King County prosecutors Friday charged a Washington State Patrol school bus safety inspector with two counts of attempted first-degree rape of a child following his arrest at a Kirkland hotel this week during an undercover Seattle police operation.
Trevor Smith, who lives in Everett, was arrested Tuesday night and was released the following evening after posting $100,000 bail, jail records show.
Court records do not yet indicate which attorney is representing Smith. He is to be arraigned March 10.
According to the charges, he answered an ad placed by an undercover officer as part of a sting operation by the Seattle Police Department's Internet Crimes Against Children unit, targeting people involved in sexual exploitation of minors. He believed he was trading graphic messages with the mother of two girls, ages 6 and 11, and offered the woman sexual access to his 9-month-old son.
Prosecutors have asked that a judge order Smith to have no contact with anyone under age 18, including his infant son.
"Although the State would typically allow a defendant in a case such as this to have contact with his biological children, that would be highly inappropriate in this case," Deputy Prosecutor Laura Harmon wrote in the charges.
On Tuesday, after days of exchanging messages with the undercover officer, Smith met the woman at a Kirkland restaurant to discuss details, then went to a nearby convenience store, say the charges. He met the woman at the hotel, where he expected to find two girls in a room, and was arrested, the charges say.
According to police, Smith admitted he had long had a sexual interest in children but said he had never acted on it; he also told a detective he "would be in danger of having sexual contact with a hypothetical daughter," the charges say.
Smith, who was immediately removed from his duties, worked for the State Patrol as a commercial vehicle enforcement officer assigned to the school bus inspection program, a prosecutors' spokesperson said, based on information provided by the Patrol. No children were present when he conducted safety inspections on the buses.
Snohomish County Superior Court records show Smith filed for divorce from his wife of nearly four years in November. On Thursday, she obtained a temporary domestic-violence protection order, barring Smith from coming within 100 yards of her or her son, court records say.
News researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report.
___
(c)2021 The Seattle Times
