Ex-cop faces more sexual abuse charges

TACOMA – A retired Tacoma police officer charged with raping a developmentally disabled boy is also under investigation for videotaping the sexual abuse of two young female relatives.

Authorities say one of the girls was about 8 and the other 3 or 4 when Lee William Giles Jr. and his girlfriend, Maureen Elizabeth Wear, abused them sexually and videotaped it.

On Friday, Pierce County prosecutors charged Wear, 46, with one count of first-degree child rape, two counts of second-degree child rape, two counts of first-degree child molestation, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of possessing child pornography.

Superior Court Judge Katherine Stolz ordered her held on $500,000 bail.

Giles, 61, is being held on $1 million bail. He’s likely to be charged with more crimes in the coming weeks, said John Hillman, a Pierce County deputy prosecutor.

“The police are actively investigating this case,” Hillman said. “When their investigation is completed, we’ll decide what further charges to bring.”

Giles, who frequently visited schools and appeared on television and radio during his 30-year police career, was charged with eight sex crimes after police say he admitted to raping a boy – a relative of Wear’s – for several years in the 1990s and 2000s. Some of the crimes occurred while Giles was still on the force, detectives said.

Giles had denied abusing anyone other than the boy, who is now 18 and living in Eastern Washington.

According to court filings, Giles told investigators he twice had oral sex with the boy, starting when he “was a little bitty kid, like 6 or 7,” and took videos of himself and the boy fondling each other.

The boy, described by prosecutors as developmentally disabled, said he was assaulted from age 9 until he was 14 or 15.

Investigators laid out the new allegations in the court documents charging Wear with abusing the girls – who are now 12 and 16 and living in Eastern Washington – and raping her young relative.

According to charging documents, one videotape seized from Giles’ home shows the boy, clearly under the age of 12, fondling Wear while Giles encourages him.

Another video shows Wear dressing the girls up in adult clothing and rubbing lotion on them in a sexual manner clearly intended for the camera, court documents say.

At one point the younger girl, wearing potty-training underwear, is seen crying, and Giles is seen on the video positioning her in a sexual pose, the documents say.

Wear, a former civilian employee of the Tacoma Police Department, admitted to detectives under questioning that she probably made the boy fondle her and told them how she and Giles know the girls and where the video was shot, the charging papers say.

Beginning in 1997, Wear worked in the office of the Police Department’s crime-free housing program.

She was fired in 1999, filed an Internal Affairs complaint and began preparing a wrongful termination lawsuit.

Later questioned as part of the investigation of the late Tacoma Police Chief David Brame – who shot and killed his wife then himself in 2003 – Wear told investigators that her former supervisor told her pornography had been discovered on her work computer.

The supervisor added that such information could be made public if she pursued a lawsuit against the department, Wear is quoted as saying.

In a statement released Friday, Giles’ family said they were shocked and horrified by his arrest. “Everyone involved expresses deep concern for the well-being of all the victims involved, including law enforcement officials affected by this matter,” the statement said.