A Washington schoolteacher and former nun who was stopped at gunpoint by Frederick County deputies for driving too slowly appealed her conviction yesterday and said she would fight again in court to prove she is a law-abiding woman who was roughed up by overzealous officers.

The teacher, Ester Maria Pena, made headlines last summer when her hands were cuffed behind her back, her legs were shackled, and she was photographed and fingerprinted before she was released more than three hours after her arrest.

She was charged with driving too slowly and with fleeing and eluding police.

Pena had been driving 38 mph in a 55-mph zone, everyone agrees. At issue is whether she knew that police had been signaling her to stop for three miles.

"When you're innocent, you have to show it," she said in an interview yesterday, crying as she recalled her arrest and conviction on the fleeing charge. "If we're in court to say the truth, everybody has to say the truth, including the policemen."

Her attorney's files in the case outweigh the court papers filed during some murder trials.

Among the documents are letters from members of Congress, a four-page memo from Frederick County Sheriff James Nagy thanking "the nation" for its support and Defense Exhibit No. 1, photographs of Pena's sluggish, powder-blue 1976 Dodge Aspen.

The file includes copies of her driving and criminal records, both spotless, and of her District of Columbia driver's license.

There is also a copy of Section 21-904 of the Annotated Code of Maryland, which says that a person may not "attempt to elude" by failing to stop for an officer. Pena and her attorney contend that the low speed of the "chase" is proof enough that she was not trying to shake the police.

"I am not telling lies," she said.

Prosecutors say they will pay no attention to the ridicule that has been leveled at them for proceeding with the case against Pena, 58, who was driving under the speed limit on her way to a church meeting. (Defense Exhibit No. 5 is the dove-adorned, canary-yellow church bulletin Pena had with her when she was arrested.)

The case began just after noon June 12 when Pena and a friend were driving to a meeting of Christian Women in Action in Emmitsburg. They were on U.S. 15, north of Frederick, when Deputy John Keyser flipped on his blue lights and maneuvered his way behind her car.

Pena, never increasing her speed, continued driving for more than three miles before stopping.

When she did, three deputies surrounded her car, guns drawn. They frisked her friend and released her, then handcuffed Pena and put her into the back of the police car. "I began to pray, God help me," she recalled.

She was taken to Central Booking in Frederick, where her legs were shackled and she was put into a cell.

Pena, a native of Barranquilla, Colombia, who came to the United States in 1978, speaks English with a heavy accent. She asked for an officer who spoke Spanish, she said, but no such officer arrived.

"It's one of those cases that shows how a whole system can be built up to presume a person guilty," said Pena's attorney, Laura Rhodes of Rockville. "All she wanted was some help, someone to say, 'Here's why we arrested you. Here's what's going to happen next.' She got nothing like that."

This month, Judge Darrow Glaser found Pena not guilty of driving too slowly but guilty of fleeing and eluding police for failing to pull over immediately when the deputy signaled her to do so. He fined her $100, and the case could have been closed, but Pena and her attorney decided to fight on.

Under Maryland law, she will be granted a jury trial for her appeal, probably within 60 days.

"Why? Because I'm innocent," Pena said. "I swore in the court to tell the truth. I never tried to elude the policeman. I never tried to flee. Never, never."

Pena is a tutor and teacher at Casa del Pueblo, a nonprofit community organization in Washington, and a lector at its church.

She said she was a nun for about 12 years in Colombia, until the early 1970s.

Pena, who received her driver's license four years ago, said she told the judge the truth in court, that she did not realize the deputy was trying to pull her over. At first, she thought an ambulance was behind her, she said, and later she thought the deputy had been targeting someone else.

When she realized she was being pursued, she said, she stopped her car.

Scott Rolle, the Frederick County state's attorney, said the case is based solely on the evidence and that the defendant is being treated like any other.

Pub Date: 3/25/99