Sex Offender, Helped By Chaplain, Arrested

A King County police chaplain who gave a registered sex offender a job was saddened to learn of the man’s arrest.

“I was certainly under the impression he was walking the straight and narrow,” Dale Amundsen said Thursday.

Amundsen hired Victor James Newman last year to work at his Issaquah convenience store. Newman’s record includes convictions for burglary and indecent liberties involving break-ins in the 1980s in Snohomish County.

Newman moved to the Issaquah area in early 1995, and some residents protested when he took a job at the Sunset Way Texaco.

Newman was arrested Thursday after he allegedly dressed as a woman and entered a women’s dressing room at the St. Edwards State Park pool with a video camera in his bag and a mirror in his hand.

Newman, 33, is in the King County jail on $20,000 bail. He faces charges stemming from the incident and his attempt to elude a state park ranger trying to stop him.