Woman claims she had to molest kids

Yolanda Dipert said Wednesday she was the prisoner of a terrorist for more than four years.

The Cuba Township woman said the man she at one point loved forced her to commit hundreds of unspeakable acts against a 16-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl.

Dipert, 46, testified in her own defense during a trial on child molesting and pornography charges that could see her sent to prison for the rest of her life.

She said the romantic relationship with her ex-brother-in-law, Lee Dipert, turned sick when Lee Dipert demanded she have sex with the children and said he would kill her if she refused.

Lee Dipert, 52, who pleaded guilty last year to molesting the children and was sentenced to 40 years in prison, kept at least three guns in Yolanda Dipert's house at 28574 W. Chamberlain Ave., she said.

She so feared the man that she continued to molest the children even after Lee Dipert moved to Valparaiso, Ind. She e-mailed him photographic evidence the acts were still going on.

Under cross examination by Lake County Assistant State's Attorney Eric Kalata, Yolanda Dipert said she never mentioned the threats during a two-hour interview with police in July 2006.

She also did not include any reference to coercion in a three-page handwritten statement she gave detectives.

And, although she left the house everyday when Lee Dipert lived there between 2002 and 2005 to go to work, Yolanda Dipert said she never contacted police.

"I did not know how to call the police," she said. "I was afraid that if I went to the police, me and the children would wind up statistics."

Dipert is charged with predatory sexual assault of a child, criminal sexual assault and child pornography.

If Circuit Judge Fred Forman finds her guilty of sex acts against both children, she will face a mandatory life prison sentence.