Parents plead not guilty to rape, alcohol charges

? A Haysville couple is accused of providing alcohol to their newly adopted 13-year-old daughter and a friend at a party last year and then raping them.

The girls told Sedgwick County District Judge Greg Waller on Thursday that the father raped them following during a party to celebrate the girl’s adoption.

Attorneys for the couple entered not guilty pleas to furnishing alcohol to a minor and felony child endangerment at their arraignment.

Peter John Orsi II, the Wichita attorney who represents the father, said people who know the couple are skeptical of the charges against them.

The 13-year-old daughter testified that she had lived with the couple for two years after being placed in the custody of the state Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. She said she’d drank alcohol with the parents for months before they adopted her.

The trial for the parents on the alcohol charge is scheduled for March 31.

The father faces another trial later this month on 13 counts of rape, sodomy and fondling of both girls, which they claim began in April. Prosecutors said charges were added after the father allegedly continued to attack his adoptive daughter over the next five months.

The daughter said she blacked out at the party after drinking beer, wine coolers, hard cider and a purple alcohol concoction that “tasted like Kool-Aid.”

The 12-year-old friend, who is now 13, said the mother poured shots of liquor. She said it was her first experience with alcohol.

Other children belonging to the couple, ages 2, 7, and 9, were also at the house, along with adult friends of the parents, the girls testified.