Wenatchee Pastor's Wife Sobs As She Recalls Her Arrest -- Detective Expected To Be Next Witness

Connie Roberson sobbed on the stand as she testified yesterday about being accused of participating in orgies with children at the church where her husband is pastor.

Roberson, 48, of East Wenatchee, said her husband, Robert "Roby" Roberson, began questioning the so-called Wenatchee child-sex-rings investigation when a couple whose children attended their church were charged with incest and child rape.

"They were arrested for molesting their own children that they loved, and they didn't do it," Connie Roberson said.

The Robersons are among four former sex-ring defendants who filed a $100 million civil-rights lawsuit over authorities' handling of the case. Testimony began this week in King County Superior Court, where the trial was moved due to pretrial news coverage.

The trial was postponed today at least for a day because of a sick juror. It was expected to resume tomorrow.

Connie Roberson was still testifying under cross-examination when court recessed yesterday. She will be followed by Wenatchee police Detective Robert Perez, lawyers said.

The criminal case drew national attention in 1994-95, when authorities alleged that dozens of children were raped or molested by adults in two sex rings operating in and near Wenatchee.

The couple mentioned by Connie Roberson - Harold and Idella Everett - pleaded guilty to child rape and molestation. A judge recently recommended to the state Court of Appeals that they be allowed to withdraw their guilty pleas. The appellate court has not yet ruled.

Connie Roberson said she was arrested March 28, 1995, while taking a class at Wenatchee Valley College.

Robin Wagg, chief criminal deputy at the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, initially said he just wanted to ask her a few questions, Connie Roberson said.

"He wanted to know where my little daughter was. I said she's with friends, and she's all right," she testified.

She said Wagg then asked if she knew her husband had been arrested.

She didn't know, she said, but "I thought he was arrested because he had pried into Harold and Idella's case."

Wagg then stunned her by telling her she was under arrest, Connie Roberson said.

"They handcuffed me behind my back and took me out of the college, through the front doors where everyone was registering . . . they took me in front of all these people," she said.

Of 28 people charged in the sex-rings case, 14 pleaded guilty, five were convicted, three were acquitted and charges were dismissed or reduced against six others. One of the convictions was overturned by an appellate court, resulting in a guilty plea to lesser charges.

Critics maintain that prosecutors, an overzealous police detective and obsessed social workers stirred up hysteria, coaxed children into accusations and bullied bewildered, poorly educated adults into confessions.

The lawsuit was filed by the Robersons, who run the East Wenatchee Pentecostal Church of God House of Prayer; Honnah Sims, a Sunday school teacher at the church; and Donna Rodriguez.

The Robersons were acquitted on multiple charges of child rape and molestation in December 1995. Sims also was acquitted. Charges against Rodriguez were dropped when four of her five accusers recanted.

The four plaintiffs and their families are seeking damages for alleged violations of their civil and constitutional rights, false arrest and alienation of parent-child relationships.

Their lawsuit names as defendants the city of Wenatchee; Police Chief Ken Badgley; Perez, the lead sex-ring investigator; the state Department of Social and Health Services and several social workers; private therapist Cindy Andrews; and Douglas County Sheriff Dan LaRoche and two detectives.