A Cowlitz County jury found Heather Annette Hughes guilty of seven charges Thursday afternoon for her role in supplying a minor for sex in 2017 to a former Longview business owner.
Hughes, 49, was found not guilty on one charge — promoting commercial sexual abuse of a minor — and pumped both her fists in excitement.
Still, she could potentially face more than 20 years in state prison. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 18.
The jury found she was an accomplice to Jay Douglas, the owner of Longview used car dealership Triangle Motors and who was convicted in 2021 of raping and molesting the same young girl in Hughes' case.
Presiding Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge Patricia Fassett revoked Hughes' bail after the verdict was read, and she was taken into custody.
Hughes did not testify. Though she was arrested in 2018, she wasn’t considered competent to stand trial until January, according to court records.
She told The Daily News Wednesday she considered the case to be "the biggest blessing," but didn't explain why.
She was found guilty of second-degree rape of a child, two counts of second-degree child molestation, promoting commercial sexual abuse of a minor, commercial sexual abuse of a minor, second-degree human trafficking, and second-degree dealing in depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
A question of notes
In his closing arguments, Cowlitz County Prosecutor Jacob Eugene Lervold described Hughes' and Douglas' relationship as "business transaction for drugs"; Hughes found girls for Douglas to have sex with and he gave Hughes drugs.
Lervold said such acts with the then 12-year-old girl occurred at Douglas' home and his dealership. The business was destroyed in a fire in 2019 when Douglas was on bail, but he was never charged in the incident.
Before one assault, the prosecution explained how the victim felt dizzy after eating pizza, so Douglas helped her upstairs where Hughes helped the young girl change into lingerie.
But Hughes' defense attorney, John Carlson Terry of Vancouver's Andrews Terry Jeffers LLP, questioned the evidence. He said Hughes' confessions to law enforcement were not recorded and the victim's statements about sexual assault changed over time.
Longview Sgt. Tim Watson, the lead investigator for the case, took the stand Wednesday, saying Hughes told him she was tasked "to find females to have sex with" Douglas.
Watson said she also took sexual photos of the victim after Douglas requested them, and within their "relationship dynamic," she was the one in charge.
Those photos were found on a computer at Triangle Motors in attachments to emails that Christopher Prothero, a former digital forensic investigator of the Vancouver Police Department, retrieved from the computer's desktop recycle bin, he told the jury Wednesday.
During cross-examination, Terry questioned Watson about how he documented his first interview with Hughes at her residence. Watson responded that he had neither taken notes nor recorded the interview but wrote a report shortly after the interaction.
Watson said he did take notes during the second and third interviews at the Cowlitz County Prosecuting Attorney's Office and transferred them into the report, but that they were not verbatim.
"So, in all three interviews, you're summarizing essentially the highlights of what was discussed," said Terry, to which Watson replied, "that's a fair categorization."
Terry said any context that may have existed is now "lost to your interpretation, would you agree with that?" Watson replied, "I only have my interpretation to document."
More testimonies
Kimberly Copeland of Legacy Health, who conducted a forensic interview and physical examination on the victim, also testified on Wednesday.
As part of the state's evidence, Lervold played an audio recording of a 2018 interview between Copeland and the victim, in which she said Hughes took photos of her and that Douglas played porn on TV while she was present. The victim said Hughes had the "mind of an 11 year old."
Kristen Mendez, a child forensic interviewer from the Children's Justice and Advocacy Center, testified on Wednesday that the victim told her of a sexual encounter with Douglas in which Hughes was sitting in a chair eating ice cream during the act.
Douglas was convicted of child rape, child molestation and possession of child pornography in 2021.
