Wenatchee sex ring

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wenatchee sex ring of Wenatchee, Washington was an example of day care sexual abuse hysteria in 1994 and 1995.

Police and state social workers undertook what was then called the nation's most extensive child sex-abuse investigation in 1994. Investigators claimed to have found interlocking circles of institutional child sexual abuse, the Wenatchee sex rings. These claims are now regarded as false and as the result of coercive interrogation of children.

The investigation started in January of 1995 when Detective Robert Perez was told by his foster daughter, Donna Perez, that she was sexually molested. She'd said she had been raped or molested by almost every adult she knew, and the same molestation had occurred to almost every other child she knew. On March 13, 1995, Perez put Donna in his police car with two social services caseworkers and they drove through Wenatchee and East Wenatchee. Donna pointed out houses and buildings where she says she and other children were repeatedly raped and molested since January of 1988. She listed 22 locations. During the tour she pointed to a delivery man and a taxi driver, and they were added to the caseworker's list.

Forty-three adults were then arrested on 29,726 charges of child sex abuse, involving 60 children. Parents and Sunday school teachers were charged and many were convicted of abusing children, often including their own, or their foster children. Pastor Robert Roberson was arrested after speaking out against other arrests, just as he had been warned he would be.

The courts ultimately determined the charges were not true, and found that the police had coerced children into giving false statements and false testimony in court. Dr. Phillip Esplin, a forensic psychologist for the National Institutes of Health's Child Witness Project said that "Wenatchee may be the worst example ever of mental health services being abused by a state ... to control and manage children who have been frightened and coerced into falsely accusing their parents and neighbors of the most heinous of crimes."

Those who were convicted were freed by higher courts and had their convictions overturned or pleaded guilty on lesser and usually unrelated charges. Five served their full sentences before their cases were overturned. Some lost parental rights.

1 See also
2 References
- 2.1 Periodicals
- 2.2 Books
3 External links

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] Periodicals

New York Times; December 12, 1995; Pastor and Wife Are Acquitted on All Charges in Sex-Abuse Case. After less than a day of deliberation, a jury today acquitted a lay pastor and his wife of all charges of sexual abuse of children in a trial that critics say demonstrated the worst aspects of police misconduct in such cases. The defendants, Robert and Connie Roberson, were accused of being at the center of a sex ring in which children were ritualistically raped and abused. The Robersons ran a food bank and led a Pentecostal church in the central Washington city of Wenatchee. Prosecutors offered no physical evidence to support the charges. Instead, the main witness was the 13-year-old foster daughter of a police officer, Robert Perez, who investigated the Robersons.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer; Wednesday, August 1, 2001; A Spokane County jury yesterday found the city of Wenatchee and Douglas County negligent in the now-discredited 1994-1995 Wenatchee child sex ring investigations, awarding $3 million to a couple who had been wrongly accused in the inquiry. ... In 1994 and 1995, Perez and Child Protective Services caseworkers initiated a series of investigations in Wenatchee that resulted in 43 people charged with 27,726 counts of child rape and molestation against 60 children.