Opening Accounts Clash At Trial Of Police Officer

EVERETT - The case against former Everett police Officer Robert Whidbey isn't about a sleazy attempt to solicit sex from a 15-year-old girl, his attorney said yesterday.

"This is a case about lies; horrible lies; powerful lies," said Seattle attorney Jenny Durkan in her opening statement before a Snohomish County Superior Court jury. "Lies so powerful that even when told anonymously they threaten to extinguish the truth."

She described a tightly knit clan - which includes the girl - that despises police and habitually tells lies to throw blame onto other people. The man who sparked the investigation with an anonymous call to Everett police had been charged that day with raping his niece, she said. Even that rape charge might be based on a lie, she said.

However, Deputy Prosecutor Dave Hiltner described a profoundly different sequence of events Oct. 23 that led to the filing of extortion and child-molestation charges against Whidbey, 30.

The officer called himself "Robocop," Hiltner said, and used that tough-guy image in a traffic stop to intimidate the girl and her 16-year-old friend, who was driving. He touched the younger teen between her legs during a frisk, Hiltner said, and offered not to write a ticket if the girls would perform oral sex on him.

Hiltner said Whidbey admitted to frisking the girl against department policy outside his patrol car. But Durkan said Whidbey never frisked the girl and accused the prosecution of twisting Whidbey's words. Whidbey's interviews with Snohomish County sheriff's investigators were not taped, and he did not have an attorney present.

Whidbey was fired in November after 13 months of employment. His personnel file shows his probationary period had been extended two months due to attitude problems and failing to keep in close touch with police dispatchers.

Both sides agree on a few basic facts:

Whidbey stopped a car at 2:30 a.m. in the 2100 block of Broadway, one of Everett's busiest strips. The car had a burned-out taillight, and neither girl had a driver's license.

It was a school night, but neither teenager attended school.

During the course of the traffic stop, which lasted about an hour, several other officers stopped by to see if Whidbey, a rookie, needed help. Each time, he declined assistance. No ticket was issued, and the adult owner of the car was summoned to drive it and the girls home.

Both attorneys also agree Whidbey made crude sexual remarks to the girls regarding a senior officer patrolling the area.

Durkan said Whidbey had decided to let the girls off with a warning when the officer, Lou Pederson, told him to cite the driver and call a tow truck for the car. Pederson, who now is a detective, was one of the toughest patrol cops on the force, Durkan said.

Whidbey was honest with the girls about his predicament, and then uttered the "terrible words," she said:

"If (Pederson) says, `Stand on your head,' stand on your head. If he says, `Jump,' say, `How high?' If he says, `Get in the back seat and have sex,' get in the back seat and have sex," Durkan quoted Whidbey as having said.

Whidbey then said he was just joking, according to both Hiltner and Durkan.

The nickname "Robocop" was given Whidbey by the 16-year-old girl's aunt after the incident, Durkan said. Whidbey made the girls call the woman at 3 a.m. to come down and pick up the car, because he wanted them to face some consequences for their actions, Durkan said.

The woman owned the car and was unofficial guardian of the 15-year-old at the time of the incident.

About 30 minutes of the one-hour traffic stop were after the woman arrived. She made "chit-chat" with Whidbey about world events, apparently to distract him from running her name through the police computer network, Durkan said.

It worked; he didn't. But that's why the traffic stop took so long, Durkan said.

The woman had recently failed to appear for a Chelan County court hearing for a ticket received when she allowed the 15-year-old girl to drive her car without a license at 100 mph, Durkan said.

Testimony began yesterday, with appearances by police officers.

The trial probably will continue through Tuesday, Durkan said.

Whidbey's trial was delayed three months to provide some distance from the Rodney King verdict and riots in Los Angeles.

Whidbey is African American, while his accusers are white.