Preacher, Wife Cleared in Child Sex-Ring Case

A jury deliberating controversial charges that a Pentecostal lay preacher and his wife operated a child sex ring in East Wenatchee, Wash., acquitted the couple of all 14 counts of child rape and molestation on Monday.

After weighing the case for six hours, the panel of eight men and four women in Waterville, Wash., found Robert Roberson, 50, and his wife, Connie, 45, not guilty of leading ritualistic orgies in their church in which members of the congregation were said to have participated in mass rapes and other sexual assaults on children.

Some of the jurors wept as the couple, surrounded by joyous supporters, embraced in Douglas County Judge T. W. “Chip” Small’s packed courtroom.

The Robersons’ cases were nearly the last in an 18-month investigation that critics have contended was a witch hunt based on dubious testimony from coerced child witnesses and little physical evidence. Prosecutors defended their tactics, saying they were trying to protect children from an epidemic of sexual abuse in East Wenatchee and its twin city, Wenatchee, in central Washington.

Besides the Robersons, 26 other adults were charged with participating in what authorities described as two loosely organized sex rings in operation since 1988. Five of those cases resulted in convictions, and 14 defendants pleaded guilty, most to reduced charges after signing confessions. Charges against five others were dismissed, one person was acquitted and one case is pending.

Kathryn Lyon, a public defender from Olympia whose 200-page investigative report helped gain the Wenatchee cases national notoriety, said she hoped that newly discovered evidence that an overzealous Wenatchee police detective had obtained coerced confessions would lead to successful appeals by some of those who are serving long prison terms.

In any case, Lyon said in a telephone interview, she will continue to press for investigations into the prosecutions by the Justice Department’s civil rights division and by state authorities. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno has said she is studying a request by Gov. Mike Lowry for a federal review.

Criticism of the probe centered on Wenatchee police detective Robert Perez, who some say became obsessed with ridding the area of pedophiles and used testimony from his two foster daughters, ages 11 and 13, as a central part of his investigation. Last week, Perez acknowledged bruising his 13-year-old foster daughter in a domestic altercation just hours before she testified against the Robersons. The defense contended the incident may have been prompted by the girl’s reluctance to be a witness against the couple.

Chelan County prosecutor Gary Riesen said the sex-ring investigation has been “officially closed” and that Perez will be transferred back to uniformed patrol duty as part of “normal officer rotation.”