Norfolk, Mass. ? A former day care worker was released from prison on parole Friday, 18 years after his conviction in one of the country’s most bizarre and bitterly disputed child molestation cases.

Gerald Amirault, 50, left Bay State Correctional Center with his wife, Patti, his attorney and about a dozen family members.

Amirault planned to return home to Malden, the city just north of Boston where he and his family ran the Fells Acres day care center. The center was the site of the child-abuse scandal that led to Amirault’s 1986 conviction on charges of molesting and raping eight 3- and 4-year-old children.

His sister, Cheryl Amirault LeFave, and his late mother, Violet Amirault, were convicted in a separate trial and released in 1995.

The case came to symbolize changing attitudes toward the mass prosecution of child sex abuse cases. The Amiraults argued they were railroaded by questionable testimony from child witnesses who they said were badgered by well-meaning therapists until they concocted their tales of abuse.

His accusers stand by their testimony, which included stories of Amirault dressing up as a clown and raping children with knives, and the ritualistic slayings of animals.

But police never found evidence and the interview techniques used by investigators in the case have since been discredited.