Lawyer Who Filed Sex-Ring Suits Under Attack Defense Calls Attorney ‘A Key Witness,’ Says He Should Be Disqualified From Suit
The attorney who filed two civil lawsuits seeking $80 million for people whose civil rights were allegedly trampled in the Wenatchee child sex-ring investigation should be disqualified because he has become a material witness, another lawyer said Monday.
Attorney Pat McMahon, who represents the city of Wenatchee, police Chief Ken Badgley and police Detective Bob Perez, filed a motion Friday in Chelan County Superior Court seeking to have attorney Robert Van Siclen disqualified from representing the plaintiffs.
“He’s thrust himself squarely into the case as a key witness,” McMahon said.
Van Siclen did not return telephone messages left at his Auburn office Monday.
Van Siclen’s involvement with the recantation of a 13-year-old girl who testified in four of the five cases that went to trial will need to be questioned during the trial, McMahon said.
Van Siclen gave legal advice to Robert “Roby” Roberson, who arranged to hide the girl until a Spokane television reporter arrived the next day, and Chelan County Commissioner Earl Marcellus, who allowed the girl to stay overnight at his home, McMahon said.
Roberson and Marcellus have both said publicly they consulted Van Siclen and he advised them there was nothing wrong with their plan.
“The primary issue is Mr. Van Siclen participated and advised others to participate in potentially criminal behavior” and then helped subject the girl to a television interview to bolster his case, McMahon said.
Douglas County Sheriff Don LaRoche has asked Grant County officials to investigate whether any laws were broken by Roberson and Marcellus.
The lawsuits, filed in Chelan and Douglas counties, name seven adults and three children as plaintiffs. The cases were originally filed in Thurston County Superior Court, but were withdrawn earlier this month after McMahon challenged the jurisdiction.
In the Chelan County lawsuit, the plaintiffs include Roberson; Donna Rodriguez and Karen Lopez, against whom charges of child rape or molestation were dismissed; and Susan Everett, who in exchange for dismissal of felony charges pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes. It also names Rodriguez’s child as a plaintiff.
Named as defendants in the Chelan County case are Perez, the lead investigator on the investigation; the city of Wenatchee; Chelan County and the Chelan County Regional Jail; the state Department of Social and Health Services, whose Child Protective Services was involved in the case; and other individuals involved in the investigations.
The plaintiffs named in the Douglas County case include Roberson and his wife, Connie, who were acquitted in December of charges that they had sex with children at their East Wenatchee church and home.
The other adult plaintiffs are Rodriguez, Lopez, Everett, Honnah Sims, who was acquitted last summer of child rape, and her husband, Jonathan Sims, who was not charged.
xxxx THE RESULTS Twenty-eight people were charged with child rape and molestation as part of the sex-ring investigation. Fourteen pleaded guilty, five were convicted and charges were dismissed or greatly reduced against five others. Three were acquitted, and one case is pending.