Saturday, January 19, 2008

Sheriff deputy held on suspicion of rape

Pierce County sheriff’s deputies arrested one of their own officers Tuesday night on suspicion of rape and burglary, department spokesman Ed Troyer said.

The 27-year-old deputy was booked into the county jail just after 7 p.m. on two counts of first-degree rape and one count of first-degree burglary, online court records show.

He was being held in lieu of $150,000 bail Tuesday night.

The News Tribune is not naming him because he has not been charged.

Troyer said Tuesday that the deputy, a married Iraq war veteran who has been on the force about a year, is suspected of having sexual contact with an intoxicated woman after giving her a “courtesy ride” home last week.

He is alleged to have had sexual contact with her at least twice while on duty. The deputy’s account and the woman’s account did not exactly match, Troyer said. “But either way, we believe there’s a crime that goes with it,” he said. “At this point, there’s no doubt that the two were together.”

The investigation is continuing, but detectives were able to corroborate some aspects of the woman’s story, Troyer said.

The department moved swiftly given the nature of the allegations, but prosecutors may choose to have an outside agency pursue the case, he said.

“We didn’t want it to happen again if it was happening,” Troyer said.

Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor said, “It’s our duty to protect victims of crime and we will do so even when the suspect is a law enforcement officer.”

For real? Wow. Good of you to mention that as if it needed mentioning.

Did it?

No comments: