PORT ANGELES — The way was cleared Monday for the trial of a Sedro Woolley man who’s accused of setting his former girlfriend’s Beaver area home on fire on New Year’s Day 2016 — and has been in the Clallam County jail longer than any other inmate.
Clallam County Superior Court Judge Christopher Melly denied a motion to dismiss the case, which has kept Marshall Jay Lewis, 38, in jail for more than two years.
Melly decided the trial of the Level 1 registered sex offender will proceed as planned beginning at 9 a.m. next Monday.
Lewis is charged with first-degree arson for allegedly torching the woman’s home off U.S. Highway 101, plus voyeurism for allegedly taping her without her knowledge, disclosing intimate images of her, cyberstalking and telephone harassment — each of which contains a domestic-violence enhancement.
Lewis could serve 6½ to 9 years in prison on the arson charge alone, Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Michele Devlin said.
Lewis, arrested at his Sedro Woolley home Jan. 22, 2016, after police kicked in his front door, has been in the county jail on $125,000 bail, the longest-serving inmate among the 120 incarcerated as of late Monday afternoon.
The woman was not at home during the fire, which did not destroy the house.
Lewis said he was at the home on the morning of the fire before it was reported to 9-1-1 but did not set the blaze, according to the probable cause statement.
The former Forks resident, who attended Forks High School at the same time as the woman, was in court Monday on a motion to dismiss the case filed March 8 by his lawyer, Harry Gasnick of Clallam Public Defender.
Gasnick argued that Farmers Insurance Group claims representative Kelly Coomes had “fundamentally mischaracterized” the report on the fire by Forks area Fire District Capt. Justice Barnes, a fire investigator.
The fire had two points of origin in the home, according to court records.
According to Coomes, Barnes had determined “the fires were intentionally set.”
In his report, Barnes said the source and points of origin were “unknown,” according to court documents.
“Until additional evidence is provided, the cause of the two fires is undetermined,” Barnes said in his report.
Gasnick said his office had only recently received Barnes’ report from the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
“It seems to me the epitome of exculpatory evidence,” Gasnick told Melly.
Devlin said Gasnick could have obtained the report with “due diligence.”
She said the evidence remains “overwhelming” that Lewis set the fire, including his cellphone-use locations the day of the fire tracked by cellphone tower data.
Lewis contacted the woman’s cellphone 38 times New Year’s Day 2016 with voice mails and text messages, including from Sedro Woolley, Mill Creek, Everett, Lynwood, Shoreline, Seattle and less than 1.5 miles from the crime scene, according to the probable cause statement.
Lewis’ DNA was found on a gas can found at the house, and he called her from there the morning of the fire, Devlin said.
In his ruling, Melly said the insurance company report that referred to Barnes’ analysis was issued within months of the fire, effectively notifying Lewis’ lawyer of its existence.
Barnes said he discovered evidence of a fire in the first-floor hallway in the utility closet area where a hot water heater was located and on a bed on the second floor.
A gas can was on top of the freezer outside the home, and the front door window had been broken, he said.
Lynn Davis, the Farmers Insurance Group investigator, concluded it was an arson fire that occurred in two separate and distinct areas — the utility closet and the bed, according to Barnes’ report.
“During [Davis’] examination, he found no indication of the involvement of any of the building systems or of auxiliary appliances in having caused the fire.”
The woman told authorities she had been Lewis’ girlfriend until she discovered in mid-2015 that he was a Level 1 sex offender convicted, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, of third-degree rape in 2010.
Lewis told authorities he had posted images of her on a pornographic website that she said he put online without her consent.
Devlin said in her response to Gasnick’s motion that nine motions to continue the trial date were granted by Superior Court between March 18, 2016, and Sept. 8, 2017, seven of which were filed by Lewis’ attorney.
“The case has had a difficult history,” Gasnick said, citing as a substantial reason the illness and recovery of Davis’ former Clallam Public Defender attorney, who Lewis decided should not represent him.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
