This may partly explain the source of the allegations: Randi was sued for defamation after he charged that a scientist was a child molester, and the scientist’s lawyer tried to discredit Randi by playing tapes that purportedly were of teen-age boys calling Randi’s home to request sex.
http://www.skepticfiles.org/skeptic2/rand012.htm
http://www.skepticfiles.org/skeptic2/rand013.htm
Randi has stated that the tapes were made as a part of a police sting operation, and the following link reflects his response (a lawsuit) to someone who made false charges against him:
http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/curley2.htm
It’s hard to believe that if Randi actually did anything wrong, the authorities would not have pursued it. It would be hard to ignore tapes of misconduct being played in court. Randi has worked with authorities on a number of investigations, so his explanation seems entirely plausible to me.
One thing to keep in mind is that Randi has spent a big part of his career debunking psychic healers, mind readers etc., most prominently Uri Geller, who has sued Randi a number of times in several countries. Randi has frequently been threatened with legal action and worse by charlatans who think he should pay them a million dollars. Randi has a standing promise that he will pay one million dollars to anyone who can prove the existence of paranormal phenomena under carefully controlled, independently supervised laboratory conditions. Of course, no one has collected, but some people think that they should have. It would not be surprising if somone tried to blackmail or hurt Randi with fraudulent or doctored tapes.
Randi described his philosophy in a speech at Caltech (maybe the one that commasense attended):
Skeptic » The Magazine » Volume 1 Number 1 Table of Contents
Here (again) is the link to Randi’s own website: