Seattle police arrest sex offender for Westlake Park groping

A registered sex offender has been arrested in connection with a groping in downtown Seattle after the victim posted photos of the suspect on social media.

The 36-year-old man was arrested by Seattle police for assault on Thursday, according to a law enforcement source. He was already in custody at the time after being arrested by the Department of Corrections (DOC) on Wednesday for violating the conditions of his release.

The Seattle Police Department says the man is also being investigated for other similar crimes.

Julia Marquand, 28, told KIRO Radio the 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.”

Seattle Police say a DOC officer recognized the man’s picture and contacted them Wednesday.

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.

Seattle police say several other victims have reported similar incidents after seeing the suspect’s photo, and detectives are now investigating those cases as well.

Anyone with information about this incident or any other similar incident should call the Sexual Assault Unit at (206) 684-5575.

KIRO Radio’s Brandi Kruse contributed to this report.