Wenatchee Braces For Sex-Ring Lawsuits

THE CENTRAL Washington city of Wenatchee, racked for 2 1/2 years by a tumultuous sex-ring investigation, braces for a new round of accusations - this time directed at the accusers themselves.

WENATCHEE - For the residents of this orchard town east of the Cascades, it began in winter and grew in the spring, this feeling - more a hope, really - that the whole nightmarish ordeal was ending.

All but one of the trials was over in what has been described as the largest-ever child-sex-ring prosecution. Of 28 adults charged with rape and molestation, 14 pleaded guilty, five were convicted, three were acquitted and five had their cases dismissed. Nineteen are serving prison sentences.

Town leaders were anxious to bring closure to the divisive matter. And for a while, indeed, the loose ends seemed to fade into judicial oblivion. The lull proved short-lived.

Lawyers for two of the convicted, Harold and Idella Everett, plan to file an appeal next week based, in part, on the recantation early this month of the couple's 13-year-old daughter, identified in court papers as M.E.

The girl, whose harrowing testimonies of ritualistic sex abuse helped convict at least eight people, said she had made everything up under pressure from her then-foster father, Wenatchee Police Detective Robert Perez, who led the turbulent investigation from the start.

M.E.'s recantation marked the beginning of what appears to be a new chapter in the story, a chapter in which the investigation itself may be investigated.

Critics have likened the prosecutions to a "witch hunt," led by an obsessed Perez, aided by overzealous social workers and abetted by unquestioning prosecutors.

If the Everetts' convictions are overturned, critics say, the other convictions will soon follow, and legal scrutiny will then rightfully turn toward police and prosecutors.

M.E.'s recantation prompted, or at least bolstered, these developments:

-- Attorney Robert Van Siclen, who represents Idella Everett in her appeal, this week filed a civil suit in Thurston County Superior Court seeking damages totaling $80 million on behalf of 10 residents who claim they were wrongfully prosecuted for sex crimes.

The damages are sought from Perez, Child Protective Services and county prosecutors.

Another lawyer, Steve Lacey, representing four plaintiffs, is expected to file a similar suit seeking $20 million in damages.

-- At least seven state lawmakers, including Rep. Val Stevens, R-Arlington, and Rep. Bill Thompson, R-Everett, have appealed to Gov. Mike Lowry to open an inquiry into the role of CPS caseworkers in the sex-ring prosecutions.

-- Residents have started a petition drive demanding that the state Supreme Court conduct a grand-jury investigation on police and prosecutorial conduct.

And a civic group called the Concerned Citizens for Legal Accountability has once again appealed to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to open an investigation.

Reno in February declined to open such an investigation, stating that her office could not find evidence of "prosecutable crimes" by police and prosecutors.

Another review in the same month, done by retired Bellevue Police Chief D.P. "Don" Van Blaricom and paid for by the city of Wenatchee, concluded the sex-ring investigation was not perfect but that police did not do anything illegal or improper.

Ran away from foster home

The dramatic turn of events began to unfold June 2, when M.E. ran away from a foster home and sought refuge with her grandmother in East Wenatchee.

M.E. and her younger sister, identified as D.E., testified in at least four trials and were considered crucial to the prosecution.

During part of the investigation, both M.E. and D.E. were foster children in Perez's home. Both were transferred to other homes late last year.

M.E. was transferred partly because of physical run-ins she'd had with Perez, who admitted to once twisting her arm during an argument.

After running away to her grandmother's house, M.E. made a telephone call to Robert Roberson, a lay Pentecostal minister who, along with his wife, Connie Roberson, was acquitted late last year of multiple charges of molestation and rape. One of those who testified against the couple was M.E.

According to Roberson, M.E. asked his forgiveness for lying about his participation in the so-called sex ring. Roberson, with his attorney present, later videotaped an hour-long conversation with M.E.

On the videotape, M.E. tells Roberson that Perez had bullied her into making up lies about Roberson and many other adults, including her own parents. "I had to make it all up. Bob Perez was there, and he pressured me to say it," she said on the tape.

Neither Perez nor the Wenatchee Police Department would comment.

Defenders denied access

The recantation will provide the emotional thrust of the Everetts' appeal but it won't be the crux, said Van Siclen. He and other legal experts agree that appellate courts are generally reluctant to overturn convictions on such evidence.

But Van Siclen said a more compelling basis for appeal is that the public defenders who had represented the Everetts did not have access to all available information before advising their clients to plead guilty. The defenders, for example, did not know that M.E., her younger sister and a brother all initially denied their parents were sexually abusing them, Van Siclen said.

The couple pleaded guilty, as did many others, under implied threat of heavier sentences if they went to trial, according to critics who are quick to point out that nearly all defendants who retained private counsel were acquitted or saw their cases dismissed.

Many of those who pleaded guilty were poor, illiterate and easily persuaded, according to Kathryn Lyon, a Pierce County public defender who took a personal leave to do an independent study of the investigation.

Idella Everett, for example, has an IQ of 68 and is considered borderline retarded. Harold Everett, 66, is illiterate. In a plea bargain, Idella Everett testified against her husband in exchange for a lighter sentence. Idella Everett was sentenced to 4 1/2 years; Harold Everett to 23 years.

The most the state appellate court could do in the Everett case is to order a retrial. Then it would be up to prosecutors to decide whether to go through it all again.

Chelan County prosecutors, for their part, stand by their handling of the case and seem undaunted by M.E.'s recantation. As far as their office is concerned, in fact, the recantation is only a rumor.

"We haven't seen a tape, we haven't received anything about a recantation," said deputy prosecutor Doug Shae. "We've heard about it from the media, and other people we don't consider reliable. Everyone who's told us about it has given a different version.

"But sure, if it came to us, we'd be obligated to examine it."

Besides, prosecutors say, there were other children and adults who said in confessions and other statements to police that sex abuse occurred in the Everett household. And, at least one doctor said both M.E. and D.E. showed strong physical evidence of sex abuse.

`I told you so'

Roberson, the lay minister, is convinced M.E.'s videotaped recantation is the start of the unraveling of the so-called sex-ring prosecutions - even though several other child witnesses and many of the adult defendants, including the Everetts, have recanted their confessions or testimonies at one time or another.

"I told you so," Roberson said. "I told people the minute she (M.E.) got out from under Perez's heavy-handedness, she would start telling the truth."

M.E.'s recantation is seen as more significant because of her once-close relationship to Perez, and what kind of light her revelations might shed on Perez's conduct.

The girl is now staying in a maximum-security group home outside Wenatchee. More than 40 children were removed by court order from homes during the investigation; most have not returned, and many, like M.E., have not had contact with their parents since the separations.

M.E. has been in three different foster homes since her parents went to prison. A number of times during her videotaped conversation with Roberson, she said she missed her parents and wanted to go home. It becomes clear watching the tape that M.E. is a traumatized child, and it seems to become less clear all the time just who is to blame.