approx. 9-15-95
Written by Matt Love, Olympia, Wa
Cherie Greenfield, (president of the Concerned Citizens for Legal Accountability in Wenatchee) left town early this week, and left no information where she was going. She has hired an attorney in Seattle, and the only contact that even CCLA members have with her is now through her attorney.
I called her last Saturday, and spoke with her at some length. She was weeping and distraught. The following account is from notes of that conversation, and conversations with others.
Last Wednesday or Thursday, Cherie and Karen Ohler (who became active in CCLA after her husband served as jury foreman in Honna Sims' trial) were removed from the courtroom by Judge Chip Small. The bailiff told the judge that the jury had requested the women be removed because they were disruptive. Cherie insisted that she had done nothing at all, and Pastor Roberson, who was in the courtroom during the trial, confirmed this. It may have been a case of mistaken identity; Cherie noted that some of the CPS employees in the courtroom _were_ disruptive, especially during Lucy Berliner's testimony. They laughed raucously, in agreement with Berliner's statements. It may have been political harassment of Greenfield and Ohler; there is probably no way of knowing, since there is a court order barring discussion of the case with members of the jury. This has been a standard feature of these trials since Sims'. Outspoken criticism from members of that jury were very embarrassing to the prosecution.
Greenfield told me that she wasn't upset about that - she said she got a lot of support around town for something she didn't even do. However, Ohler is reportedly "scared to death" that Bob Perez is going to do something to her. She runs a daycare.
Greenfield's main concern was a phone call she received last Friday from Wenatchee Police Detective Magnotti (one of Bob Perez's collaborators). He told her that after the Linda Miller conviction, someone sent Roy Fore, Prosecutor, an arrangement of dead flowers. He told her that the Wenatchee Police thought that she did it, and if they could prove it, they would be over to arrest her for making a death threat.
She insisted that she had not done this, that it is not her style. "If I had anything to say to them, I would say it to their face," she insisted. But the threat had it's intended affect -- at this point she became very upset and frightened. Not because of what they might have planned for her, she insisted that she was prepared to take whatever they might dish out.
She was concerned for her children - afraid that the Police would drag them in and interrogate them around the clock, ship them off to Pine Crest (a juvenile psychiatric facility in Idaho, where many of the children in this case have ended up), or place them into foster homes with strangers. I think she felt the best way to protect them was to get away from them.
She was already contemplating "getting out of Dodge" when I spoke with her, though I thought it a contingency plan for some indeterminate future date. She had heard from sources that she felt are reliable that this was only part of a systematic campaign to build a case against her, to persecute her in any way possible. This pattern was already established, with such people as Paul Glassen, a fired CPS worker and Bob Kinkade, a VOCAL activist.
Cherie's position is very moderate - all that she asks for is an outside investigation of the ongoing prosecutions. She says that she has never publicly voiced an opinion on the guilt or innocence of any of the accused. She has been a CPS worker, and established the Women's Shelter (for rape and battery victims) in Wenatchee. She has been active in Civil Air Patrol, PTA, and many other civic causes. She feels that all that she's done has been swept aside by this. She asked me to put her story on Witchhunt, to help people understand what is going on in Wenatchee - they are attempting to silence activists, and run them out of town.
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