PORT ANGELES — A lifelong Forks resident who allegedly raped a 13-year-old boy repeatedly over more than two months, when she was a paraeducator and he was a student, has been charged with multiple felonies.
Judge Simon Barnhart set bail at $150,000 for Tammy Leask, 39, after she was charged Friday with five counts of second-degree child rape and one count of distribution of controlled substance — Xanax — to a minor.
Leask will be arraigned at 9 a.m. Friday in Clallam County Superior Court.
Each sexual assault charges carries with it special allegations that Leask engaged in an ongoing pattern of sexual abuse and that the former Forks Intermediate School employee used her position of trust with the alleged victim to commit the crimes.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Matthew Roberson said the felonies, which allegedly occurred between Nov. 1, 2019 and Jan. 11, 2020, could lead to a minimum sentence of 17½ years in prison for Leask, who does not have a criminal record.
She admitted to having repeated sexual contact with the boy, according to the probable cause statement.
“I should have been the adult,” she told Clallam County Sheriff’ Detective Brandon Stoppani, who wrote the statement. “But I thought I could handle it.”
The boy disclosed the sexual assaults Monday to an investigator with the Quillayute Valley School District, which reported it Tuesday to the Sheriffs Office.
Leask, a married mother of three children, was arrested without incident Thursday morning in the district parking lot as she came to work, Sheriff’s Office Chief Criminal Deputy Brian King said.
Her lawyer, Stan Myers of Port Angeles, said Friday at her first court appearance that she is no longer a paraeducator. Schools Superintendent Diana Reaume did not return calls Friday regarding Leask’s job status.
In an interview Thursday at the sheriff’s office satellite branch in Forks following her arrest, Leask admitted she and the boy had sexual contact in her classroom, her car and the boy’s home, the probable cause statement said.
Also in the statement:
She said she bought him beer and pornographic magazines, and gave him condoms from the health department.
Leask said she “maybe” gave Xanax to the boy.
The boy told Stoppani that Laesk bought him beer and Fireball whiskey, and gave him two Xanax pills because he was nervous about a school project.
He said Leask was his teacher and helped him with his mental health.
He said she developed a crush on him and pressured him into having sex, telling him it would “help his depression feel better,” he told Stoppani.
“On January 11th, (2020) [the boy] was sent to a mental hospital in Tacoma because his family thought his relationship with Tammy was ‘weird,’ but [the boy] did not see it because he was brainwashed by Tammy,” according to the statement.
Leask kept talking to the boy about having sex, he said.
“Eventually I got scared enough that she would hurt, like, a family member of mine, or something, if I didn’t give myself up to her,” he told Stoppani. “So I did.”
Most of the assaults occurred in her classroom, the boy said.
She told him she would kill herself if he disclosed what they had done, he said.
According to a telephone conversation between them that was recorded Wednesday evening, Leask told the boy, “Tell them nothing happened,” according to the statement.
She also told the boy she was losing her job.
“I’m not blaming you for anything,” she told him.
“This is all on me. This is all my fault. lt is 100 percent all on me. They don’t need to (find out about everything else),” according to the statement.
During her recorded interview at 9 a.m. Thursday with Stoppani and Sheriff’s Detective Stacy Sampson, Leask said she was afraid the boy was lonely and would kill himself “if I didn’t do what he wanted,” in providing sexual contact, Stoppani wrote.
“I kept taking it on myself, that I had to fix him,” she said.
“It just got out of control. I couldn’t stop it.”
Laesk showed a pattern “of repeated rapes of a 13-year-old child,” Roberson said in asking Barnhart to set bail at $150,000.
“In several incidents, she forced a 13-year-old child to have sex with here. This wasn’t a one-off occurrence.”
Roberson said she also manipulated the boy, using his emotions to continue the abuse by threatening to kill herself if he broke off the relationship.
Myers argued that the charges are “just allegations,” that there was no indication Laesk would not appear in court and that all her familial ties are in Forks.
“She really has nowhere else to go even if she wanted to,” he said.
“She has denied the allegations that the state has made against her.”
He urged Barnhart to release Laesk on her personal recognizance or, at most, set bail at up to $10,000. She also would do electronic home monitoring, Myers said.
“Although the allegations are serious here, that in and of itself is not a basis to set bail in the amount of $150,000.”
Barnhart said there was enough in the allegations to suggest Laesk would not abide by the law without the restrictive bail requested by Roberson.
“The court is concerned about the nature of the alleged activities, the severity of the charges, and the consequences, in the court’s mind, go to assurances of Ms. Laesk’s future appearances in court,” Barnhart said.
“Also, the pattern of conduct that was displayed as set forth in the allegations does suggest the potential for interference in the administration of justice.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
