Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / In the Valley of Sin: CPS worker speaks up, flees to Canada with 5-year-old

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In the Valley of Sin: CPS worker speaks up, flees to Canada with 5-year-old · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Growing up in a rural area myself, I have come
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: to appreciate that childhood and what could be more wholesome
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: than the Apple capital of the world. When at you, Washington,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: now home to one of the worst child sex scandals ever.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Didn't anyone stop and notice what was happening? Didn't anyone
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: stand up and say this is wrong? As this couple
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and that couple, this mother, that father, a pastor, his
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: wife all thrown behind bars on charges of child rape
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and child molestation, no one thought to question what was
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: going on around them. It's so easy to blame just
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: one person, Detective Perez, apparently drunk on power with an
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: extra dose of arrogance added in. But what really happened?
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: What about all the other lawyers, the prosecutors, the social
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: workers that were part of this so called investigation as
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: we explore one of the worst travesties of justice ever
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to take place in our country that we know of.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: You know, as I've said before, you hear of people
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: being rounded up in the night, dragged away from their
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: homes and countries like Russia and China, North Korea. But
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: here in America, mothers and dads literally being taken away
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: from the supper table with their children sitting there, charged
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: with child rape, with me an all star panel to
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: analyze what happened players that were there when it all
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: went down. But in case you're wondering, who was standing
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: by twiddling their thumbs, is it all played out in
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: front of them doing nothing? Take a listen to this.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: It surprises even me how traumatizing it is. I haven't
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: slept well the last two nights in anticipation of this interview.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: But that's how post traumatic stress works. You have the
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: flashback experience, so I lie awake a flashback experience. You
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: are hearing a former Child Protective Services worker, Paul Glasson,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: who now says how traumatizing it is if he even
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: looks back on what happened in Wenatchee. If you didn't
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: hear what he said, listen again. It's surprised. This is
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: even me, how traumatizing it is. I haven't slept well
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the last two nights in anticipation of this interview, But
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: that's how post traumatic stress works. You have a flashback experience.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: So I lie awake, lie awake, thinking back on what
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: happened with me that CPS worker Paul Glasson fired by
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: CPS for reporting a recantation of some of these children
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: recan't That means you've given a statement and you want
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: to take it all back. You want to recant what
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: you said. Also with me, Tom Grant, Award winning journalist,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: former reporter k R. E. M and the co executive
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: producer of In the Valley of Sin. You can find
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: him at doctor Thomas Grant dot com. Steve Lacy, defense attorney,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: former managing partner Lacy Kane and Cube, former mayor of
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: East Swanachi boy, I bet he's got some stories to tell.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Teresa Gill, professor of psychology, psychotherapist twenty five years working
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: with child abuse truma victims and the author of Women
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: who Were Sexually Abused as Children, Mothering Resilience and Protecting
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the Next Generation. And Catherine Lyons, former public defender there
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: in Pierce County, Washington and author of witch Hunt, A
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: True Story of social hysteria and Abused Justice. First of all,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to you, Paul glasson just hearing you talking about the
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: flashbacks you have knowing you were going to be asked
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: questions about the Wenaci witch hunt. This has got to
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: just weighed on your mind for all these years like
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: a sack of rocks you're carrying around. What happened? Take
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: me back to the time this all went down. What happened? Oh,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: it all started for me when I was visiting a
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: teenager from my caseload who was being held in juvenile detention,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and I was there simply to discuss her being moved
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: to another foster home, and she suddenly blurted out that
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: she had told a bunch of lies those are her words,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: told a bunch of lies about Dad, meaning her foster father.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: And she went on to say, and the policeman, the
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: policeman without to get Dad and told me I had
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: to say those things or he would know I was lying.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Did you just stop in your tracks? I did. I
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: did because it was not my job to continue a
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: criminal investigation, even though that's what was being suggested. I
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: simply reassured her that she had said one thing to
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the policeman the day before, she was saying a different
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: thing to me today, and that it would be some
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: time before she would have to testify in any court case,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: and we would arrange for her to see a mental
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: health counselor. And I asked her if who she had
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: seen in the past that she might like to see again.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Now I believe you're talking about Annie Rodriguez and that
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: was Bob Devereaux's foster daughter. Yes, yes, that's right. You know,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I want to go back to that particular case, to
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Tama Grant joining me. He's a co executive producer of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: In the Valley of Sin. And I've got to tell
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: you something, Tom, When I would hear that child molestation
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: cases had been dropped and my world, that's not real.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: It was really only until I have spoken to these
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: adults then, child victims, who were telling me how all
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: of this has really ruined their lives, the years of
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: self loathing and hatred for ratting out their moms and
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: dads over false clients. I've just I've been floored. What
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: can you tell us about Annie Rodriguez's case, Tom, You know,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Annie loved her her foster father, but she was also
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: you know, she was a teenager who had other issues.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: She had a boyfriend who was a trouble and and uh,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and Bob didn't want her spending all the time with
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: her boyfriend, and so she was mad at her at
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: her foster father, and so she put iodine in his
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: in his drink to poison. You know it was. It
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: was wrong, and that's why why she ended up in
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: uh in you know, juvenile care, you know, juvenile the
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: juvenile detention center. But but Bob, you know, Bob didn't
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: really hold that against her. But everybody was targeting Bob Debriel,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: this foster father who took care of girls like Annie.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: And that's how this, that's how this got started. The
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: police detective went in and asked her again, and you know,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: again and again if for a foster well not just
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: if for a foster father had abused were telling her
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: that her foster father had abused her and pressuring her
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: into making this statement. Later on she talked to me
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: and you know, as well as to other people and recanted.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: But but you know, nobody would believe her then. You know,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: it really feeds in to what you are writing about.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: To Catherine Lyon's former public defender. They are in Pierce County, Washington,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: an author of witch Hunt, A true story of social
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: hysteria and abused justice. You hear the child in this case,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: one of the children, Annie Rodriguez, blurting out, no prodding,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: no pushing, no leading, no cross examination, just blurting out,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I love about my dad. Those were all eyes. Yet
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: it didn't seem to matter. Catherine, Yeah, it didn't. It
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: didn't matter because the belief was there. And besides, I've
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: mentioned in an earlier episode, there's their explanations for that
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: in the literature about child abuse, that kids recamp and
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: they change their story and they deny because that's part
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: of their the symptomatic behaviors of child abuse. And so
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: there was plenty of literature that would support some of
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: this stuff, but none of it to support the methods
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: that were used here. But of course that wasn't known,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: and when I first came to Winachi, I had really
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: not had heard that much about it. It It was a
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: couple of years after some of these cases had been
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: kicked around and charges had already been made. Again some
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of the more the more limited people, I guess in
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: terms of their intellectual behavior that lived in that valley.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: But it didn't You didn't get in the paper. It's
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: not even popular to write about this kind of thing,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: so unless unless it had more of an impact on
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: the city's west of the mountains, there wasn't a lot
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: of interest in writing about this. So I hadn't even
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: come across it. Until my boss called me into his
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: office and suggest that I go look into this. I
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: had done a lot of child abuse cases. Nobody wanted them,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: of course, but I also found that if there's a
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: one area where you might be falsely accused for whatever reason,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: it's in the area of child abuse, because because it's
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the pre territory. And that's so interesting, Catherine Lye in
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: because as a crime victim myself and a former prosecutor,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I've always said that's one of the cases where you
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: can really count on the victims because as children aren't
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: really old enough, they don't have the wilds to know
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: how to create an elaborate lie and then stick to
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: it over and over and over. And as we see
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: he that was true. The children tried to recant, they
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: could not keep up the lie, but it didn't matter.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace forty three adults charged with
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: nearly thirty thousand counts of child molestations, sixty children and
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: all named victims. Back to Paul Glasson former Child Protective Services,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: who suddenly he's talking to this little Annie Rodriguez teen
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: who's lashing out at her foster dad because he doesn't
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: want her hanging out with her boyfriend all the time,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: and she boards out I lied about my dad. I
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: lied about my dad. Okay, So, Paul Glasson, when you
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: hear this, who do you tell her? I left the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: interview with the child. I went directly to the director
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: of the Jubitle Dettention Center and told her that Annie
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: was beginning to recant, but I also told her that
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: beyond her recantation, Annie was clearly making it understood that
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: she had been led to making the false accusations by
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the police officer. She said he described sex acts, claiming
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: my foster dad had performed those acts on me, and
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: then told me, you know, I had to say that
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: was the case, that was true, or he would know
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I was lying. And the other girls have already accused Dad,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and so I needed to do so as well. Well,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: that was clearly a coercive interview interrogation that he had
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: conducted with her, and the detective was who Bob Perez.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: You know it's hard enough for as Catherine Lyon was
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: just pointing out, people don't want to hear about it,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: people don't want to read about it. Child molestation. I
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: get it. When I would have child molestation cases juries
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the jurors would actually WinCE when I would describe what
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the indictment said and what I was intending to prove.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Some of them would look away. When the child would
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: be on the witness stand, they would look down, they
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: would physically recoil. Well. Another demonstration of that is that
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: it's taken twenty five years for the documentary to be
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: made about those events. At the time, there are a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: couple of different production companies who approached those of us
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: involved and discussed making such a documentary, but it didn't
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: happen back then. Took twenty five years for someone to
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: have thee to do this. And I've got to say
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: that what makes it even more shocking is the landscape
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the backdrop, and that would be when Natchee, Washington, because
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: it's such a rural, beautiful area, as I like to say,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: nothing but apple orchards and green trees as far as
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the eye can see, because that's where parents moved to
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: keep their children safe. That all said back to paul
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: A glasson Anywhere and Riguez's caseworker. So you didn't prod her,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: he didn't press her. She blurted this out. And the
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: first person you told was who the woman who was
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: in charge of the juvenile detention. She was very much
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: involved in the things there. I don't remember the names,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: but I know her husband was one of the one
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: of the prosecutors in Shlann County. After you reported it,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: what if anything happened, Well, I got a call from
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: my supervisor, Juana Vasquez sometime that afternoon. I continued doing
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: my job and got a call and she said, you
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: need to get back to the office. There's a lot
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: of wild stories going around the office about you. Okay,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: that's never good. Go ahead, So you go back to
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the office and what are the wild stories. Well, she
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: told me that that the police were saying that I
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: had tampered with the witness, meaning talking to Annie and
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: gotten her to recant her story. And as I've said
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: many times in the years since then, that's the one
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: thing that they could do that would convince me that
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Annie's suggestion that she had been coerced was true. They
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: tried to deflect the blame the irony of her Their
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: charge of witness Tampa, of course, is that if what
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: she said was true, they were the one tampering with
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: a witness by coercing her into false testimony. I want
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: to go to Steve Lacy, veteran defense attorney, former managing
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: partner Lacy Kane and Cube, and a former mayor of
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Eastwinacchi Stee, thank you for being with us. When you
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: hear the word witness tampering, that's not a phrase that
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: just falls off, that just trills off a civilians tongue.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: That is very that's a very serious charge witness tampering.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: What do you make of what you're hearing Paul glass
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: And say he's trying to do his job. I was
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: interesting when I was I represented both Paul and one
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Garcia and one of Oscars at one point after Paul
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: and and one and one had all been fired from
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the Fish. Yes, ultimately the only person that went to trial. Well,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: hold on just a moment, Steve Lacy, uh, Paul Glasson,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: he didn't tell me they can do you they can, Paul,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: they can one Garcia and they terminated one of Basket.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: They were the three individuals you were talking earlier about
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: why people didn't stand up and state what they knew
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: or pose what they're going on. Well, those were the
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: three people that did. And all those three people lost
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: their jobs. You're telling me that the CPS workers that
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: tried to stand up. I guess to what was happening,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: all got fired correct, and they all brought suit over
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: that discharge, and one up on me ended up in trial.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: He's only one hit by that time, Paul and one
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: hold on, wait wait, Paul glasson one you clon Garcia
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and you named one other? Did you not? One of
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: ano guess he was this Paul supervisor. He just mentioned
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: who's supervisor supervised all the case workers within the foster
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: care system as well as some of the foster homes. Well,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: both of you are right. I've been saying why didn't
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: people stop stop it when they saw what was happening?
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: But here you're hearing about three individuals in addition to
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the pastor Robertson that tried to stop it. I want
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: you to take a listen to this. I had the
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: ultimate responsibility to decide whether or not what I was
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: being asked to do was ethical. Being a dedicated worker
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: wasn't enough. In fact, being a dedicated worker was enough
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: to get to in trouble. I was so fearful we
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: made the decision that we were going to be moved
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: to Canada. Crime Stories with Nancy grace. I had an
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: ultimate responsibility to decide whether or not what I was
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: being asked to do was ethical. Being a dedicated worker
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: wasn't enough. In fact, being a dedicated worker was enough
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: to get to in trouble. I was so fearful we
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: made the decision that we were going to be moving
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: to Canada. You're hearing the voice of Paul Glasson. A
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: child partaker serves his worker who was so hounded and
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: so maligned after he tried to stop the case against
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: this little girl's father, Andy Rodriguez, he was fired and
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: believed he had to move to Canada with me. In
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: addition to an all star pan is Paul Blossom. Paul,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: what led you to think you needed to move to Canada? Well,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: I had a son who was only five years old
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: at that time, coincidentally about the same age as Pastor
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Robertson's daughter. And at first, even with the witness tampering charge,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: they were simply saying I was a bad social worker.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: But I learned eventually that Perez wasn't satisfied with that
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: and started to get witnesses to suggest that I was
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: also part of the child abuse, the circle of child
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: abusers and once I heard that, I knew that my
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: child was vulnerable, that they could justify picking my child up,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: putting him into foster care, subjecting him to the psychiatric
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: care that they used on children. And I called Steve,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Steve Lacy, my attorney, and I said, you can tell
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: the prosecutor I'm available anytime he wants to talk to me.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: I'll return from Canada to appear, but I'm getting my
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: child out of their jurisdiction so that they can't get
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: at him. And at the time that I decided that,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I felt like, well, you know, maybe in the future
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I will feel I was being alarmist and this was
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: foolish for me to leave the country with my child,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: but I'd rather be safe than sorry. What did your
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: wife say? I don't think my wife completely understood what
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: was going on, As you've said so accurately, all of
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: this was incredible, literally incredible, unbelievable. Did she go with you?
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: She did not. Right away. We owned a house there.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: My wife was an instructor at Wenatchi Valley's College. In fact,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: it was interesting when you mentioned Bob Devereaux and the
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: girls in his home. I would sometimes hear from my
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: wife about the girls in the Devereaux home who were
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: students of hers at the college, because Bob encouraged them
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: to go on with their education, you know. To Steve Lacy,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: the defense attorney for Paul and others, it almost sounds
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: like an Orwellian work of fiction where the state can
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: just randomly decide to just take you and claim the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: worst thing about a parent, that you have raped or
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: molested your own children. It doesn't really seem real, Steve,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: but it is. It did not take it did not
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: take more than an hour or so of reading the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: police reports, the works of fiction that mister Prez created,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Blob Prez created for these cases for me to realize
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: that something was really a miss I mean, Tom, did
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: you talk to the prosecutors and say this. I mean,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I would see a defense attorney coming from the end
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: of the hall at the courthouse and go, h here
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: she comes to some story about their client and do
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: it and blah blah. But there were occasions when the
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: lawyer was say listen, this is real. He did not
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: do it, and this is why, and prosecutors have a
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: duty to listen. The story of mister Debeau's case was
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: a case study in exactly what you're talking about. I
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: didn't lack credibility with the prosecutors of Banazis because my
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: previous encounters with them, But after reading the reports, and
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Tom Grant can probably attest to what some of them,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: how fantastic some of those reports were, I realized that
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: it couldn't bossibly be true what they were claiming against
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: mister Debel. So I rounded up one hundred and five
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: witnesses to basically disapprove rather than their allegations my figure
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: with child abuse. Instead of it engaging in a presumption
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: of innocence, you pretty pretty need pretty much needed to
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: prove innocence. And so then I took those witnesses and
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: everything I had to chief deputy prosecutor, who I knew,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and I went through that him in great detail, challenge
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: the prosecutor as a reason to try the case against
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: my client and not leave it to his chief deputy
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: who had the case. And that afternoon they showed over
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: my office ready to deal because they finally had an
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: attorney put the pieces together, and mister Debriel was not
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: one of the twenty nine or thirty people that went
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: to prison because it wasn't that hard to put it together,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: and the people that were representing up to that point
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: the defendants and the sex so called sex spring, were
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: undermanned contract just sense attorneys. It wasn't in sales I
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: and some of you guys, good retained counsel from out
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: of town got involved in some of these cases fell apart.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: That's what it's all we countered in the in the documentary.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: You know, thank god, Paul, that you had Steve Lecy
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: representing you, that had the money, the ability, the resources
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: to know what to do to fight back satellite. Not
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: all of those forty three adults were as blessed as you.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: That's absolutely right. And as he just mentioned, the public
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Defender's office was wholly inadequate to defend the people who
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: were being charged and hustled through this legal system. And
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: it was only due to people like Steve that it
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: finally was brought to halt. Paul, I got a question
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: for you with me CPS worker that tried to stop
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the witch hunt, he ended up getting fired and having
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: to flee to Canada with his five year old son.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: What was it that led you to think they were
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: going to take your son and turn him against you. Well,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: they'd already taken Pastor Robertson Conye Robertson's daughter, and I
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: knew because I worked in the office that they used
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: psychiatric services. They had a whole cadre of private counselors
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: in the community who purported to be specialist in child
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: of use cases, and they would counsel these children to
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: build their testimonies for court cases. As we know, in
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: one instance they even sent a teenager. I'm sure in
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: more than one instance, they sent a teenager to a
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: psychiatric hospital in Idaho and Cordelaine, Idaho, and she ran away,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: she did, and she very famously as soon as she
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: was released after a month there gotten taught in touch
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: with Tom Grant and said she wanted to be interviewed
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: for television. And she said, you know, I've just spent
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: a month being drugged and brainwashed and to try to
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: get me to say my parents did things they never did.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Tom Grant with me right now. Ward winning Journalists co
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Executi producer in the Value of Sin. Do you remember
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: that moment? Oh, yeah, very well. I was standing covering
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: another story when this little blonde girl shows up and
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: starts telling me these horrible stories, but about how she'd
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: been mistreated in order to try to make her a
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: witness against her parents. And that was Sam dogg At,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: one of my heroes in this case. But I have
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: to tell you go back to Paul glass and Paul
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Glasson was the reason why I decided to do the story.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: I came down and did interviews with a number of people,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: but it was Paul Glasson who was so credible and
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: so steady. It had written evidence that he'd maintained that
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: showed that Annie Rodriguez had immediately recanted, and he I thought,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: once we interviewed him, this case would turn around because
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: he was so credible that but nobody would believe the
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: story if it didn't fit their preconceived notions that there
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: was this horrible sextoring occurring. When Age Special guests joining
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: me now Teresa Gil Professor of psychology, a psychotherapist twenty
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: five years working with child abuse and trauma victims. She's
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: actually doctor Teresa Gil and author Doctor Gil. I'm just
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: a JD. You're the doctor. What do you make of this?
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: When I was watching a documentary? At first, I was
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: just mind bottled and it feels fictional. But after listening
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: to the testimonies and the stories of the people who
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: were impacted by this. It was just a lot of
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: sadness that came over me because I don't really know
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: how you undo the pain and the terror of being
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: accused of child sexual abuse and having a children taken
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: from you and putting in force to care. And when
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: you listen to the children, they talk about the pain
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: that they experienced, the fear that they experienced, but also
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: the tremendous amount of guilt that they experienced in saying
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: that their parents sexually abused them. But at the same time,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: this man Perez, when he was interviewing them, he would
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: stand up and posture over them, he would threaten them.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: He had a gun on the table. Well, he was
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: threatening that they would never see their parents again and
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: they would be enforced to care or in juvenile detention center,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: and their parents were going to be put in prison.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: And he also said, but if you sign this, and
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: if you say this, I'll let you go back to
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: your parents. What you had was a sociopath who had
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of power and control in his position, and
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: he manipulated it and he had no conscience. Crime stories
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace, How did everything go so wrong? Take
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: a listen to this. I remember this page. Tell Tell Tell, Tell,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Tell tell see you know what happened. You just don't
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: know you're supposed to say anything, but you have to tell, Tell, Tell, Tell, Tell,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Tell Tell. You are hearing one of the alleged child
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: abuse victims, Rebecca Osborne, talking about what she was quote
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: supposed to say on the stand. Tom Grant, tell me
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: about Rebecca. Rebecca was five years old at that time,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: when she was you know, when her parents were arrested.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: She was then placed with her grandmother through family members,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: and then police came and ripped her away from her
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: grandmother and placed her in custody of foster homes. And
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: these kinds of you know, therapists who were who were
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: pushing her to try and make an accusation. She has
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: been tremendously brave, you know, and but you know, and
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: she refused to make allegations against her parents, and yet
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: you know, it is waged and weighed tremendously on her
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: over the years, and it's just it's so painful to
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: watch her now because she tells the most heartbreaking story,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: first of all, being taken away from her parents and
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: taken to her grandparents and every night, the grandmother would say,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: pray to God his angels surround you and protect you.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Then they came and took her from her grandmother, and
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the last thing her grandma said to her as she
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: was being taken was keep praying that God says his
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: angels to protect you. It's just very, very upsetting. And
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: when I think of the little girl, Rebecca living through that,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: and I think Detective Perez forcing these children into these
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: statements pointing the finger at their parents. To you, Paul
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: glasson what do you think motivated Perez? Well, I've been
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: asked that many times, both back in nineteen ninety five,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: ninety six and since, and I've always thought that you
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: and you were familiar with that. I'm sure from your
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: illegal backgrounds that crimes are not all the same. In
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the public's eye. We will overlook white collar crime, you know,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: to the extent of millions of dollars, But there are
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: some crimes we love to hate, and one of them,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: of course, is child abuse and neglect. And that wasn't
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: wasted on somebody like Perez. He knew that getting a
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: reputation for being tough on this particular crime was good
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: for his career. To you. Attorney Steve Lacy, former mayor
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: of Eastwanachie, who actually represented Paul Glasson. I've been asked
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: that too. The motivation of Detective Perez and all the
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: others syncophants it sucked up to him and stood by
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: while this happened. I mean, I guess they saw what
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: happened to Paul. He got fired immediately, he was accused
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: of witness tampering and moved to Canada ran with his son.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: What motivated him? Well, I agree with generally with what
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Paul just said, but I have a different take on
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: the motivation. By that mister Perez had given my knowledge
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: of how the inner workings the DSHS went. And remember
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: that I had the value of aving the CWS supervisor.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: One of Esquez is my client for many, many years.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: And the motivation you think was his motivation primarily was
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: his ego. But Matt ties into building his career. But
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: he also had the emotional support of a whole host
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: of CPS and some CUS workers who basically latted him
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: as a hero that just fed mister Press's ego. Something
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: cares he felt that support he was there. These are
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: people that literally acted like groupies toward mister Press, with
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: the exception of Paul, who kind of saw what was
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: going on. These people were working behind the scenes as
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: hard as they could to get these disclosures to be made.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Juanna told me something later or during the course of
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: my representation of her. It kind of explained a lot
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: to me, and I'll share with you. She said that
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: at that time, if children were in foster care because
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: of abuse or neglect the word still physical abuse or neglect,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: there was one payment given to the foster care people,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: the foster care parents. But if the kid had disclosed
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: and was considered a child abuse victim, a sex abuse victim,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: that the amount of compensate, and it wasn't really compensation,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: was more of a stipend that was given to the
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: foster parents was about twice what they would have gotten otherwise,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: which gave the foster parents themselves. Remember a lot of
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: these allegations, a lot of these case workers and foster
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: parents were instigators and bringing these kids forward with these
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: allegations and treating them in ways. The kids that didn't
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: make allegations were not treated, and they were given better treatment,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: more attention. And so you'd wonder why kid is five
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: seventy eight ten eleven years old, will all of a
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: sudden turn on a foster parent, or, like to Debrie
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: in his case, alive, it had to do with the
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: fact that there was something in it, not just for
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: the caseworkers and the thoughts appearance, but even for the
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: child because of what they perceived to be would be
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: more favorable treatment if they were actually disclosed. Something to
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Paul Glasson, who was actually fired when he tried to stop,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: they went actually witch hunt and ultimately fled to Canada
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: with his five year old son. Paul, when did you
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: realize your coworkers at CPS we're going along with this
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: and actually thinking the worst of you. Well, there were
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: some indications even before the disclosure. The recantation by Ammy
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: pres was just as Steve as describing. He wasn't above
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: bragging about his powers and what he was going to do.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: And when I said that, I was uncomfortable with the
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: way he was speaking in public about our foster families,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: foster parents. That's when I think to begin to other
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: people in office began to realize, Oh, Paul's not going
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: to go along with this. Juanna Vasquez, my supervisor, she
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: warned me, she said, you know, once you started to
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: question Perez's behavior, that was it. You were no longer
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: on the inside group, the group that supported Perez. Gosh,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine your whole world crushing in around you
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: and speaking of Perez. Listen to this ran me through it.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: You're gonna see this, this, and this happened. You've seen
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: this happened at the church. You've seen these kids were involved,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: you know, and you just stick to basically stick to
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: the script, right, Just say what we want you to say,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: and you'll see your parents again. But if you don't
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: say what we want you to say, you're never gonna
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: see him again. And I just kept praying, Lord, let
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: her tell the truth. We raised her right and let
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: her tell the truth. Let the truth come forward. How
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: this has torn apartner just a community, but a country
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: that learned of it, and most important, torn apart children
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: from their parents, from their mother and their father. What
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: happens in the Dogget and Robisson trials. What happened to
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: them after these claims were so brutally made against them,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: after their children tried to recant, believe it or not,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: they go to trial. That's next in the Valley of
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: sin Nancy Grace Crime Story, signing off goodbye friend,