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It is a wonder Perez got the investigator's job in the first place, since he has a history of petty crimes and domestic strife, and a dismal 1989 police-department evaluation described him as having a "pompous, arrogant approach" and said he appeared "to pick out people and target them." Appointed in January 1994 after two brief training courses, Perez, who surrounds himself with teddy bears, often interrogated the most vulnerable, dysfunctional children named by D.E. without their parents' being present. He did not videotape these interviews, as most professionals do, and did not even keep notes, explaining that he stopped after his notes were once used to impeach him on the stand. Instead, he drafted conclusory statements, which the children signed, often after many grueling hours in custody. Of the accused, more than 20 are now in jail. And while some of those may have actually committed child abuse of the more familiar variety--for example, an older male accosting a child--there is no credible proof of a Pentecostal sex ring. Lyon says many of those in prison are poor and functionally illiterate, and a number recanted their confessions once they were read back to them. Nearly half are women, almost unheard of in such cases. No one who has hired private counsel and fought the charges has gone to jail.
Perez's tactics were on display in his questioning of Donna Rodriguez's then 10-year-old daughter Kim, a classmate of D.E.'s. Kim was pulled out of school last February and questioned for four hours by Perez, who threatened to arrest her mom unless Kim admitted to sex orgies with various adults, including her mother. The child remembers being so scared that she was shaking when Perez told her, "You have 10 minutes to tell the truth." She signed a two-page statement he thrust at her because he told her she would be able to go home if she did. Instead, she didn't see her mother again for six months because Perez locked Donna up that day. Rodriguez hired a lawyer, and two days before her trial was to begin, prosecutors dropped all 168 counts against her.
Honnah Sims, a plump, soft-spoken 31-year-old woman who taught Sunday school at the Robersons' church, was not so lucky. D.E. charged that Sims had raped her in the church office and bathroom as part of the twice weekly bacchanals involving numerous children and adults. By then the orgy claims had been embellished by D.E. and other children to include inflatable toys under the altar, penetration with various items, including carrots, and a round robin in which each adult got a turn with each child. Any child too tired from these exertions to go to school on Monday could get a note from the pastor, it was said.
As fantastic as this sounds, Sims was put on trial. She and her husband borrowed $80,000 and put up a defense showing that none of the charges could be corroborated with physical evidence and that Perez's interrogations had tainted the children's statements. After Sims was acquitted, juror Danny McGregor told a local paper, "I feel there is a witch hunt; there's just no evidence."