Tue 10 Dec 96 10:13 By: Richard Smith Re: Something Monstrous 1/2 Something monstrous 11/1

Tue 10 Dec 96 10:13
By: Richard Smith
Re: Something Monstrous 1/2

 Something monstrous
 11/19/95
 The Independent - London

   ON 13 March this year a pretty, blonde 10-year-old girl
 went for a drive around Wenatchee with her foster father and
 two child welfare workers. Their purpose was not to gaze on
 the mighty Columbia River; or to admire the snow- peaked
 Cascade Mountains, which shelter Wenatchee from the wind and
 rains of the Pacific coastline; or to stroll through the
 orchards which yield America's richest apple crop.

   The group's mission was strictly business. They were
 driving through the town's run-down neighbourhoods, gravel
 roads, rusting hulks of cars, grey wooden houses with peeling
 doors. The little girl was the centre of attention. She was
 pointing out homes where she said she had been repeatedly,
 routinely raped between January 1988, when she was four, and
 March 1994, when she was nine. By the end of the drive the
 grown-ups had jotted down 22 addresses.

   The next morning the little girl - who for legal reasons
 must be known as "D.E." - sat down with the same threesome at
 the office of the Child Protective Services (CPS) and told
 them the whole story. Her foster father took notes. He was a
 policeman, Detective Robert Perez. He had taken D.E. into his
 care in April 1994, four months after he had been shifted
 from patrol duties to the child crime investigating unit. He
 had received little training in detective work and none in
 the treatment of child-abuse victims. But he forged a bond
 with D.E., and one day she started telling him disquieting
 stories. This interview at the CPS office was the latest in a
 series of attempts to transform those stories into criminal
 evidence.

   Det Perez later wrote up the interview, which lasted six
 hours, in a 23- page report. It contains the names of 30
 adults who, according to D.E., made a habit of using her and
 two dozen other girls and boys as their sexual playthings.
 She described orgies where parents engaged in oral sex,
 sexual intercourse and other perverted acts with their own
 and other people's children. The women would touch and
 penetrate her "privates"; with the men she had to do "the
 wild thing". Of particular interest to Det Perez was her
 claim that a focal point for the rituals was a Pentecostal
 church, "the House of Prayer", across the Columbia River in
 East Wenatchee.

   Among the characters D.E. implicated in her conspiracy of
 horrors were Robert Roberson, the pastor at the Pentecostal
 church, and his wife, Connie; Honnah Sims, a Sunday school
 teacher at the same church; Bob Devereaux, a single foster
 parent with six girls in his care; Paul Glassen, an employee
 of the CPS; Donna Rodriguez, the mother of a girl called Kim
 whom D.E. had known since kindergarten; and her own natural
 parents, Harold and Idella Everett. In mentioning her mother
 and father at the 14 March interview, D.E. was going over old
 ground. Her foster father, Det Perez, had arrested them six
 months earlier, on 23 September 1994. Acting on information
 D.E. herself had provided, he charged Mr Everett on 6,422
 counts of child rape and Mrs Everett on 1,586 counts. He was
 jailed for 23 years and four months, she for four years and
 eight months.

   Since Det Perez joined the town's child crime unit in
 January 1994, 45 adults - 24 men, 21 women - have been
 charged with sexual abuse of minors. Of these, 16 have
 pleaded guilty in exchange for reduced sentences; 10 have
 been convicted in court; 10 had their charges reduced and
 were set free; two were acquitted and seven await trial. The
 26 people found guilty so far have been sentenced to a total
 of more than 300 years. The highest sentence, 46 years, went
 to a woman, Connie Cunningham.

   Tim Abbey, a CPS supervisor who has worked closely with Det
 Perez, said last Friday that in 19 years working at the
 agency he had never encountered an epidemic of child sex
 crimes like this one. As a consequence the CPS has moved more
 than 40 children into foster homes. "I had my suspicions for
 many years," Mr Abbey said, "and now it's all come together
 because the children have reached an age when they can talk
 about these things and, no doubt about it, because of the
 dedication and energy of Detective Perez."

   Gary Riesen, the town's chief prosecutor, said in a speech
 to the Wenatchee chamber of commerce on Thursday that he had
 total confidence in the professionalism of Det Perez's
 investigations.

   Some people are not so sure. Every one of Wenatchee's
 28,000 inhabitants agrees that something monstrous has
 happened. But whether it is a monstrous crime or a monstrous
 perversion of justice is a question that has proved bitterly
 divisive. So much so that the Governor of Washington State
 has called for an FBI investigation into allegations of a
 possible witchhunt.

   The first serious doubts about Det Perez's investigations
 arose after Kathryn Lyon, a lawyer from out of town, compiled
 a 250-page report on the affair. "In 12 years working on more
 than 300 cases of child sex abuse I have never had a female
 client," Ms Lyon said.

   "Here about half the people charged have been women, which
 is absolutely remarkable. And there are other striking
 things. All those who went to jail had public defenders; all
 those who got off hired private counsel. Also, almost all the
 people who have been jailed have been poor, weak and
 vulnerable with extremely low IQs - Idella Everett's was
 tested at 58 - while those who were set free were
 significantly more intelligent."

   Ms Lyon said 17 people who had confessed to Det Perez
 withdrew their confessions when they spoke to her. "I saw a
 pattern in the interrogations. He combines terrible threats
 to these vulnerable people with exorbitant promises, such as
 saying they will not go to jail if they come clean.  One
 woman I spoke to said Perez had threatened to take away her
 wooden leg if she did not confess."

   No less disturbing are indications that Det Perez
 manipulated the crucial witnesses, the children. Mr Riesen,
 supporting his star investigator, stresses that D.E. was not
 the only child to furnish evidence of a huge sex ring.
 Thirteen other children had also been interviewed, the
 prosecutor said. I spoke to two of them last week.

   KIM ALLBEE, a plump, bright girl of 11, knew D.E. well. She
 arrived for the interview with her mother, Donna Rodriguez,
 sat down and proceeded confidently to tell her story.

   On the morning of 2 February, Kim said she was ordered to
 leave class and go into a room to talk to Det Perez. Perez
 said D.E. had told him that she, Kim, had been sexually
 molested by adults. Was it true? "I said 'No way!' But then
 he kept going and telling me, like, you were molested and
 everything like that. Then he drew a stick man and he asked
 me where the private area was. He said I should circle it,
 and I did. Then he asked me, 'Were you touched there?' And I
 said, 'Yeah, right!' " Kim curled her lip, indicating that
 the remark had been sarcastic.

   "Then he picked up the phone and said, 'If you don't start
 telling me the truth you're never going to see your family
 again'. I stared at him.  He put down the phone and said,
 'You've got five minutes to tell me the truth or your mom
 goes to jail and you'll never see her again'." Kim buckled.
 Det Perez, she said, bombarded her with leading questions
 gleaned largely from the testimony of her friend, his foster
 daughter, D.E.. "To every question I just said 'uh-huh', you
 know, agreeing with him but not saying anything."

   Kim fell silent and Mrs Rodriguez picked up the thread.
 "Fifteen minutes after Kim left school, four cop cars arrived
 at the front of my home.  They arrested me and then I was
 questioned by Perez for two hours. He told me my daughter had
 said she had seen me sexually molest 14 other children. He
 said I had 'done' my daughter and then I had let Bob
 Devereaux 'do' my daughter. He said I'd go to prison for
 life. I was crying. Then I thought, 'Women raping little
 girls! I mean, like, really!' And I got mad. I pounded the
 desk and said if I ever saw a child molested I'd report it
 immediately. Then he put handcuffs on me and took me to
 jail."

   Mrs Rodriguez was charged on 168 counts of child rape. She
 spent three weeks in jail before being freed on $25,000 bail.
 From jail she phoned her ex- husband, Kim's father, and got
 him to take Kim away from Wenatchee.  She also hired a
 private lawyer. On 21 August, two weeks before her trial, all
 charges were dropped. In the absence of Kim, the only witness
 Det Perez had was D.E..

   Kim, who was only reunited with her mother after she had
 been cleared, wishes Det Perez had never been born.

   Another girl whom Det Perez interviewed was Annie
 Rodriguez. She was the critical piece in the Bob Devereaux
 puzzle, the witness the detective believed would substantiate
 D.E.'s allegations. As Det Perez saw it, Mr Devereaux, a
 foster parent to six girls aged 11 to 17, was the most
 sinister figure after Pastor Roberson in the child sex
 conspiracy. Police records show that D.E. said Mr Devereaux
 would invite 20 or so adults over on Friday and Saturday
 nights to have sex with his girls and 15 other children.
 This, she said, went on for six years. Mr Devereaux faced
 eight life sentences on 670 counts of child rape and 335 of
 molestation.

   The case broke down after Annie, who is 16, recanted the
 story she told Det Perez. A victim of foetal alcohol
 syndrome, she has a mental age lower than Kim's. "Perez came
 across as all macho," she said. "I found him intimidating.
 He put his face in my face. He got me to say things." Enough
 "things" for Det Perez promptly to arrest Mr Devereaux. That
 was on 3 August 1994.  A few days later Annie told Paul
 Glassen, a CPS employee, that she had told "a whole bunch of
 lies", whereupon Mr Glassen was arrested for tampering with a
 witness and later accused - again, on the basis of D.E.'s
 evidence - of being a child molester himself. He fled to
 Canada, where he remains to this day. Mr Devereaux's case
 went to court, even in the absence of Annie's testimony for
 the prosecution. He spent $50,000 on his defence and lost his
 home, but the abuse charges were dropped and he was set free.

   "I just feel so sorry for the people Perez has sent to
 jail," Mr Devereaux said last week. "Most of them - except
 for Honnah, Donna Rodriguez, the pastor and I, are retarded
 people - easy prey, especially for confession and plea
 bargaining."

   Honnah Sims, who is 31 and married with one son, is the
 Sunday school teacher at the Pentecostal church. Her accusers
 were D.E. and a little friend of hers, A S. "D.E. told Perez
 I stuck my fingers in her," Mrs Sims said. "A S said I used
 carrots and pencils, too. I was facing two life sentences for
 child rape." Mrs Sims hired a Seattle lawyer, Robert Van
 Siclen, to defend her. She said he demolished D.E. and A S in
 court. When Mr Van Siclen asked A S why she would turn
 someone in if it was not true, the court record shows she
 replied: "To get my way."

   Mrs Sims, like Mr Devereaux, was bankrupted, but it was
 worth it. Her trial lasted a week and the jury took just half
 an hour to acquit her on all counts.

   HER church, however, remained under suspicion. Last Friday
 the trial began of Det Perez's prize catch, Pastor Robert
 Roberson. His problems began when he undertook too vociferous
 a public defence of D.E.'s parents, both of whom had been
 members of his congregation. In October last year the CPS
 warned him to keep out of the case or he would be arrested
 for tampering with police evidence. But he continued to dig
 for evidence of his own. A close friend of the Everett
 family, who were among thousands of beneficiaries of a food
 programme for the poor that the pastor ran from his church,
 he was begged by D.E.'s 15-year-old brother, Richard, to help
 his parents out. Richard, according to members of the church
 congregation, insisted that his sister was lying. At Idella
 Everett's sentencing hearing on 30 January, Pastor Roberson
 stood up and denounced the court's findings.

   "As I walked out of the court Perez said, 'We warned you,
 Roberson, we warned you'," the pastor said. "I was afraid but
 I let it all hang out at a town meeting on 23 March. Five
 days later, 11 police cars turned up at my church. I was
 handcuffed and arrested, held for 135 days, beaten up five
 times and charged with four counts of child rape. My wife,
 Connie, has been charged on two counts of rape."

   The basis for Pastor Roberson's arrest was the statement
 D.E. gave on the day after her drive around Wenatchee. She
 described an encounter between herself, her sister Melinda,
 her three brothers and the pastor and his wife. "Pastor Roby
 touched me and did the wild thing and did the same to Melinda
 . . . Connie put her fingers inside me and my sister. She did
 the wild thing to all three boys."

   To Pastor Roberson's initial dismay, an adult witness
 stepped forward to corroborate the evidence against him. Gary
 Filbeck, a previously convicted paedophile, was arrested for
 child rape this year but was offered a reduced sentence by
 Wenatchee prosecutors if he testified against the pastor.  Mr
 Van Siclen, who is defending Pastor Roberson, said Mr Filbeck
 told Det Perez "he saw Roberson butt-naked, bonking little
 D.E. in front of at least 29 people inside the church".
 Filbeck said he saw the pastor ejaculate and cry, "There goes
 the devil."

   "I interviewed Filbeck two weeks ago," Mr Van Siclen said
 on Thursday, "and he told me none of this happened. Yet the
 prosecution say he will testify to his original story in
 court.

   "In 25 years doing these kinds of cases I've never seen
 anything like this. Ordinarily, if there's nothing there the
 police and the prosecutors drop the cases. Here they just
 throw the evidence in the air and let the jury decide. And
 this when the chief witness is living with the chief
 investigator! I'm not saying there are no sexual abuses in
 this community.  I'm sure there are. But they don't involve
 this investigation or anyone in this church."

   The curious thing about the Roberson trial is that D.E.
 will not be called as a witness. She is a child, welfare
 records show, with a history of psychiatric problems.
 Although Det Perez has sought to convey in court the
 impression that he formed a strong bond with her after
 admitting her to his home in April 1994, a CPS document shows
 that in January this year he found her so troublesome he
 tried to have her removed from his care.  She has terrible
 screaming fits and a tendency to break things. On 22
 September she was arrested by the juvenile delinquency
 department for "malicious damage" and then sent to a hospital
 for observation. Mr Abbey, the CPS supervisor, said D.E. had
 been too drained by her ordeals to testify again.

   Other children have been drained, possibly damaged, by
 their exposure to the Wenatchee justice system. Kathryn Lyon
 said at least a dozen children who have fallen into the scope
 of the sex abuse investigations have been sent to a
 psychiatric hospital, in some cases for retracting evidence
 they had given against the alleged child rapists.

   As for Det Perez, who is variously described by his
 detractors in Wenatchee as an "egomaniac" and an "evil
 whacko", he admitted to me that he felt "under the gun". He
 is also unhappy that at the end of the year the Wenatchee
 Police Department plans to return him to patrol duty.

   But he came across as confident that his experiment in
 detective work had proved of service to his community. "I
 have no second thoughts about any of the cases I have
 investigated. Not one. The criticism against me has been
 generated by a handful of people in this area who have been
 either suspects or have been convicted."

   What about the threatened FBI investigation? "That would be
 fine. There's nothing to hide here. I'm very satisfied. I've
 made a major impact on the lives of these children."

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