Pierce County foster parent arrested in child rapes, porn

By J. Patrick Coolican and Jonathan Martin
Seattle Times staff reporters

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A Pierce County man was arrested yesterday on suspicion of repeatedly raping his six foster children — boys ages 5 to 7 — and forcing them to pose for sexually explicit photographs that he allegedly distributed over the Internet.

Investigators were led to the 41-year-old Key Peninsula man, who has no known criminal record, after receiving tips from child-pornography watchdog groups in England and Ireland, where photographs were posted online, Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said.

The man was booked into Pierce County Jail on suspicion of 32 counts of child rape, 10 counts each of possession and distribution of child pornography, and two counts of child molestation. He is held in lieu of $1.9 million bail.

The man became licensed to provide foster care with his wife in July 2002 and had taken in 11 children since then, according to the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), which licensed the home. Foster homes can be licensed to have up to six children at a time after would-be foster parents complete background checks and weeklong training. DSHS stopped new admissions to the home in light of the investigation.

The six boys in the home at the time of the arrest, some of whom are siblings, were interviewed and counseled at a Tacoma sexual-assault center. They have been moved to other foster homes. Investigators are looking for the other five foster children who formerly lived in the home.

Chris Robinson, head of Child Protective Services in Pierce County, said neither the man nor his wife had previously been the subject of child-abuse complaints. The only concern DSHS ever investigated involved inadequate supervision of children on a trampoline, agency officials said.

"If we had any indication there was exploitation of a child, we'd have done something immediately," Robinson said.

The Seattle Times is not identifying the man because he hasn't been charged. His wife is not a suspect, Troyer said. She works an early-morning job, during which time the suspect was alone with the children, Troyer added.

The state foster-care system, with more than 8,000 children, has been under attack despite recent reforms. A class-action lawsuit on behalf of foster children who were moved repeatedly from home to home is scheduled to go to trial in Whatcom County later this year, and a recent review of child-welfare files by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services gave the DSHS failing grades.

In particular, the review faulted DSHS for failing to visit nearly three-quarters of foster children every 90 days, as required by state policy. The review, however, also found that foster children are very rarely abused in foster homes.

"This is disgusting," DSHS Secretary Dennis Braddock said of the allegations. "Fewer people are hurt by foster parents than biological parents, but when it happens, it's terrible because these children are supposed to be protected."

The case began to unfold when investigators received a tip from a child-pornography watchdog group in England after a man was arrested there viewing child pornography posted from Pierce County, Troyer said. Police received another tip from a group in Ireland.

Pierce County sheriff's deputies and officers from the Tacoma Police Department and U.S. Customs and Border Protection served a search warrant on the suspect's home on 180th Avenue KPN in Home.

There they found hundreds of photographs that showed the boys in sexually explicit poses and engaged in sexual acts with the suspect, Troyer said.

Investigators also have found hundreds of photographs involving the children on Internet news groups in Ireland and England, Troyer said.

"Take the totality of the situation: six boys already taken from a rough environment, put somewhere that's supposed to be safe, and then this, and it's nothing short of a living nightmare," Troyer said.

He said that because the photos have been widely distributed on the Internet, the alleged victims will have to endure knowing their images are all over the world.

"These pictures are horrible," Troyer said.

J. Patrick Coolican: 206-464-3315 or jcoolican@seattletimes.com

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 jmartin@seattletimes.com

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