PASTOR WINS CASE AGAINST WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES

PASTOR WINS CASE AGAINST WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES

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January 21, 2000 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - We are pleased to announce that Pastor Robert Roberson and his wife, Connie, of Wenatchee, Washington, have won an $850,000 settlement from the Washington State Department of Health and Social Services. The Robersons were arrested in 1994 and charged with being among the ringleaders of a child sex-abuse ring. The bizarre case eventually involved more than 60 adults, who were charged with some 30,000 counts of child sex crimes against 43 children. Police claimed that three loosely organized and overlapping groups of adults participated in child-swapping sex rings, abusing the children over a period of eight years. They alleged that the Robersons held orgies with children in their Pentecostal church. We reported this in the article "Witch Hunt in Wenatchee," O Timothy, Volume 13, Issue 3, 1996.

The strange case attracted national attention and was investigated by major news organizations, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Daily News, the Seattle Times, NBC Dateline, Reader’s Digest, and Time magazine. Scripps Howard News Service articles on the subject were titled "The Sex Crime Monster that Ate Wenatchee" and "Salem West." Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal spent a full week in Wenatchee investigating the case, concluding that it was a witch hunt. Attorney Kathryn Lyon of Tacoma, Washington, took six weeks off from her work and launched an independent review of the sex ring case. According to the Spokesman Review, October 22, 1995, Lyon, who has an interest in defending child abuse cases, said she spent $40,000 researching this matter. Her 200-page report documented a pattern of prejudice at the heart of the sex ring investigation.

The investigations uncovered many serious abuses of justice on the part of the local law enforcement agencies and the state Department of Health and Social Services.

ABUSE ON THE SIDE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT

No physical evidence was ever found to prove the allegations. The charges were based on the testimony of children and adults, most of whom later recanted. The moral character of the "star witnesses" was extremely questionable. One had tried to kill her foster father because he refused to allow her to commit immoral acts in his home. The other key witness, an eleven-year-old girl who was in the care of the chief Police investigator Robert Perez, has an uncontrollable rage which has caused tremendous damage to others. Those who made confessions were either illiterate or have IQs in the 60s or 70s. One lady was tested at 58. Further, a number of those involved were Spanish-speaking Hispanics, and there was a communication problem during the sessions with law enforcement. The confessions were also elicited through threats and untoward pressure by the investigator. No records were kept of these sessions. "Children have been told they might never see their parents again unless they ‘admitted’ to having been raped. Memory-recovery ‘experts’ have gotten toddlers to ‘recall’ being fondled and worse--though the ‘experts’ methods are widely panned by reputable psychologists" ("Salem West," Scripps Howard News Service, Nov. 30, 1995).

Consider the following description of one of the confessions: "Linda Miller was accused of molesting her own two daughters, A.M. and C.M., as well as the two foster children of detective Bob Perez, D.E. and M.E. Perez is the primary investigator of the case. Miller was arrested in March and confessed to a multitude of crimes. Her confession was given after she had been without sleep for two days. She was questioned for about six hours by Detective Perez, beginning at midnight. She names people in her confession that she didn’t even know and she recanted almost immediately. However, her confession has been the root of numerous other arrests, including that of Pastor Roby Roberson and his wife Connie" (Tom Grant, reporter, KREM-TV, Spokane, Washington).

ABUSE ON THE SIDE OF THE CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES (CPS) AND DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES (DSS) AGENCIES

Three CPS workers were fired when they tried to warn the agency that one of the young witnesses was lying and that the alleged child sex ring charge was possibly bogus. Bob Devereaux, who kept one of the foster girls who brought the bizarre allegations of the child sex abuse ring, was falsely accused by this foster girl of rape. Even though she recanted and admitted that she was lying, Devereaux was forced to plea bargain to two misdemeanor counts: one count of SPANKING A FOSTER CHILD and one count of warning a suspect she might soon be arrested. For this, he was sentenced to 240 hours of community service, one year of prison, which was suspended, and was prohibited to work with or near minors! To defend himself against the charges, he was forced to sell his home and furniture to pay the $50,000 lawyer bill.

The Robersons were severely abused. Based on no physical evidence whatsoever and only the shakiest of testimony, they were arrested and spent three months in jail before they could make the bail bond. They had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills to defend themselves against the most outrageous charges. The large food bank their church operated and which helped feed 9,000 people each month was forced to close. The CPS took the Roberson’s baby from them. She was placed in foster care for three months and was then allowed to live with relatives, but the Robersons were denied visitation rights and were not able to visit their own baby for almost a year. Even after the Roberson’s were acquitted in a court of law, the CPS refused to relinquish custody of the child. Only after Attorney General Janet Reno’s office was flooded with calls from irate citizens demanding justice for the Robersons did the Child Protective Services reluctantly acquiesce. Even then, the DSHS retained formal custody of the child and demanded that the Robersons attend "counseling" sessions every two weeks and allow social workers access to their home.

Some of the children removed from the homes because of the abuse charges were given powerful drugs. Tom Grant, reporter for KREM-TV, Spokane, Washington, testified: "I’ve just uncovered documentation showing that several of the children removed from their parents in Wenatchee (because of the so-called sex ring) are now being given drugs. One eight year old was placed on Zoloft, then began some self-mutilating behaviors, and was eventually placed on amitriptyline (Elavil). A 12-year-old boy is on Zoloft, but after two months on the drug he began hearing voices telling him to kill himself. The drug Prozac is also mentioned, but I can’t document that its actually being given to kids. And some kids are simply referred to as being placed on ‘meds.’ In one other case, the child is given dilatin."

Hypnosis and other dangerous therapies were used to draw testimonies from the children. "Some of the children in Wenatchee have been wrenched from their homes and locked in a mental hospital in Idaho, where they were drugged and given ‘therapy’ (interrogation) until they confessed that their parents or others were molesters."

ACQUITTAL

In light of the law enforcement abuses, it is not surprising that many of the charges were not proven in a court of law and many of the convictions have been overturned. On December 12, 1995, a jury acquitted the Robersons of all the charges. Four other adults connected with the East Wenatchee Pentecostal Church of God House of Prayer were also charged, and they, too, were cleared.

After their acquittal, the Robersons and Sunday School teacher Honnah Sims sued the Washington state Department of Health and Social Services for interfering with their children and failing to adequately supervise an investigation of the sex-abuse charges. They said that this resulted in malicious prosecution, false arrest, and false imprisonment. The courts agreed and instructed the Department to pay the $850,000 penalty.

The haughty Washington state Department of Health and Social Services admitted no wrong and did not apologize to the Robersons. The "state admitted no liability in the settlement."

CONCLUSION

The state agencies in charge of dealing with hurting families and delinquent children sometimes have very little wisdom. Many of those who control these agencies have rejected the Bible and are corrupted by godless psychology and humanism. Instead of dealing with the sins of destructive, immoral children, they coddle them and send them to "therapy" and entertain their filthy fantasies which are created in an attempt to destroy those who try to help them.

Child abuse is a great evil. The Lord Jesus Christ said this: "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matthew 18:1-11).

Child abuse should be punished, but there should be evidence that child abuse has truly occurred. One person’s recovered memory is not sufficient evidence. A child’s testimony, if unaccompanied by corroborating evidence, also should not be sufficient to convict an adult of abuse. The child’s character must be taken into account, as well as the circumstances under which he or she gave the testimony. In regard to recovered memory, while it might be possible for someone to forget that they were abused at a very young age and later remember it (though it is more likely for bad experiences to be recalled vividly than be forgotten), we do not believe anyone should be convicted on such testimony alone. And we certainly believe they should not be convicted on the testimony of an alleged memory dredged up by means of psychological therapy. Further, the Bible requires at least two witnesses to convict someone. This was true in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 19:15) as well as in the New (1 Timothy 5:19) and is an important safeguard to civil rights.

Praise the Lord that there is still great liberty in this land, and there are many level-headed people involved with the courts and the government. I have lived overseas more than 12 years of my life, and I never cease to be amazed at the blessings which are in America compared to most other parts of the world. All is not doom and gloom, by any means. There ARE evils on every hand, though, and the hour is late. God’s people must be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. I’m glad this world is not the end of things. Like the song says, "This world is not my home; I’m just passin’ through; my home is up somewhere, somewhere beyond the blue!"