The sentencing of a 25-year-old Everett man to seven years in prison for having sex with girl when she was 13 has exposed a possible rift between a Snohomish County Superior Court judge and the county prosecutor’s office.
Superior Court Judge James Allendoerfer said in court Friday that letters from the defendant’s family raised “red flags” about an appropriate sentence. Allendoerfer ordered Friday’s testimony to help him determine the sentence after he failed to get satisfactory answers to his questions at a Jan. 6 sentencing hearing.
He said allegations that the now 16-year-old victim’s family encouraged and condoned a sexual relationship between the then 23-year-old man and 13-year-old girl could have been grounds for a sentence below the standard range set by law.
As it was, Allendoerfer sentenced Jason D. Tryon to the low end of the range, giving him seven years and two months behind bars.
After the hearing, chief deputy prosecutor Mark Roe said he felt Allendoerfer put the victim’s family members on trial when he called them to testify on Friday.
Any suggestion deflecting blame from an adult man to either the victim or her family “made me feel that I was in the Twilight Zone,” Roe said. “Everyone’s conduct but the rapist’s seems to be at issue.”
In court, Allendoerfer said the role of defense attorneys and prosecutors is to advocate their cases. A judge’s role is to “hear both sides of a story in a neutral, dispassionate manner.”
He called part of deputy prosecutor Matt Baldock’s written argument “prosecutorial hyperbole” and said the allegations that members of the victim’s family were complicit in the crime warranted an inquiry to determine whether a lesser sentence was appropriate.
In the end, he decided it was not.
On Jan. 6, Allendoerfer suggested that Tryon’s crime might be closer to child molestation than second-degree child rape.
Roe said he has respect for Allendoerfer and believes the judge will be open to sitting down and discussing the issue. The chief deputy doesn’t like the fact that the victim’s family had to testify, and said the second-degree child rape charge would have been appropriate even if the family had encouraged the relationship.
“I’m not disappointed in the result,” Roe said of the sentence. “I’m disappointed in how we got there.”
Baldock argued in court that he could have charged Tyron with numerous counts, but chose to file just one.
Defense attorney Natalie Tarantino asked the judge for a sentence below the standard range. She said this was not a case of an adult grooming a child, it was a case of a relationship that should never have happened.
“What happened by law is wrong, but it should be put in context” with other child rape cases, Tarantino said.
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
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