WENATCHEE — A Snohomish man was so worried about his alleged victim showing up in court on Thursday that he had a friend impersonate a court official and give her the wrong start time for a hearing.
However, police say, the plan backfired when a real court official called the victim and found out that she had been given the incorrect time.
“This was not a very well thought-out crime,” said Sgt. John Kruse with the Wenatchee Police Department.
Ryan T. Payton, 32, of Snohomish, who was in court on a simple assault, domestic violence, charge, ended up being booked into jail on suspicion of witness tampering, first-degree criminal impersonation of a public officer and 10 counts of violating a no-contact order against the victim.
“He’d been calling the victim to try to convince her not to show up to court,” Kruse explained.
“He was not convinced that was working, so he had a female friend call the victim right before court started to say she was with the prosecutor’s office and that court had been rescheduled and she was not needed until 1 p.m.”
When the victim was not in Chelan County District Court at 9 a.m., city prosecutor Sean Esworthy called her and learned that she had been duped.
Payton was booked into the Chelan County Regional Justice Center on the additional charges.
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