PORT ANGELES — A 20-year-old Port Angeles man with a protection order against him allegedly broke into his former girlfriend’s home, got on her laptop and unblocked himself from communicating with her on Facebook, leaving the computer open for when she returned home.
Mason James Coppage was arrested on the woman’s back patio in a separate incident around midnight Monday while her child and father were inside the home, according to the probable cause statement.
Superior Court Judge Brian Coughenour imposed $2,500 cash or bail bond Tuesday on Coppage during Coppage’s first court appearance and set the filing of formal charges for 3 p.m. Thursday.
The potential charges are stalking, violation of a protection order and residential burglary, Coughenour said.
John Keegan, Clallam County sheriff’s staff sergeant, said Tuesday that Coppage remains under investigation for a possible charge of second-degree computer trespass, a gross misdemeanor under which a person gains access to a computer without authorization.
Keegan said the residential burglary charge relates to Coppage allegedly entering the woman’s house illegally earlier in May and getting on her computer.
A protection order issued May 6 and renewed May 17 will be reviewed at a 1:15 p.m. hearing Friday in Superior Court.
In her May 6 petition for the order, the woman said she broke up with Coppage and told him not to contact her.
He followed her, came to her workplace and threatened her friends, she said.
On May 5, two days after blocking him on Facebook, she said she returned to her Port Angeles home to find her back door broken, reporting the burglary to authorities.
“Looking around to see if anything was missing, I find my laptop sitting open on my bed,” she said in the May 6 petition.
“I turned it on and found his page with a friend request sent to him.”
At about midnight Monday, the woman was watching her home surveillance camera on her cellphone when she saw someone trying to break into her home and alerted authorities, Keegan said Tuesday in a press release.
Two law enforcement officers found Coppage on the back patio and arrested him, booking him into the Clallam County jail at 1:11 a.m. Monday.
Coppage admitted he had seen the woman three times Sunday and Monday at her home and said that, when arrested, “he was just looking through the window,” according to the probable cause statement.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Matthew Roberson asked Tuesday for $10,000 bail.
In setting the amount at $2,500, Coughenour said Coppage did not have a criminal history or a history of failure to appear in court but said the allegations that Coppage violated the protection order were concerning.
Coppage offered his own version of events before Coughenour cut him off and warned him not to discuss the case.
“Many times the violations of the order was consensual,” Coppage said.
The conditions of release include that he not be within 1,000 feet of the woman’s home or have contact with her or her 5-year-old daughter, and that he not possess firearms, which Coppage told Coughenour he did not own.
“He said if I took away his Second Amendment rights, he would make my life utter hell and that he knows where all the people I love live,” the woman said in her petition for the protection order.
Coppage is unemployed and said he could afford his own lawyer.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@ peninsuladailynews.com.
