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Retired officer sentenced to 19 years
January 5th, 2008
Retired Tacoma police officer Lee William Giles Jr. will have 19 years to
ponder the demon that drove him to molest children who trusted him.
The sentence came Friday in Pierce County Superior Court. Giles, 63, made no
statement. He stood, handcuffed in a gray prison jumpsuit, his white hair
shorn of the ponytail he'd worn at earlier hearings.
Originally, he was charged with 26 crimes. By the time he pleaded guilty
last November, the charges had been reduced to single counts: first-degree
child rape, second-degree child rape, first-degree child molestation and
third-degree assault.
The sentencing of Maureen Wear, Giles' girlfriend, will wait a few weeks.
She is charged with similar crimes revolving around the same set of
circumstances. Like Giles, she pleaded guilty in November. Judge Bryan
Chushcoff agreed to postpone Wear's sentencing until Jan. 25, pending a
presentencing interview with Wear by the state Department of Corrections.
The victims were relatives of Wear and Giles: a boy and two girls, abused
from 1995 to 2006, according to court documents. To protect the privacy of
the victims, The News Tribune is not naming them or identifying their
specific relationships to Giles and Wear.
While the legal circumstances led to separate sentencing dates, Giles and
Wear stood together in court as one of their victims explained how the
crimes had affected him.
The boy, now 19, lives in Spokane, and flew across the mountains for Friday's
court action. He didn't want to give the same statement at two hearings.
To Chushcoff, that seemed reasonable. The boy could speak, he ruled, and
both assailants would listen.
The boy gave a handwritten statement to the court. He stood silently while
his attorney read it aloud. Giles and Wear stood a few feet away.
The teen talked about his own life sentence. He said he often asks himself
questions.
"What would I be like if I was normal?" he wrote.
Giles and Wear showed no visible reaction to the boy's statement. They were
equally stoic when the boy's father gave a letter to the court.
He explained how he first learned of the years of sexual abuse his son
endured. The father was driving. The boy blurted out the secret. The father
plowed into a parked car.
In the days that followed, the father realized the scale of trauma. Molested
since the age of 7, the boy had never been taught to brush his teeth or take
showers. He thought sex with family members was normal. He'd been drugged
for years, on the pretext of calming his hyperactivity. The real reason was
to keep him docile.
"How do you undo that?" the father asked Friday.
The boy has an alarm on his bedroom door so his father knows when he goes in
and out. He can't be left alone with younger siblings. His therapy is
ongoing.
"How long will the sentence be for us?" the father asked.
The boy and his father have sued Giles, Wear and the City of Tacoma for $15
million. They argue that the city, Giles' employer, should have known about
his acts. Wear also worked for the Police Department as a civilian employee
from 1997 to 1999, when she was fired for reasons unrelated to the criminal
case.
The lawsuit, filed in August 2006, has been on hold while the criminal case
progresses.
Giles retired from the force in 2000 after a 30-year career. He sometimes
served as the public face of the department, touring elementary schools with
a talking motorcycle and hosting the local-access cable television program
"Behind the Shield."
His sonorous speaking voice served him well on local radio, where he hosted
a pair of hourlong talk shows. He was a volunteer cook at a summer camp for
underprivileged children, hosted by law enforcement officers. He served on
the police pension disability board, which examines officer requests for
retirement or disability leave.
Friday, Chushcoff called Giles "a very unusual person" who didn't fit the
typical profile of a sex offender. He functioned well. He had a
distinguished career that masked a secret life.
"He was possibly quite helpful to many people in his work," Chushcoff said.
"But for all the good that Mr. Giles did in his career, the damage that was
done to this young man was profound."
Retired officer sentenced to 19 years
January 5th, 2008
Retired Tacoma police officer Lee William Giles Jr. will have 19 years to
ponder the demon that drove him to molest children who trusted him.
The sentence came Friday in Pierce County Superior Court. Giles, 63, made no
statement. He stood, handcuffed in a gray prison jumpsuit, his white hair
shorn of the ponytail he'd worn at earlier hearings.
Originally, he was charged with 26 crimes. By the time he pleaded guilty
last November, the charges had been reduced to single counts: first-degree
child rape, second-degree child rape, first-degree child molestation and
third-degree assault.
The sentencing of Maureen Wear, Giles' girlfriend, will wait a few weeks.
She is charged with similar crimes revolving around the same set of
circumstances. Like Giles, she pleaded guilty in November. Judge Bryan
Chushcoff agreed to postpone Wear's sentencing until Jan. 25, pending a
presentencing interview with Wear by the state Department of Corrections.
The victims were relatives of Wear and Giles: a boy and two girls, abused
from 1995 to 2006, according to court documents. To protect the privacy of
the victims, The News Tribune is not naming them or identifying their
specific relationships to Giles and Wear.
While the legal circumstances led to separate sentencing dates, Giles and
Wear stood together in court as one of their victims explained how the
crimes had affected him.
The boy, now 19, lives in Spokane, and flew across the mountains for Friday's
court action. He didn't want to give the same statement at two hearings.
To Chushcoff, that seemed reasonable. The boy could speak, he ruled, and
both assailants would listen.
The boy gave a handwritten statement to the court. He stood silently while
his attorney read it aloud. Giles and Wear stood a few feet away.
The teen talked about his own life sentence. He said he often asks himself
questions.
"What would I be like if I was normal?" he wrote.
Giles and Wear showed no visible reaction to the boy's statement. They were
equally stoic when the boy's father gave a letter to the court.
He explained how he first learned of the years of sexual abuse his son
endured. The father was driving. The boy blurted out the secret. The father
plowed into a parked car.
In the days that followed, the father realized the scale of trauma. Molested
since the age of 7, the boy had never been taught to brush his teeth or take
showers. He thought sex with family members was normal. He'd been drugged
for years, on the pretext of calming his hyperactivity. The real reason was
to keep him docile.
"How do you undo that?" the father asked Friday.
The boy has an alarm on his bedroom door so his father knows when he goes in
and out. He can't be left alone with younger siblings. His therapy is
ongoing.
"How long will the sentence be for us?" the father asked.
The boy and his father have sued Giles, Wear and the City of Tacoma for $15
million. They argue that the city, Giles' employer, should have known about
his acts. Wear also worked for the Police Department as a civilian employee
from 1997 to 1999, when she was fired for reasons unrelated to the criminal
case.
The lawsuit, filed in August 2006, has been on hold while the criminal case
progresses.
Giles retired from the force in 2000 after a 30-year career. He sometimes
served as the public face of the department, touring elementary schools with
a talking motorcycle and hosting the local-access cable television program
"Behind the Shield."
His sonorous speaking voice served him well on local radio, where he hosted
a pair of hourlong talk shows. He was a volunteer cook at a summer camp for
underprivileged children, hosted by law enforcement officers. He served on
the police pension disability board, which examines officer requests for
retirement or disability leave.
Friday, Chushcoff called Giles "a very unusual person" who didn't fit the
typical profile of a sex offender. He functioned well. He had a
distinguished career that masked a secret life.
"He was possibly quite helpful to many people in his work," Chushcoff said.
"But for all the good that Mr. Giles did in his career, the damage that was
done to this young man was profound."