One man cleared, another charged in indecent exposure incidents

A Bellevue attorney has been charged with three counts of indecent exposure and one count of stalking in connection with a series of incidents — an investigation that also resulted in charges being dropped against an Issaquah man.

The indecent-exposure charges were brought against Jeb E. Burgess, 41, whose arraignment is set for Monday in King County Superior Court.

The incidents were investigated by Redmond and Issaquah police and involved similar circumstances of a man in a white van stopping and attempting to talk with girls.

In announcing the charges Tuesday, the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office also said it was dismissing charges against Robert Donald Powell, 53, of Issaquah, who earlier had been charged with luring in an Issaquah case.

"We regret that Mr. Powell had to go through this situation," said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the prosecutor's office.

The prosecutor's office is considering adding the charges that originally had been brought against Powell to the charges filed against Burgess.

Donohoe said the cases were "very unusual" because they involved similar crimes, vehicles and descriptions of the suspects.

Powell said he originally was brought into the case when a girl involved in the investigations saw his white, wood-grained minivan in an Issaquah parking lot and mistakenly identified it as the possible vehicle used in the luring attempts.

Powell had proclaimed his innocence since his May arrest. "It's still sinking in. I feel like I was railroaded from the start," Powell said Tuesday.

Burgess was charged with indecent exposure related to incidents May 3 and Aug. 30 and with stalking during a period from March 31 to Sept. 25. Charging documents report that he drives a 1992 Chrysler minivan.

In the May 3 incident, Issaquah police reported responding to a complaint involving a girl in the 500 block of East Sunset Way. The girl told police a man asked for directions and then exposed himself.

The girl later identified Burgess from photos, the charging papers say.

On Sept. 25, police responded to a luring report in the 100 block of Newport Way Northwest in Issaquah.

In that incident, according to charging papers, a 13-year-old girl reported a man in a minivan with wood paneling blocked her way and asked directions; she used a cellphone to call for help and the driver fled.

The girl also got the minivan's license-plate number, and the same girl described an incident from March 31, saying she recognized the van from that day.

Later on Sept. 25, Burgess was arrested and then released.

On Aug. 30 in Redmond, girls playing at Audubon Elementary School reported a man had approached them, said he was looking for a cellular phone and that he had money and wondered if it was theirs. They said the man then exposed himself.

The girls told police the man was driving an older minivan with woodlike trim.

When Redmond police later learned of the September arrest in Issaquah, they prepared a photo montage and one of the girls who had been approached in August picked Burgess' picture out in the display, the charges added.

Public records identify Burgess as a member of the East King County Bar Association who passed the bar examination in the summer of 2005.

Police said the investigation is continuing and that other incidents may have occurred in Seattle, Bellevue and on Mercer Island over the past two years or so.

Peyton Whitely: 206-464-2259 or pwhitely@seattletimes.com