Sex-Ring Defendant Can’t Just Do Pr Work, State Says Roberson Must Come Up With Better Plan For Community Service Work

Unordained pastor Robert “Roby” Roberson has about three weeks to come up with an approved plan for serving his community service time for a welfare fraud conviction - or face jail, a state official said Friday.

The state Department of Corrections rejected Roberson’s attempt to get credit for doing publicity work for Concerned Citizens for Legal Accountability, a group that supported him in fighting child sex-abuse charges. So said Skip Butler, the community corrections officer overseeing Roberson’s case.

Roberson, who must perform 240 hours of community service, had sought credit for time that included making more than 200 copies of a videotape of his March 21 appearance on the “Gordon Elliott Show”; a trip to Hailey, Idaho, for an unrelated child-molestation trial; and preparing documents for a presentation by Trevor Armbrister, who wrote about the Wenatchee child sex ring cases for Reader’s Digest.

Roberson will be referred to court if he doesn’t come up with an approved plan within the allotted time, and the sentence could be converted to 30 days of jail time, Butler said.

Roberson also hasn’t made any payments toward the court-ordered $20,000 in restitution, a $1,000 fine and $644 in court costs, according to court records.

Roberson pleaded guilty March 5 to first-degree theft and and false swearing, a gross misdemeanor.

He and his wife, Connie, were accused of fraudulently obtaining more than $27,000 in welfare aid between 1991 and 1995 - $11,865 worth of food stamps, $10,181 in Aid to Families with Dependent Children payments and $4,960 in medical payments. Prosecutors dismissed all the charges against his wife and some against him in return for the guilty plea.

In the sex-abuse case, a Douglas County Superior Court jury on Dec. 11 acquitted the Robersons on 14 counts of child rape and molestation.

Prosecutors alleged the Robersons were part of two loosely organized sex rings that had abused several children in the Wenatchee area since 1988.

Since the investigation began in 1994, five people have been convicted by juries and 14 others pleaded guilty to abusing children.