EDITOR’S NOTE: The charge of first-degree rape of a child against Steve Wiltse was dismissed on June 28, 2016. In the prosecution’s request for dismissal, the deputy prosecutor wrote: “Based on a recent defense interview of the complaining witness, it is unlikely that there is sufficient evidence at this time to prove the charged crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Also, the lawsuit against J.K. Martial Arts Academy and Learning Center and other defendants was dismissed in 2019. The story as originally written is below.
EVERETT — A former Lynnwood High School teacher’s aid is accused of raping a 5-year-old boy at a private Everett child care center.
Now the boy’s parents are suing J.K. Martial Arts Academy and Learning Center, saying its owners and employees failed to protect their son from Steven Wayne Wiltse. Court documents say that Wiltse was investigated in the past for allegations of sexual abuse against children in California and Idaho. The lawsuit also blames the Everett learning center’s owners and employees for not reporting suspected child abuse when they saw Wiltse engage in suspicious behavior.
Messages to the center left by the Herald on Thursday went unanswered.
Wiltse was charged in October with first-degree child rape. Prosecutors allege that he sexually assaulted the 5-year-old boy who attended summer daycare at the J.K. Learning Center in 2014. The boy also took taekwondo lessons at the martial arts academy next door.
Wiltse, 54, has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to the charge. His trial is scheduled for July.
The Snohomish man told police that he worked at the learning center between early 2013 and March 2015. Beginning around mid-2014 he supervised and tutored children at the learning center without any other adults present.
Wiltse was hired as a teaching assistant at Lynnwood High School in October 2014. The district checked his references, and he passed a background check after submitting fingerprints to the Washington State Patrol, Edmonds School District spokeswoman Debbie Joyce Jakala said.
He later filled in as the dean of students, a position that doesn’t require a teaching license. The district put him on paid administrative leave April 20, 2015, after learning of the investigation at J.K. Martial Arts Academy and Learning Center.
He was paid until his contract ended June 17, 2015.
“We let his contract expire because we never received word on (the police) investigation,” Jakala said. “Clearly we didn’t bring him back because the allegations were crimes against children.”
Court documents say that the boy’s parents removed him from the Everett child care center in September 2014 after the boy told them he had a dream that “Mr. Steve” touched him with his penis. The boy’s father received a concerning call from Wiltse around the same time. Wiltse claimed that he had caught the boy looking at pornography on the school computer. He said the boy had typed, “girl naked,” Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Laura Twitchell wrote in charging papers. The boy couldn’t spell his own name at the time.
In March 2015, the boy’s parents were told that he had made some inappropriate comments to another boy at an after-school program. When they talked to their child about what he’d said, the boy disclosed that he’d been sexually assaulted by Wiltse, Twitchell wrote.
The boy repeated those allegations to a child interview specialist, saying that Wiltse showed him pornography, raped him and threatened to hurt him if he told anyone, according to court papers.
“Obviously an event like this is traumatic. The family is doing as much as possible to support their son and get him through this,” Tacoma attorney Ashton Dennis said.
He and Lincoln Beauregard, also of Tacoma, are representing the boy and his parents in the lawsuit.
Detectives spoke with an employee at the center, who said that he’d seen a little girl resting her head in Wiltse’s lap as he put a rubber band in her hair.
“He said the way Wiltse caressed the girl’s head seem inappropriate,” Twitchell wrote.
That man is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
A detective also spoke with Jung Kim, the owner of the martial arts academy. He told police that Wiltse reported that a boy had been caught watching pornography on a computer, Twitchell wrote. Wiltse reportedly showed Kim the sex video. Another employee told detectives that Wiltse used her laptop at the learning center to search dating sites.
She started printing his search history, tracking what sites he visited. She turned over the printouts to detectives.
Court papers say that Wiltse took a polygraph test in April 2015. The evaluator concluded that Wiltse lied about not having sexual contact with the boy, Twitchell wrote.
The lawsuit alleges that the learning center failed to properly vet Wiltse before hiring him.
The sexual assault “could have been wholly prevented had the defendants properly investigated Wiltse throughout employment process, properly monitored Wiltse and other employees and reported suspected child abuse,” attorneys wrote in the lawsuit filed earlier this month in Snohomish County Superior Court.
Wiltse allegedly told police he was forced to resign from a school district in Stockton, California, after sending sexually explicit email using a school computer. The Snohomish County sheriff’s detective was unable to find information about that incident, but he learned that Wiltse was a suspect in an investigation into child sex abuse in San Joaquin County.
Wiltse was interviewed and allegedly admitted to some inappropriate touching, but he denied that it was sexual, Twitchell wrote. He also told detectives he was fired from a charter school in Idaho after a female student complained about him.
The case was referred to prosecutors in Idaho. Court documents don’t say whether charges were ever filed.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dianahefley.
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