By Jefferson Robbins / iFiber One News
WENATCHEE — A former Snohomish County deputy prosecutor who was fired after a drunken spree on Lake Chelan is now charged with fourth-degree assault for allegedly groping a co-worker.
Chelan County prosecutors filed papers last week in district court charging Christopher J. Dickinson, 55, of Arlington. They allege that Dickinson assaulted a female coworker with sexual motivation June 20 during a three-day training conference for the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.
It’s the latest fallout from the gathering, which included Dickinson’s arrest for allegedly being in control of a motor vehicle while intoxicated and another Snohomish County employee being charged with driving a boat on the lake while drunk.
Dickinson was fired July 3 by elected Prosecutor Mark Roe after an internal investigation. The report included allegations that Dickinson approached the woman from behind during an after-hours gathering of co-workers on a hotel balcony, seized her breast and attempted to pull her onto his lap.
At the same gathering, Dickinson was photographed by co-workers while sitting with his girlfriend, who was intoxicated, unconscious and lying on his lap with her breasts exposed.
Hours after the alleged assault, Chelan County sheriff’s deputies encountered Dickinson and his girlfriend, a Snohomish County juvenile probation counselor, attempting to take a boat from a pier to travel back to Dickinson’s lodging. They allegedly found the woman erratically steering a motorboat at about 12:45 a.m. June 21, while Dickinson paddled a kayak with his hands nearby.
After Dickinson’s girlfriend was arrested on suspicion of drunken boating, deputies said they found Dickinson waiting for her outside their Chelan substation, behind the wheel of a parked car with a blood-alcohol level of 0.153 percent. Dickinson was arrested for investigation of being intoxicated while in control of a vehicle.
The girlfriend faces trial in October, while Dickinson’s control-of-a-vehicle charge is to be tried next month. No hearing date had been set Monday in the assault case.
The woman who alleged she was groped by Dickinson reported it to Chelan County investigators July 3. The Snohomish County internal investigation was forwarded to Chelan County detectives.
Dickinson told Snohomish County investigators he was “blackout drunk” at the time of the Chelan incidents, had no recollection of the evening and was coping with alcoholism, according to the internal report.
This story originally appeared in iFiber One News, an online news outlet based in Wenatchee and Ephrata.
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