New York ? Two men whom Jesse Friedman pleaded guilty to sexually abusing as boys have written an open letter to Academy Awards voters, speaking out against the Oscar-nominated documentary about the Friedman family.

“Capturing the Friedmans,” by director Andrew Jarecki, is among the favorites to win best documentary at the Feb. 29 Oscar ceremony. It examines the cases against Arnold and Jesse Friedman, a Long Island father and son imprisoned in the late 1980s for sexually abusing dozens of children.

The victims, now in their 20s, wrote that Jesse Friedman was “being paraded like a celebrity.”

“If this film does win an Oscar, it will be won at the expense of silencing the plaintive voices of abused children once again, just as our own voices were silenced 16 years ago by the threats and intimidation of our tormentors, Arnold and Jesse Friedman,” said the letter.

Jarecki said his film was a balanced piece, and that he had reached out to every child involved.

“The film doesn’t exclude that perspective in the slightest,” he said. “I didn’t set out to make an advocacy film for the Friedmans, and I didn’t make one.”

However, Jesse Friedman, now 34, is seeking a new trial to overturn his conviction based on information revealed in the documentary. And in an earlier interview, Jarecki told The Associated Press that he was “very supportive” of Friedman’s quest for a new trial, and that people “come away from the film thinking that Jesse was railroaded.”

“Capturing the Friedmans” won the documentary grand prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and was named best nonfiction film by the New York Film Critics Circle.

Jesse Friedman, shown in New York, is seeking a new trial to overturn his conviction on child molestation charges based on information revealed in the film Capturing