The suspect in a 2008 Lynnwood rape case pleaded guilty Thursday to more than two dozen sex crimes in Colorado.
Marc Patrick O’Leary, 33, is facing a life sentence for sexual attacks on three women in the Denver area. He also pleaded guilty to an attempted sexual assault on a fourth woman in
the Denver suburb, where he lived.
O’Leary is scheduled to be sentenced in December.
Arrangements are expected to be made to bring O’Leary to Washington after he is sentenced in Colorado, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Adam Cornell said Thursday.
Cornell in April charged O’Leary with first-degree burglary with sexual motivation and first-degree kidnapping in connection with an August 2008 attack on a woman, then 18. She told authorities at the time that she’d been tied up, blindfolded and sexually assaulted by a stranger wielding a knife. The woman reported that her attacker took photographs of her and threatened to post them on the Internet if she called police.
Detectives investigating the rapes in Colorado found a picture of the Lynnwood woman among O’Leary’s belongings. That led Lynnwood police to reopen the 2008 case.
Police had dropped the case after the woman’s story about the incident changed. Lynnwood city prosecutors charged the woman with false reporting. She eventually pleaded guilty and was ordered to undergo mental health counseling.
Detectives in Colorado contacted Lynnwood police in February after they arrested O’Leary for the sexual assault of a woman in Golden, Colo. Authorities found more than 400 photographs of the assault on the woman. She also reported that her attacker threatened to post the pictures on the Internet.
King County prosecutors also have charged O’Leary with rape, kidnapping, assault and burglary for a 2008 attack on a 63-year-old Kirkland woman. She reported being tied up, raped and photographed by a masked man.
O’Leary moved to Washington in 2006 after serving abroad with the U.S. Army. He later joined the Army Reserves and was assigned to Joint Base Lewis McCord until September 2009. Prosecutors believe O’Leary was living in Mountlake Terrace around the times of the Washington attacks.
O’Leary allegedly told an acquaintance that he was in a secret society and that he believed he was an “alpha” entitled to have sex with whomever he wanted, according to court papers.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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