Wenatchee sex ring

The Wenatchee sex ring of Wenatchee, Washington was an example of day care sexual abuse hysteria, that occurred in 1994 and 1995.cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Pastor and Wife Are Acquitted on All Charges in Sex-Abuse Case. |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E3DA1639F931A25751C1A963958260 |publisher=New York Times |date=December 12, 1995 |accessdate=2007-10-31 ]

Accusations

The investigation started in January 1995 when Detective Robert Perez was told by his 13-year-old foster daughter, Donna Perez, that she was sexually molested. She had 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 1988. She listed 22 locations. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Children sacrificed for the case. |url=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/powertoharm/history.html | publisher=Seattle Post-Intelligencer |date=Monday, February 23, 1998 |accessdate=2007-11-26 ]

Many of the people convicted were poor, mentally retarded and on welfare, and their lawyers stated that their guilty pleas were coerced. In 1995, after Pastor Robert Roberson criticized the investigation, he was arrested and charged with eleven counts of the sexual abuse of a child. Roberson and his wife were acquitted of all charges. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Pastor and Wife Are Acquitted on All Charges in Sex-Abuse Case. |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E3DA1639F931A25751C1A963958260 |publisher=New York Times |date=December 12, 1995 |accessdate=2007-07-21 ]

Arrests

Forty-three adults were arrested on 29,726 charges of child sex abuse, involving 60 children in 1995. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=A record of abuses in Wenatchee. |url=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/powertoharm/|publisher=Seattle Post-Intelligencer |date= |accessdate=2007-11-26 ] Parents and Sunday school teachers were charged and many were convicted of abusing children, often including their own, or their foster children.

Trial

At the trial, one girl showed "definite medical signs of sexual abuse" while "it could not be ruled out for two others." [cite news |publisher=Associated Press | title = Doctor confirms abuse in sex-ring case. | format=scanned reprint | url= http://abusearticles.wordpress.com/category/articles-on-wenatchee/| date= 1996-12-05 ] However, prosecutors were unable to provide any physical evidence to support the charges. The main witness was Perez' foster daughter; Perez was the investigator of the cases. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Pastor and Wife Are Acquitted on All Charges in Sex-Abuse Case. |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E3DA1639F931A25751C1A963958260 |publisher=New York Times |date=December 12, 1995 |accessdate=2007-07-21 ]

Conviction review summary

Those who were convicted were freed by higher courts and had their convictions overturned or pleaded guilty on lesser charges. Five served their full sentences before their cases were overturned. Some lost parental rights. By 2000 the last person in custody, Michael Rose, was released, after a judge vacated his March 1995 convictions. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Last child-sex ring defendant released from prison after court action. |url=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/wena27ww.shtml | publisher = Seattle Post-Intelligencer |date=Wednesday, December 27, 2000 |accessdate=2007-11-26 ]

Culpability

In 1996, a consultant, retired Bellevue Police Chief D.P. 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. A U.S. Department of Justice investigation also found that there was no evidence of civil rights violations. [cite news | title = Consultant finds no fault in sex ring probe | pages = A7 | format= scanned reprint | url= http://abusearticles.wordpress.com/category/articles-on-wenatchee/ | publisher =Associated Press in Tri-City Herald | date= February 22, 1996] In 1998, 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." [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Wenatchee abuses attacked nationally. |url=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/powertoharm/after13.html |publisher=Seattle Post-Intelligencer |date=May 28, 1998 |accessdate=2007-11-26 ] In 2001, a jury found the city of Wenatchee and Douglas County, Washington negligent in the 1994-1995 investigations. They awarded $3 million to the couple who had been wrongly accused in the inquiry.cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title= Jury finds city, county negligent in child sex ring case. |url = http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/33472_wenatchee01.shtml | publisher=Seattle Post-Intelligencer |date=Wednesday, August 1, 2001 |accessdate=2007-11-26 ]

ee also

* Satanic ritual abuse
* McMartin preschool trial
* Moral panic
* Witch hunt

References

External links

* [http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=7065 Wenatchee Witch Hunt: Child Sex Abuse Trials In Douglas and Chelan Counties HistoryLink.org Essay 7065]
* [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/powertoharm/ The Power to Harm] from the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer"
* [http://www.opinionjournal.com/search/exec/htsearch.cgi?words=Wenatchee&method=and Articles on Wenatchee cases] from the "Wall Street Journal"
* [http://www.ags.uci.edu/~dehill/witchhunt/ccla/ Concerned Citizens for Legal Accountability]