Against All Enemies Foreign and Domestic
Example Six
2003-01-31
by
Noel S. Brady
Journal Reporter
ISSAQUAH -- A former school teacher who taught at Issaquah Middle School and later at Oliver M. Hazen High School in Renton has been charged with molesting a 10-year-old girl.
Richard E. Buckley II of Bellevue turned himself into Issaquah police Tuesday after learning of the charge against him and consulting his attorney, a spokesman for the Issaquah Police Department said.
Buckley, 34, was arrested and booked into the King County Jail, where he remains in lieu of $50,000 bail. His arraignment is scheduled for Monday morning.
He is charged with first-degree child molestation.
According to charging papers, a woman went to Issaquah police on Jan. 11 to report that Buckley had molested her 10-year-old stepdaughter while visiting his 17-year-old girlfriend at the Issaquah home of the older girl's mother.
The woman said she learned of the allegation through a friend of the family after her stepdaughter told the friend that Buckley had groped her while watching a movie.
The woman also told police that she has reason to believe Buckley was having an inappropriate relationship with his girlfriend when she was 12 and with the girl's sister when she was 11.
The 17-year-old, however, told police that she began dating Buckley when she was 16.
When the woman confronted Buckley with the allegation on the phone, he said ``I'm going to jail,'' charging papers state.
In an interview with a prosecutor, the 10-year-old girl explained what Buckley had done, corroborating her stepmother's report.
After the incident, the girl said, Buckley told her to keep the incident their ``little secret.''
Buckley taught at Issaquah Middle School until the late 1990s, when he took a job teaching at Oliver M. Hazen High School in Renton.
Prosecutors said Buckley resigned from Hazen on Jan. 15.
Buckley is being represented by Seattle defense attorney Anthony Savage.
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS SCHOOL DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION SAFETY