Port Angeles man to see trial in October on rape, assault charges

PORT ANGELES — A South Old Mill Road resident charged with raping a 19-year-old woman and assaulting her friend Aug. 8 had his trial set for Oct. 15.

Jason Patrick Spaulding, 43, was in the Clallam County jail on $50,000 bail Monday after pleading not guilty Friday to charges of second-degree rape-forcible compulsion and fourth-degree assault.

Superior Court Judge Christopher Melly stretched out a sexual assault protection order against Spaulding for the woman to Aug. 24, 2099 and extended an anti-harassment order protecting the 22-year-old man who was allegedly assaulted to Aug. 24, 2020.

A status hearing is Sept. 21.

Spaulding did not know the woman until he began messaging her Aug. 1 on Facebook, according to the probable cause statement written by Sheriff’s Office Detective Joshua Ley.

Spaulding met her for the first time in person the morning of Aug. 8, when she and Spaulding happened to be with two mutual friends — a male and female whose ages were unavailable — at a Port Angeles apartment.

Spaulding took the four of them to Walmart in Sequim. During the trip, Spaulding bought the woman $100 in makeup, was flirty with her and groped her, according to the statement.

“[The woman] tolerated the conduct so she would not disenchant Spaulding; she believed they were developing a relationship and she was going to live with him,” Ley said in the statement.

After they returned to Port Angeles, they all went to Spaulding’s home. Two people left, leaving Spaulding, the woman and her friend, according to Ley.

The woman’s friend was cleaning Spaulding’s shed when she came running out of Spaulding’s house, naked from the waist up and crying, but “playing it off” like everything was fine because Spaulding was nearby, the friend told authorities.

“[The woman] acted like nothing was the matter,” Ley said in the probable cause statement.

She later said that while she was alone with Spaulding in his house, he pinned her in a chair, gagged her with her top and assaulted her.

“[The woman] said that she had been raped before, but she had never been so scared in her life,” Ley said.

After she ran outside, Spaulding chased her down three times, she told authorities.

She was able to call 9-1-1 to report she had been raped, according to the statement.

As she and her friend fled, Spaulding hit the man once with his fist on the back left side.

The man knocked on the door of another resident in the 4000 block of South Old Mill Road who had called 9-1-1 while watching what had transpired.

He retrieved his pistol from his house, told the woman and her friend to “have a seat on his lawn,” and saw Spaulding walk back toward his own residence, Ley said.

The two people who had left Spaulding’s house earlier told authorities “they had fled through the woods from Spaulding” after he “began getting ‘weird’ and making passes at [the female],” Ley said.

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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@ peninsuladailynews.com.