EVERETT — A Sultan woman faces more than seven years in prison after admitting to sexually abusing a 7-year-old child.
Caitlin Ferry, 23, pleaded guilty Tuesday to first-degree child molestation and sexual exploitation of a minor.
Ferry is the former girlfriend of Enrique Sanchez-Leon, a convicted child rapist and prolific child pornographer. He was sentenced earlier this year to 35 years in prison after Snohomish police discovered tens of thousands of disturbing images that documented his sexual abuse of several children.
Detectives arrested Ferry in January after they found pictures of her with a child during their search of Sanchez-Leon’s numerous computers. Ferry and the child are naked in the sexually explicit photographs.
Sanchez-Leon allegedly told detectives that he had taken thousands of photographs of Ferry in sexual poses during the time they lived together and that he had stored them on his computers.
Ferry shook her head slightly Tuesday as Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Anita Farris read statements describing the crimes that the woman was admitting to committing by pleading guilty.
Ferry then quietly pleaded guilty to both charges.
Earlier this month, Sanchez-Leon sent The Herald a letter from prison proclaiming Ferry’s innocence. He said the photographs he took of Ferry and the child were “an artistic portrait.” He wrote that she hadn’t molested the child.
Ferry is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 19.
Like Sanchez-Leon, her fate ultimately will be in the hands of the state’s Indeterminate Sentence Review Board. Once she serves her sentence, Ferry will have to convince the board that she isn’t a danger to commit other sex crimes.
She will be required to register as sex offender.
Ferry, who had been out on bail while awaiting trial, was hauled back to jail in August after prosecutors discovered that she’d been working at a “kiddie land” booth at the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe. She wasn’t allowed to have contact with minor children or be in places where children congregate.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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