09/22/2004. The division between the two Wenatchees is deep. But Wenatchee police Detective Robert Perez, the foster father . As in life, if you stand by and let injustice take place, blame is on you as well. Sheriff Allan Joseph Weber; Grafton County Sheriff's Department, New Hampshire. His dreams came true and he became a K9 officer. WENATCHEE - Former Wenatchee police Detective Bob Perez, who led a discredited child sex ring investigation in the 1990s in central Washington, has died. Somebody would have told.". WENATCHEE Former Wenatchee police Detective Bob Perez, who led a discredited child sex ring investigation in the 1990s in Central Washington, has died. . Neither Perez nor his superiors will comment on the specific charges. Children, not knowing whether their memories are real, grow up unsure and unhappy - damaged no matter what happened. . "[48] Other legal watchdogs such as the state Commission on Judicial Conduct and the ACLU declined to criticize these prosecutions. The adults got to know each other playing darts at a nearby tavern; the kids, on the walk to school. Melinda Everett, now 28, a plaintiff in the sex-abuse case, lived for a brief time in the home of detective, Robert Perez, while he investigated the case. [60] This work formed the basis of Lyon's 1998 book, Witch Hunt: A True Story of Social Hysteria and Abused Justice. Perez yelled at a child and called her a liar until she fabricated stories of abuse in an . Supportive parishioners, many of them poor and dependent on the food the Robersons' gave out weekly, decry the arrests as police "payback." Perez was named the department's chief sex crimes investigator in January 1994, even though he had no formal training. The case was sparked by a claim made by a foster child in the home of Wenatchee police Detective Robert Perez, who said she and other children were sexually abused at the church. The interviews took place at the children's schools or foster homes. Perez served over 200 days in Ventura County Jail after holding his girlfriend hostage at his Oxnard home in July of 2007. [12] After case worker Paul Glassen criticized the way that Perez interviewed the foster daughter of Robert Devereaux, he was arrested for "tampering with a witness", and later fled to Canada with his family. Attempting to leave Wenatchee quietly, he stopped by the Douglas County sheriff's office to purchase a trip permit for his rig. Heres whats happening at the mid-point of the 2023 session of the Washington Legislature. 43 adults were. Bundling the girl up, Perez and two Child Protective Services caseworkers drove the child, now 10, around town so she could point out where these orgies were supposed to have taken place. Robert Stack 10/13/1982 1548 Ogden St: Robert Tolliver 11/12/1982 600 blk Poplar St. Savino Joseph Nuane 11/12/1982 2644 Larimer St. - Joe's Liquor Store Steven Emory The appellants further allege that two of the primary child witnesses were foster children living with Perez and that he coerced them into making disclosures with gifts or by physical abuse. Green began by saying she had "only caught Becky Holt having sex with (the youngest boy) once." [25][55] But the Seattle Post-Intelligencer argued that while Perez got a lot of the criticism, "he was just the point man for an investigation either directed by or undertaken with the active involvement of CPS officials",[10] and the Wall Street Journal blamed "the entire law enforcement establishment [including] the prosecutors". - Provide support to Hub members regarding detective controls processes (B2R, B2C, P2P, MDM). 500 Park Ave West . Down at the station, seated alongside the detective's desk, Cherie Town answered questions for a long time. . Glassen was arrested for witness tampering, police suspecting he had pressured the girl to change her statement on behalf of Devereaux. "The difficulty in such situations is teasing out the truth.". He alleged Perez was arrested for petty larceny in 1975, and cited for receiving unemployment benefits while enrolled in the Police Academy in 1983. Perez knew time was short. . The house - a hulking, beige two stories crouched near the curb - is a wreck. Seattle Times staff reporter Dee Norton contributed to this report. Individually and as a group, the accused were isolated from society's mainstream. In court documents, psychiatrists and social workers describe Idella Everett as having an IQ of 68; as sexually abused, first by her stepfather, and then by her husband, Harold; as "incapable of protecting herself, much less her children.". It is responsible for providing police service to an area encompassing 468 square miles and 21 community areas, representing approximately over 4 million residents as of 2022. Defense attorneys questioned the foundation of the charges, citing physician diagnoses that revealed "the alleged victims suffered from various forms of psychological problems including attention-deficit disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychotic disorders and other impairments.". A. A. Wenatchee was in shock. In Cherie Town's book, it was wrong for her husband to be messing around with other women. Officially, they called them "pending cases," but Pulitzer . None of the interviews, or the adults' confessions, was taped. They were families, police say, in which adults treated children as commodities, "trading them like party favors" - not for financial gain, but for sexual gratification and illusions of power and control. ." The shed appeared to have fallen off a semi truck, according to the Snohomish County Sheriffs Office. After a family acquaintance was convicted of molesting the girl, Child Protective Services stepped in. Then a tip came from the Holts' former landlady. "She said she was mad, that she lied, that Perez encouraged her . 928, 83 P.3d 1026 (2004). During Plaintiff's discussion with Defendant Detective Perez on June 3, 1994, Plaintiff made a detailed statement wherein he admitted to sexually abusing his daughter Jessica in Moses Lake and in Wenatchee, as well as sexually abusing his three other daughters, Sarah, Jennifer, and Carrie in Wenatchee and elsewhere. The first time it happened, Rose and Reed were supposed to be keeping the boys out of harm's way while she was downtown talking to her husband about a divorce. Many of the adults arrested as a result. Wenatchee Police Detective Robert Perez tenaciously pursued his investigation into stories of sexual predators who victimized children - sometimes their own children. DI Jimmy Perez and his team investigate crimes within the close knit island community of Shetland. The official version of what happened in Wenatchee is found at the Chelan County Clerk's Office, on the fifth floor of the Chelan County Courthouse Law and Justice Center. He even suggested the detective is a bit shady. Former Wenatchee police Detective Robert Perez and former Wenatchee Police Chief Ken Badgley were both dismissed as defendants before the trial. Most were investigated, some were not - the information lost in a shuffle of supervisors. Others argue children do not lie about something as physically and emotionally painful as sexual abuse. They sat down together and, as Luci Perez listened, the child described unconscionable acts of sexual abuse by her parents. Nicolas Ferrel-Ibarra. Interviewed in jail, where she is being held in lieu of $50,000 cash-only bail, Miller now claims her confession was coerced. A jury found him innocent of three charges, but could not reach a verdict on two others. A multitude of police reports written by Wenatchee detective Robert Perez described dozens of adults lining up to take turns molesting children. Seeking out and punishing sexual abusers of children has become a national obsession, sometimes with tragic results. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. Reams of legal papers are bound in bright red files, dog-eared and smudged now, from handling by members of the news media. Market data provided by Factset. Talking with the children made Perez believe Laura Holt - also known as Becky - had molested not only her children but countless others. On a sticky-hot July afternoon, about three months after the Towns were arrested, Perez knocked on Laura Holt's door. Selid Holt, 35, was already in the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla for raping his daughter - turned in by his wife a year earlier. They had moved from Oklahoma to Wenatchee in 1985, settling into a squat, rust-colored rental house with a narrow porch overlooking a tidy patch of grass, four lanes of traffic and a sprawling junk store with a 10-foot bull's-eye painted on an outside wall and the boast "2,000 GUNS.". [3][19] Reporter Tom Grant broadcast part of her recantation on KREM-TV. On March 13, 1995, Perez put Donna in his police car with two social services caseworkers and they drove through Wenatchee and East Wenatchee. [78], Kerri Ann Knowles Hill, whose trial was postponed due to the "raging hysteria" of her accuser,[63] gave up her rights to sue for damages and speak publicly about her case, in exchange for having her case dropped. [29][30][31], In 1999, the Washington state legislature passed the "Perez Bill" which required child abuse investigators to keep accurate records of their interviews and forbade them from investigating cases involving their own children. There was no point risking getting pulled over on a traffic violation. A second set of files is kept by Chelan County Prosecutor Gary Riesen, whose office is down the hall, just past the Superior Court chambers where the fates of the accused are to be decided. Van Blaricom, hired by a city insurer who looked into how the Wenatchee police ran the child abuse investigations, stated that the cases were handled properly. Perez, 60, of Waterville died Dec. 12. The 9-year-old had asked if they could talk. Perez, 60, of Waterville died on Dec. 12 at Central Washington Hospital of stroke-related complications, The Wenatchee World reported Wednesday. Jesus Cruz-Vasquez . The caseworker advised him to be patient. - Drive continuous improvement and efficiency in the accounting and master data processes for NA Hub. [81] In 1997, KREM and Grant won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award "for Investigative Reporting on the Wenatchee Child Sex Ring. Robert Perez's passing has been publicly announced by Valley Of The Temples Memorial Pk & Funeral Homes in Kaneohe, HI.Legacy invites you to offer condolences and share memories of Robert in the G Tim Abbey, the Supervisor of Child Protective Services at the time of the Wenatchee sex crime investigation, had no doubt done his part in aiding Perez having dismissed an alleged victims recantation, facilitating the arrest of the caseworker whod brought the very admission to his attention, and even forcing hospitalization at a mental facility for any children whod been uncooperative witnesses in the prosecution of their parents. [38][39], Concerned Citizens for Legal Accountability, formed to ask for an outside investigation,[40] filed a complaint with the state Commission on Judicial Conduct criticizing judges T.W. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Unable to afford the $1,000,000 bail for each, they were held in jail where Robert was beaten. That did not happen. If I were an investigator charged with investigating the cases today, Id do it exactly the same way, Perez said in 2004. The town was divided into two classes: those who owned the apple orchards and those who worked in them. 10/21/2004. The investigation began in January 1995 when Detective Robert Perez was told by his 13-year-old foster daughter, Donna Perez, that she had been sexually molested. ". On March 13, 1994, in what has become known as the "parade of homes," D.E. The 1994 . Late one afternoon that September, Luci Perez sat down with her foster daughter. Sergeant Robert "Rob" Barrere is from Metairie, Louisiana just a few miles outside of Orleans Parish. . Many people were horrified, almost grief-stricken by the sex scandal; others were beginning to think police, and Perez in particular, were manufacturing charges. On March 13, 1995, Perez put Donna in his police car with two social services caseworkers and they drove through Wenatchee and East Wenatchee. Mae Hochstetler can pay the bills because the state pays her to care for her adult son, with a pandemic pay bump. Fox Nation'sIn the Valley of Sinexamines the mid-90s witch hunt that pitted neighbor against neighbor in Wenatchee, Washington the self-appointed 'Apple Capital of The World' when police uncovered a monstrous child sex ring known among its membership as 'The Circle.' Four hours later, she was changing into coveralls with the words "Property of Chelan County Jail" stenciled on the back, and social workers met her children at the school bus. Auxiliary Police Officer Nicholas T. Pekearo . Dwaine Hooten . Detective Controls and CIP Supervisor. When the child was placed in the foster care of Luci and Bob Perez, she was withdrawn and frightened. . In police custody, Devereaux repeatedly denied abusing the girls, saying they would often come on to him but he always ignored the behavior or took steps to stop it. . Sometimes they would all meet at the Pentecostal Church of God House of Prayer in East Wenatchee, where Pastor Roby Roberson and his wife, Sister Connie, ministered to the poor and downtrodden. There, the pastor and three other adults allegedly raped her. What steps were missed in handling this correctly? Glassen's supervisor reportedly passed the information on to her husband, a deputy prosecuting attorney, who passed it on to Perez. I was with the District Attorneys Office in inner-city Atlanta for over a solid year, handling felonies in various capacities every single day, before I prosecuted a child molestation case ---much less allegations of this magnitude. "It's a witch hunt, pure and simple," said Bob Kinkade, self-appointed leader of the local chapter of Victims of Child Abuse Laws. At least one caseworker said change was needed in the Devereaux household - perhaps only boys should be placed there. After speaking one-on-one to many of the then-children who were coerced into accusing their mothers and fathers of molesting them, I have one word for Mr. Perez: "SHAME!" Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. A second trial on those. Police Officer Nicholas R. DeMutiis 1/25/1994. Market data provided by Factset. It did not take long for Perez to get a confession from Idella Everett, who said her husband had threatened her if she did not go along with the abuse of the children. Fax: 805-488-2633. Kinkade knows what it feels like to be charged with sexual abuse. Still, the fact remains that more than 400,000 reports of verifiable child abuse are filed nationwide with authorities each year. That secret allegedly was shared by at least two dozen adults and some 50 children said to be members of "The Circle." They talked for a while, and then, Glassen said, the girl "blurted out that she had told a whole bunch of lies about having sex" with Devereaux. It was appalling. But not everyone is prospering. Q. . Bob Perez died a disgraced former detective in 2013. Kenneth Lanning, the FBI's child-abuse specialist, has advised against taping, saying it creates a "highly subjective piece of evidence.". Rattling off names, the girl referred to the group as "The Circle." -----------------------------------------------------------------. She described gatherings on weekends (and those evenings when the children had no homework) where the group would eat pizza, watch "Star Trek" movies and indulge in a frenzy of perversion. The front walk is overgrown; there's litter where there should be lawn. She arrived shortly after noon, 34, single, with five children. All rights reserved. [20][21], Forty-three adults were arrested on 29,726 charges of child sex abuse, involving 60 children in 1995. I thought to myself, `Oh God, what a mess,' and went straight to my supervisor," Glassen said. Bob Perez, driving force in discredited sex abuse cases, dies Jefferson Robbins Dec 18, 2013 Sections Local News Northwest News Sports Arts & Entertainment Education Housing Crisis Webcams Buy Now Former Wenatchee police detective Bob Perez in 1998. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! Waiving his right to have an attorney present during questioning, Meredith Town admitted to 62 counts of child rape and four counts of indecent liberties. Victim Rikki Olds, 25, was a "strong, independent" young woman who worked at the grocery store, her uncle, Robert Olds, told ABC News. Miller's confession was corroborated by her ex-husband, Larry Steinborn.
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