Sex-Abuse Defendant Free After Six Years

The man at the center of the Little Rascals day-care sex abuse case walked free Friday after his family posted $200,000 bail.

“I’m speechless. For the first time in my life, I’m speechless,” Robert F. Kelly Jr. said outside the Pitt County jail.

Kelly had been behind bars since 1989, when he was charged with sexually abusing children at the Little Rascals center he owned and operated with his wife, Betsy, in Edenton.

Last May, the state Court of Appeals overturned Kelly’s 1992 conviction, saying his trial was tainted by serious legal errors.