PORT ANGELES — A former Sequim man’s 2010 convictions for multiple counts of child sex crimes have been upheld for a second time by the state Court of Appeals, the Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office announced this week.
Steven Guy Welty, 65, is serving a 26½-year prison sentence for six counts of first-degree child rape, six counts of first-degree child molestation and six counts of first-degree incest.
He waived his right to a jury trial and was convicted by retired Clallam County Superior Court Judge S. Brooke Taylor after an October 2010 bench trial.
Welty, who founded the Sequim Community Help Center in 2001 and pastored the Glory House Fellowship church in Sequim, was accused of having sexual intercourse multiple times with a female relative who was between 4 and 10 years old between December 1999 and December 2006, court papers said.
The state Court of Appeals first affirmed the sentence in a September 2012 ruling.
Denies new trial
In its latest decision, the court on Jan. 5 rejected Welty’s motion for a new trial, the Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.
Welty argued in a personal restraint petition last September that the trial court abused its discretion in issuing a warrant to record his conversations, that his conversations were unlawfully obtained, that Taylor was biased against him, that the court did not conduct an omnibus hearing, that the prosecutor engaged in misconduct and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel, court papers said.
The appeals court found that the personal restraint petition was time-barred.
“And even if his petition is not time-barred, it is successive under [state law] because he filed a prior petition, raising most of the issues raised in this petition, and fails to show good cause why he did not raise the other issues in his earlier petition,” the appeals court ruled.
In written findings, Taylor had said the victim was “one of the most credible witnesses this court has ever observed” and “credible testimony of [other female relatives] about virtually identical conduct against them as victims provided overwhelming corroboration of the victim’s testimony,” the prosecuting attorney’s office said.
Welty was being held Wednesday at the Airway Heights Corrections Center near Spokane.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
