Bathroom visit at Qwest Field gets prosecutor arrested

A Thurston County senior deputy prosecutor who was ejected from Qwest Field on Sunday after employees said he was having sex in a women's bathroom told his boss he was just using the facilities.

King County Sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said two women employees told off-duty sheriff's deputies and Seattle police officers who were working security at the stadium during the Seahawks game that a man and woman were having sex in a bathroom stall.

"We didn't see them having sex but they were clearly in the same stall," Urquhart said of the couple, who told deputies they work together in the Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

The deputy prosecutor, William Halstead, 39, handles general felony cases and has developed expertise in negligent-homicide prosecutions and accident-scene reconstruction.

Halstead was arrested for obstructing and trespassing, and later interviewed and released.

Thurston County Prosecutor Ed Holm said Halstead has "been put on notice that there will be discipline."

He will be allowed to continue working until Holm makes his decision, which won't happen until after local prosecutors decide whether to charge him.

According to Holm, Halstead "says he was going to the bathroom" and never engaged in a sex act with the woman, a paralegal who has worked for Holm's office for about eight years.

Holm, who has discretion in the disciplining of attorneys, couldn't say if the woman would face discipline. "I don't think there's been any accusations against her," he said.

Urquhart questioned the attorney's claim that he was simply going to the bathroom.

"So why is he using it with another woman in the stall?" he asked.