When she gets out of jail sometime later this year, Lorelei J. Corpuz likely will face a different world.
She no longer will be able to live with the teenage girl she now admits molesting.
Exposed as a gender-bending impostor, the 30-year-old woman likely will find it tougher to pass herself off as a 17-year-old boy named “Mark.”
And, wherever she goes, she will have to register with police as a convicted sex offender.
Corpuz pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of third-degree child molestation, a felony.
The Everett woman appeared during a brief Snohomish County Superior Court hearing. Sentencing is set for June 18.
Prosecutors will ask that Corpuz serve a year in the county jail, the maximum punishment under state sentencing guidelines, deputy prosecutor Mark Roe said.
Corpuz’s arrest in the molestation case last month attracted international attention. Police said she convinced her victim and others that she was a teenage boy, orphaned and left homeless by family illness and other tragedy, according to court papers.
Corpuz met the girl at an area mall in September 2005. As part of her plea, Corpuz admitted sexual contact with the teen.
The girl was 15 and under the legal age when the sex occurred, according to court papers.
The girl and her family were not in court for Wednesday’s plea, but they were “very supportive” of the outcome, Roe said after the hearing.
Now there will be no trial and the girl won’t have to testify.
“Mostly, she and her parents want to do everything they can to keep the TV trucks away from her house and to keep people from sticking microphones in her face,” Roe said. “They just want to be left alone. Being a victim of a felony sex offense should not turn you into a sideshow.”
Corpuz’s legal troubles are not over. She remains under investigation in Snohomish and Kitsap counties for alleged fraud and sex crimes.
Those matters are being handled independently, Roe said.
Everett detectives have nearly completed their investigation into forgery and theft allegations, Everett police Sgt. Robert Goetz said.
Everett police investigated at least six incidents in which Corpuz allegedly forged checks for money. In some of those incidents, Corpuz allegedly was passing herself off as a man named Mark Villanueva, Goetz said.
Kitsap County detectives have wrapped up their investigation into allegations that Corpuz had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old Bremerton girl three years ago.
Kitsap investigators looked into the allegations at the time, but they did not know Corpuz was a woman, or that she was a dozen years older than the girl. The case was reopened after Kitsap detectives were contacted by Everett police.
They’ve since tracked down the former Bremerton girl, who is now 19 and married with a child of her own, Kitsap County sheriff’s spokesman deputy Scott Wilson said Wednesday.
She has told investigators a story almost identical to what happened to the Everett girl who befriended an orphan named “Mark.” Corpuz moved into her home, too, but the girl told detectives “Mark” was sent packing after the relationship turned violent.
The girl said she didn’t find out that “Mark” was an older woman until well after Corpuz was gone.
“She said she had her suspicions but wanted to believe that she was a he,” Wilson said.
In court on Wednesday, Corpuz wore her hair cropped short and she spoke softly. At 5 foot 3, she had to stand on tiptoes to raise her handcuffed wrists high enough that she could sign court documents on a table in front of her.
Corpuz’s “Mark” ruse ended after a traffic stop in Everett led to her arrest on an unrelated warrant. The Everett girl, now 16, was in the car. The girl’s parents are immigrants from Vietnam who speak little English.
Through an interpreter, they earlier said they had no idea the person they knew as “Mark” was actually a woman twice their daughter’s age.
After her arrest, Corpuz told police that she was “still exploring ‘whether or not I should become a lesbian,’ ” Roe said in court papers. Corpuz ran afoul of the law because she chose an underage partner. It is against the law for anyone 19 or older to have sexual contact with a 15-year-old.
Corpuz was ordered Wednesday to be kept in jail without bail, standard practice for somebody convicted of a sex offense. By law she will receive credit for time already served since her arrest. Upon release, she will be required to register as a sex offender and will be subject to monitoring by police, Roe said.
“This is exactly how I would have handled this case if it were a 29-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl,” he added.
Herald writer Diana Hefley contributed to this report.
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