For the past 12 years, Cheryl Amirault LeFave has searched for someone who can convince the state's courts that she was convicted and imprisoned for a crime she maintains she did not commit.

Earlier this week, LeFave found a new and powerful ally--Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree.

Ogletree has committed himself to the case of LeFave--who, along with her mother, Violet Amirault, was convicted in 1987 of raping and assaulting children enrolled in their family-owned Fells Acres Day Care Center in Malden. LeFave's brother, Gerald Amirault, was also convicted of similar charges in a separate trial in 1986.

The case has fueled an ongoing national debate over the credibility of children's testimony.

Ogletree said he was persuaded to join LeFave's defense team earlier this week when he met with her and her lawyer.

"I feel strongly as a parent that we should punish those who are in fact guilty of injuring or harming children," Ogletree said. "But by the same token, I feel very strongly that no person should be unjustly convicted of something when there are serious questions about the coercive nature of the testimony from children."

The trials of both LeFave and the Amiraults featured testimony of children who claimed that they had been sexually abused while at the day care center.

LeFave and her mother, convicted of three counts of child rape and four counts of indecent assault and battery, were released in 1995 by Middlesex Superior Court judge Robert Barton.