Sex offender named person of interest in Westlake groping

UPDATE: Seattle Police have a arrested a registered sex offender accused of groping a woman in downtown Seattle. Details to follow.

Original story:

A man accused of groping a woman in downtown Seattle bears a striking resemblance to a registered sex offender who has a history of similar behavior.

Julia Marquand, 28, claims a man grabbed her buttocks as she was shopping near Westlake Center.

“I could feel someone pretty close behind me … it was right outside Banana Republic … and then I felt his hand on my butt,” Marquand told KIRO Radio’s John & Curley Show on Wednesday. “I turned around and he started mumbling and over-apologizing in a way you’d never do if you accidentally bumped someone.”

Marquand took photos of the man and posted them to Facebook and Twitter after she claimed a Seattle police officer at the West Precinct didn’t take her report seriously.

“They took the report, but they didn’t have interest in the photograph,” she said. “I didn’t think that was OK for him to get off scott-free.”

Following media coverage of the case, a Kirkland resident contacted KIRO Radio and said the man in the photos bore a striking resemblance to a registered Level 3 sex offender living in his neighborhood.

Indeed, a photo of the 36-year-old on the sex offender registry looks very similar to the man in the photos that the woman posted. So much so that Seattle police have now named him as a person of interest in the case.

The man has a 2011 conviction for assault in the third degree with sexual motivation after groping a woman at University Village. The victim told Seattle police at the time that he forcibly rubbed her breast and wrapped his arms around her torso.

“A computer records check of (the man) showed he was involved in numerous incidents that were similar in nature to the incident with (this victim),” a police report read.

According to the King County Prosecutor’s Office, the man was arrested by University of Washington police in 2002 for indecent liberties after he approached a stranger at Meany Hall and “ran his fingers through her hair and then down her face, while making kissing sounds. He grabbed her breast an made crude, sexual comments.”

In 2003, according to court records, the man was convicted of assault in the third degree when he grabbed a woman from behind, wrapped his arm around her neck, and grabbed her breast.

Also in 2003, the man was convicted of assault in the fourth-degree for grabbing a woman’s buttocks.

The sex offender was arrested by the Department of Corrections Wednesday afternoon for an unrelated violation. A DOC spokesperson said the man showed up for his weekly check-in and was taken into custody based on GPS evidence that showed he had stayed out past curfew. According to Seattle police, DOC workers had also recognized the man in the photos as the sex offender.

MyNorthwest.com’s Stephanie Klein contributed to this report.