EVERETT — In the first of four trials on sex crime allegations, a jury found the former owner of the Anchor Pub in Everett guilty of six felonies Thursday.
After the trial in Snohomish County Superior Court, the jury convicted Christian Sayre, 38, of four counts of third-degree rape of a child and two counts of first-degree possession of depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Sayre is now set to face three more trials in Superior Court over allegations he drugged and sexually assaulted numerous women over the course of years, sometimes in the bar.
Judge Millie Judge ruled to separate the 18 charges into separate trials so as not to prejudice a jury against the defendant. The thinking is that evidence of some of the allegations could make the jury feel the others must be true, as well.
Jury selection in the next trial is set to begin Oct. 15. In that case, he faces three counts of indecent liberties and one count of second-degree rape.
The following two trials are set for November and January.
This first trial related to a single victim. The allegations predated Sayre’s ownership of the Anchor.
In 2011, Sayre met a teenage girl at a Halloween store at the Everett Mall, according to charging papers. He was in the Navy at the time.
Within a couple weeks, he invited her to a Halloween party in Everett. Not long after that, they began hanging out regularly. He raped her multiple times, prosecutors alleged. He also pushed her to send him nude photographs, according to the charges.
The verdict Thursday comes nearly three years after Everett police arrested Sayre in the face of numerous abuse allegations. At one point, Sayre faced as many as 21 felony counts. Last month, the judge dismissed three of those counts. In two cases, the alleged victims didn’t want to testify. Without their testimony, prosecutors couldn’t prove those allegations. On the third count, deputy prosecutor Kara Van Slyck dropped the charge “due to evidentiary considerations that the State is unable to resolve,” she wrote in court filings.
A sentencing date will be set once all the trials have concluded.
Sayre has been held in the Snohomish County Jail since February 2023.
Jake Goldstein-Street: 425-339-3439; jake.goldstein-street@heraldnet.com; X: @GoldsteinStreet.
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