EVERETT — Dozens of registered sex offenders who live in boarding houses near downtown Everett may have to scramble to find new places to live.
Mike Westford, an Everett businessman who rents homes to at least 49 registered sex offenders in 11 houses in the Bayside neighborhood, faxed a letter to the city of Everett on Wednesday, saying he will no longer rent to convicted rapists and pedophiles because of threats to his family.
“This decision has been made after many hours of soul searching with my family and associates,” he wrote.
The letter said Westford would stop accepting rental applications from new tenants who are sex offenders and will not renew current tenant leases when their rental agreements are up.
Mike Westford refused to comment when reached by phone Thursday. He said he would make an announcement today.
Michelle Westford, an Everett real estate agent, said on Wednesday that her family has grown weary following an onslaught of angry telephone calls and taunts in public in recent months.
The Westfords and their associates have come under intense public scrutiny since a business partner bought the McManus mansion on E. Grand Avenue in Everett’s Riverside neighborhood in June.
Alex Thole, the business partner who is a former Seattle police officer, rented a room there to a convicted sex offender a short time after buying the foreclosed house at auction. The 28-year-old tenant was evicted just a few weeks later after he was caught drinking, a violation of the terms of his parole.
After weeks of neighborhood protests, Thole and Mike Westford decided not to rent to sex offenders at the dilapidated 1890s mansion.
A married couple currently live in the home. A woman who answered the door of the mansion Thursday said other rooms there will soon be rented to families.
Earlier this month, Mike Westford’s lawyer, James Hawes, wrote a letter to Everett city attorney Jim Iles, asking the city not to enter any of Westford’s properties without permission.
According to the letter, several people, who refused to identify themselves, entered Westford’s properties and took pictures for the purposes of “land-use questions.”
Hawes said Westford’s tenants felt threatened by their presence, and feared for their safety.
The letter referenced an incident in Bellingham in 2005 when Michael Anthony Mullen posed as an FBI agent and killed two convicted child rapists that he found on a community notification Web site.
On Friday, a threat was e-mailed to The Herald following a story about Westford’s rental properties.
“Now would be a good time for someone two (sic) sneak in at night and burn the house down with all the sex offenders in it and get ride (sic) of all the drug addicts and sex offenders all at once in that neighborhood. Society needs to start killing these people as they are caught or sentenced,” it said.
A report was filed with the Everett Police Department, which is investigating.
There has been at least one case in Snohomish County where violence was directed at a sex offender after neighborhood protests.
In July 1993, an arsonist torched the home of Joseph Gallardo in south Snohomish County hours before his release from prison for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl.
Katrina Lindell, a Department of Corrections field administrator for northwest Washington, said she received a copy of Westford’s letter, which was also forwarded to the governor’s office.
She said the worst-case scenario is not having a place where sex offenders can live.
That’s what happened in April when the Department of Corrections ordered released rapist David J. Torrence to sleep under a bridge near Snohomish. Torrence removed a GPS tracking device from his ankle and fled the state. He surrendered a couple of weeks later in Arkansas.
“We appreciate all property owners who rent to sex offenders because they contribute to public safety,” Lindell said. “It’s safer for the community to know where offenders are living.”
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.
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