PORT ANGELES — A jury found a Port Townsend man not guilty of molesting a 9-year-old girl at the Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center in May 2014.
Joshua David Larson, 40, was acquitted in Clallam County on Thursday.
He had been acquitted in a similar case by a King County jury in the late 1990s, according to the Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
In that case, he was 24 when he was charged with child molestation after a 5-year-old girl reported he had abused her.
Unrelated case
Larson faces pending felony molestation charges in an unrelated case in Snohomish County stemming from an incident on Thanksgiving Day 2013, according to that county Clerk’s Office.
Larson was arrested on a felony child molestation warrant out of Jefferson County after being released from the Clallam County jail Thursday. In that case, a 7-year-old girl reported Larson molested her in 2012.
Larson appeared in Jefferson County Superior Court on Friday morning.
At that time, the charges were dismissed “without prejudice,” allowing the county Prosecuting Attorney’s Office to refile the charges in the future.
Additional information about the case in Jefferson County was not immediately available Friday.
“Prosecutors are not permitted to tell juries of other pending charges or past verdicts, so the other cases were not presented to the Clallam County jury,” said Mark Nichols, Clallam County prosecuting attorney.
Snohomish County
Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives began investigating Larson in December 2013 after a 4-year-old girl he knew reported to her family that he touched her Thanksgiving Day.
Her parents confronted Larson, who denied the assault, according to an article published in The (Everett) Herald in June 2014.
When Snohomish detectives interviewed Larson in February 2014, he told them he had picked the girl up after taking away a hazardous toy but denied any inappropriate touching.
Larson was arrested in connection with the Snohomish case March 27, 2014, and was later released without bail.
In late May 2014, a Snohomish County Superior Court judge issued a $500,000 arrest warrant for Larson. That warrant is still in effect.
Sequim case
Sequim police began investigating Larson after Officer Maris Turner spoke with a 9-year-old girl — who has since turned 10 — who told her a man who was a stranger to her touched her inappropriately while they were in the pool at the Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center.
Larson was later identified through photos provided by the girl’s father and footage obtained from the SARC surveillance system.
Search warrant served
He was arrested without incident May 23 after Sequim police — with the aid of the Port Townsend Police Department — served a search warrant at his home.
In an interview with Sequim police following his arrest, Larson denied intentionally touching the girl but said he could have accidentally done so while they were playing.
On May 29, Larson was charged in Clallam County Superior Court with a single count of child molestation, according to court documents. He pleaded not guilty.
Child’s testimony
During the three-day trial, “the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office successfully argued a motion that allowed the 10-year-old child to testify via a closed-circuit television,” said Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Michele Devlin.
“This is a first for Clallam County and enabled the child to testify without having to come face to face with the defendant.
“Hopefully, this case will serve as a catalyst for further child testimony via closed-circuit television as the Legislature has provided a means to do so within the law while preserving a defendant’s rights to counsel and confrontation,” Devlin said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
