PHFCC Elder's Cover Up

Patrick was able to gather well over 30 letters of support (asking the judge to be merciful) stating that Patrick had such outstanding character, He was an asset to our community, Repentant, Even statements that had the audacity to boast that Patrick had taken responsibility for his crimes.

It appeared that the elders didn't have any real concerns about Patrick being a predator.

I believe even knowing all the details of what Patrick actually did to our child, that they still believed "It was only inappropriate affection."

Early on, it became clear to Eric and I, after we had a few interactions with the elders that "Something wasn't right." We didn't have a scripture to quote, just our gut feeling (Holy Spirit) to follow. After a series of attempts, where we tried to explain to the elders our belief that what in fact happened, was bigger, and more serious than "Just inappropriate affection" we were cautioned about gossip. The elders were very concerned that we were becoming bitter, that is was wrong to listen to "worldly psychology," and that we needed to get to a place of forgiveness (Which in their interpretation meant immediate "reconciliation with Patrick" and our family.)

We knew in our spirit that we needed to break from this congregation and it's leadership.This was the start of our isolation. Some would say the isolation was self inflicted. I would argue we were collateral damage that the leadership was willing to lose in order to save their church.

To stand with our family would have meant standing against the Rojas family. (Remember the father and mother had something to hide.) The elders, idolized Eddie Rojas! The elders were "used" by Eddie Rojas BUT they had an opportunity to tell the truth to us and the authorities BUT they chose to stay silent.


THIS IS KEY:
If the elders felt they needed to stay silent out of biblical obligation, then why, within days after Patrick was sentenced (and protected from further charges in our case) did they break "privilege"and tell a room full of church members that they knew detailed information about what he did to our child and that they didn't report it?

Currently, the church, Peninsula Household of Faith Community Church, in Port Orchard, WA. is still fellow-shipping under the same authority, Jim Cameron and Dave Barrueto.

It has been said that we are the ones in sin and bitter, I reject that!

Jim and Dave shouldn't have been afraid to educate themselves on the subject of sexual abuse. They should have reported all that they knew of the crimes committed by Patrick for the benefit of the abuser receiving a proper sentence and more importantly so the victim could receive proper help as soon as possible! (not six months later)

THE ELDER'S BETRAYAL IMPEDED JUSTICE!


More from: "What The Elder's Knew"

Character Reference Letters

If you remember, I have referred to -letters of character reference- that a variety of family members, church members, and some church leaders in our community wrote on behalf of Patrick. These were written to say what a great guy Patrick was and what an asset to our community he was and that it would be a waste for him to serve real time in prison for just a moment of poor judgment. These letters boasted that Patrick was repentant. The people who wrote the letters claimed to have already seen a change for the better in Patrick.

There was an Eagle Scout who claimed to be an excellent judge of character. He eloquently stated his personal relationship with Patrick. He wrote a very persuasive letter to the judge requesting that leniency be extended to Patrick. There was also a leader from the Heritage Homeschool Organization that wrote a letter on behalf of Patrick using the organization's letterhead and signing with his official title. I could go on and on.

None of these people ever contacted us to verify information they were selectively given by the Rojas family and the leaders of PHF. Nor did they bother to contact the prosecutor or detective involved in our case. One thing that I still don't understand to this day is that, for some reason, Patrick and his lawyer requested that the contents of the letters be sealed. We were able to read each individual letter in the prosecutors office, but haven't been able to attain actual copies because they aren't in the public file.

People would argue that these individuals made a simple judgment error in writing these letters. Fine. But that doesn't take away the consequences of their errors. After the deceit of the Rojas family was revealed and after Patrick was shown to be deviant and dangerous, only one individual felt compelled to write a retraction and send it to the courts. Out of 30+ letters, only one wrote a retraction. Patrick David Rojas, a convicted level-two sex offender who admitted to having sexual interaction with animals, who admitted to peeping in on mothers and daughters in bathrooms, and who admitted to other victims including a baby.

This has always bothered me!


What I hope you will learn from this is to be very careful of you will vouch for. Especially, when pleading for leniency for a crime committed. The letters do influence the judge. Ask questions. Contact the detective involved in the case. Download the public legal documents and read exactly what the person is being charged with. You can learn a lot sometimes just by reading the charging documents. Certain crimes, in order to be committed successfully, take deceiving others around the criminal. Don't be fooled into supporting a sexual predator.   


*From "This Has Always Bothered Me" post.

Questions Considered Gossip

From my view, our church was in crisis. The pastor's adult son had victimized our child and the police were involved, shouldn't people be asking questions?

Instead questions were considered "gossip" and the congregation bought that hook, line, and sinker.

One of the events that really bothered me was when the leadership decided to have a "Valentines Dinner" for the married couples.(about 1 month into everything) Of course, we were invited.....WHAT??....What planet were these people from? I just could not act as if nothing happened. My child was being interviewed by a sexual assault specialist, we were being interviewed by the sheriff investigating the case, we were being contacted by Patrick's lawyer, we were finding out more and more information about pedophiles and how they operate, we were being told that Patrick was refusing to cooperate with the state, and we were realizing that our leaders were in fact minimizing the sexual abuse of a child--our child.

Somehow during this I had the presence of mind to realize the best thing we could do for our child was acknowledge that a crime did in fact occur. That was the start of my conviction to really live this out. We were not going to pretend that everything was as if it was before the victimization of our child. We were going to deal with this now...in hopes of saving our child from a life time of "stuffing their emotions" and hopefully minimize the long term damage and hold that sexual molestation can have on an individual.

*From "Pretending Status Quo"

Listen To What Patrick Does

True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice. Martin Luther King, Jr.


People who support Patrick often defend their position with statements such as, "Patrick has repented and is forgiven and we are all sinners, his sin is no different."

I really want to look at these people sideways.

I want to tackle the "repentant" issue. I am sorry, but in no way can I consider Patrick repentant! I know I am not God and I can not peer into his heart. I also know being repentant is much more than just words and tears.

Someone very wise said to me, "Listen to what Patrick does, not what he says." I want you to listen to what Patrick did. 
* He only admitted to kissing our child (only because he knew we already knew that information from our child), 
*Patrick hired what we considered a slick attorney, instead of accepting the consequences for the crimes he committed, 
*When the sheriff tried to interview him, he refused to make a statement, 
*Patrick withheld the names of his additional victims (a selfish act, to protect himself from further prosecution),
* Patrick solicits others to write letters of support for him, 
*Patrick has never attempted through any legal channel to pay restitution to our family for all the extra expenses we've had because of the victimization,
*since Patrick's sentencing he has violated his probation and had to serve additional time.
*Patrick appeared to contest an extension of a No Contact Order we filed for the victim in our family,
*Patrick filed a lawsuit against the parents of his victim for telling Our Story.

These are not the actions of someone who is repentant! Someone who is repentant would do everything they could to keep potential victims safe. I also believe they would take accountability for their actions and accept  the consequences. Patrick should live in the light. Adults in Patrick's life should know he is a predator and they should understand the danger he poses. Patrick should never be alone with a child. Patrick should name his additional victims so they can receive proper help and he should be willing to accept the consequences that go with his crimes (seeing an abuser receive a "just" sentence goes a long way in the healing process.)

Patrick can not live life as if he is like someone who is not a sexual predator! The more a sexual predator tries to hide and live as if they do not have a dangerous problem the more you should be afraid of them. Until Patrick is living in the light, Patrick's supporters in the christian community are enabling him to groom another family. They give him credibility by keeping his secrets and choosing to stay naive on the subject matter. 

Remember Mr and Mrs Rojas and Jairus Rojas knew of Patrick's pedophile behavior and kept it a secret.

After our family was victimized, I confronted Jairus about his knowledge of Patrick being a pedophile and Jairus stated, "Patrick had repented and had matured." My response," Oh, so you thought you would experiment on my family?"

And then there was victim number six, my child.


*From "Repentant ???" post.

Last Time Eddie Was Seen In Washington State

The evaluation revealed that Patrick at (15yrs of age) was "caught" and that he was disciplined by his father, he repented and all was forgiven. Then again at (age 17)  Patrick was caught another time. This time Patrick shared that both his parents talked with him, that he repented and all was forgiven.

Life as normal to the outside world.

As part of the evaluation, Patrick had to reveal all of his minor victims and outline the crimes in detail. What I am willing to say about the other victims: ages range from 18 months old to11yrs old. Patrick was actively victimizing someone when he was between the ages of 15-22, (then we reported him.) Out of the five additional victims four of them could qualify him for 4 charges of child molestation in the first degree and the fifth would be a lesser charge. (Patrick states that per his lawyers advise he only gives the age, sex and details of the sexual abuse of his 5 additional victims. He does however name the adult sister that he had consensual sexual contact with. Along with the details of what was done to my child.)

Eric and I were told to keep the sex/psycho evaluation information quiet. This was an ongoing investigation and we shouldn't talk about it. It would be two more months before Patrick's sentencing day and before all the information would become publicly accessible.

We didn't know at the sentencing that we would be dealt the final blow.(At least we hoped it is was final blow, but it wasn't...) The Sunday before Patrick was sentenced Eddie Rojas stepped down from his role as Pastor of the church. Eddie attended Patrick's sentencing and was approached by CPS and was asked to produce the girls for an interview. Eddie asked for some time. He told others that he was taking his family camping to get away from everything and that's the last Eddie or the minor children have been seen in Washington State. 


Evaluation Request Information:http://ourstoryhelp.blogspot.com/2010/10/evaluation-request.html

Regret

The day after we reported the suspected crime against our child we thought the "right" thing to do would be to let Eddie Rojas and Jim Cameron know that we chose to involve the police. They were our pastor and elder. I deeply regret giving them the heads-up. We had no idea just how intertwined Eddie Rojas was with his son's deviant sexual behavior. We trusted the Rojas family. We trusted Eddie and Kathy Rojas. I believe everyone at the time actually felt sorry for Eddie and Kathy. No one in the general congregation and I mean NO ONE knew that both Eddie, Kathy along with Jairus knew that Patrick had a history of sexually abusing minor children. And it didn't help that their family just continued on with normal life and their normal activities as if nothing serious had transpired.

Our family on the other hand was devastated. Our lives would never be the same,our faith would never be the same, our ability to trust would be forever altered.

What good are we if in a moment of real need we deflect, distant ourselves, or ignore the issue?


 I don't want to ever be that person!

For the first two weeks our family was trying to figure out how to maneuver through all of what was happening. Initially, we stated that we didn't want our family named as the "victim family" when the leadership spoke of the matter. We wanted to try and control who knew it was our family for the simple reason of protecting our child's privacy. Fairly soon we decided we didn't have anything to hide and communicated to the leadership that it didn't matter to us who knew it was our family. (About a week after the discovery the leadership had a meeting and told the congregation that there had been "inappropriate affection" between Patrick Rojas and a child in the congregation. They informed the church members that the authorities were involved.)

When we started to tell our close family and friends the reactions were so diverse. I would start by saying that we called 911 to report sexual abuse by Patrick Rojas against one of our children. It was always disbelief  at first but after that some would actually start to cry and show deep concern for our child and family.  They would want to listen, ask questions, they would be real.

Some reactions were hurtful! I had a few people after the initial shock actually turn their concern towards Patrick. No kidding, one comment was, "Well he better get a good lawyer, the state will be out to get him."

Another one went right into rantings of how "The Rojas ways weren't all that great after all, now were they?"

In those moments, I was struck by the fact that the individual in front of me really hadn't heard me. I had just told them I had to call 911 because my child had been sexually molested by Patrick.

The comments I resent the most were the ones where the person would say, "At least that's all he did, it could have been worse."

I wanted to scream, WHAT IS WORSE?" (Any form of sexual abuse is devastating!)

These people just didn't get it! I think this is when I started to shut down inside, to hunker down.

Part of me died inside.

*Partly from the "Reactions" post.

911 Call

The following 24hrs after the emergency meeting were horrible, as you might imagine.

...it started to play back in my head....I kept thinking, are we making too much out of this? In the spirit of not being a "gossiper" we didn't let anyone else in our church or family know what we just discovered. (secrecy gives the sex offender power)

A name popped in my head, it was someone I could call that could help me process what we just discovered and would tell me if we were making something out of nothing. She has a masters in psychology and is a Christian. She would know what she was talking about from a biblical world view which mattered to me. I hadn't spoken to this person in many years other than running into to her at a mutual friends birthday party or something like that....but I located her number and called.

Almost immediately after outlining the note and the "emergency meeting" she stated that we needed to report sexual abuse to the police. I was very hesitant and she could tell. She went on to explain a 22yr old man does not just wake up one day and fall in love with a child under 12yrs old, that Patrick most certainly had other victims with the grooming pattern he displayed towards our child. She asked if he had any sisters and expressed concern for them. (The very girls that were taken into hiding by their father, Eddie Rojas, to protect a pedophile from further prosecution.) She told me to call a sexual abuse hot line and talk anonymously with them about our situation and see if they gave us the same advice, which was to call the police! As I'm sure my friend knew the sexual assault center did in fact say we absolutely needed to call the police!

Eric and I were still struggling and praying. When I looked at my husband and said, "if it were our neighbor that we were talking about we wouldn't hesitate calling the police." The phone rang. It was my friend who said I just want to ask you one thing "If this were your neighbor you were talking about would you even hesitate to call the police?" I was blown away. (This still gives me chills, to this day, when I recall it.) I explained that I just said that exact thing to Eric. She urged us to hang up and call 911.

That is exactly what we did!


*Retelling from the original "Discovery" post.  Our Story will continue tomorrow.