentence them.

That reversal, which took the case back 15 years to when the pair were convicted and awaiting sentencing, gave Burge the opening he needed Wednesday, when he determined the convictions weren’t warranted and should be tossed out.

Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.

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