The parents of a Swiss-American boy facing incest charges in Colorado say they didn't make adult videos but they did plan to sell evening wear on a Web site they called Ultimate Fantasies, says the boy's father.
Reuters says the father's remarks backtrack from earlier comments he made that he and his wife had planned to begin an erotic Web site.
The case has launched an international furor over the 11-year-old boy's treatment by American authorities. The boy is charged with molesting his five-year-old sister; his parents assert he was only helping her go to the bathroom. But the parents' admission that they were starting the Web site, even if they weren't planning to make adult videos, is said to have drained momentum from a Swiss campaign backing the family, Reuters says.
The family lived in the Denver, CO suburb Evergreen, until the boy's arrest. He was arrested 30 days after the incident in which a neighbor claimed to have seen him fondling his sister. He was ordered last week to stand trial for aggravated incest.
"We did not produce, own or sell porn videos," says Andreas Wuethrich. "In all honesty I just cannot understand how someone could say such a thing about us. We had planned to set up an erotic Web site, as is normal and absolutely legal in the United States. But we never set it up and were not on the Web. And even if we had, that has nothing to do with (my son)."
Beverly Wuethrich told Swiss television over the weekend Ultimate Fantasies was aimed at being a company "where people could talk about what their experiences have been and that kind of thing…I have never made any porno film. I have never had anything to do with a porno film. I haven't distributed porno films or sold any porno films. I have nothing to do with porno films.''
The couple say Ultimate Fantasies basically never got past the planning phase. Andreas says the family is a victim of a campaign to turn public opinion against them.
"The negative propaganda from the United States has a negative impact, especially for (my son) and his case,'' he told the mass circulation Swiss journal Blick, suggesting U.S. authorities were trying to find a way to justify their jailing a boy and treating him like a regular prisoner.
The journal says it will not distribute money from a fund it launched to help the Wuethriches until the circumstances around the case are clear. American officials have defended their actions, but some American mental health professionals are also outraged at the boy's treatment.
There is a Web site called www.ultimate-fantasies.com, but it is registered in Las Vegas with no apparent family connection.
