Person of interest located in Seattle groping case

SEATTLE – Police said Wednesday that a convicted sex offender is a person of interest in a weekend groping incident involving a Seattle woman who turned to social media when she decided a police officer didn’t seem to care.

The man has been booked into the King County Jail for a violation of his state Corrections Department supervision, police said on their website. They did not identify him.

Julia Marquand, 28, used her cellphone on Sunday to photograph the man who she says groped her in downtown Seattle, the Seattle Times reported. She also filed a police report.

She said a female officer took down the basic details but had to be persuaded to look at the cellphone photo. Dissatisfied with the encounter, Marquand later posted the man’s photo on her Twitter and Facebook accounts, saying, “This dude groped me in Seattle yesterday. Cops didn’t want the pic.”

In her tweet, she mentioned the Seattle Police Department’s Twitter handle and that of a few media outlets.

Within a few hours, Seattle police contacted Marquand and said her case, along with the alleged groper’s photo, had been assigned to a detective.

Corrections Department officers contacted detectives after recognizing the man in the photo as a Level III sex offender under state supervision, police said Wednesday. Level III offenders are considered at high risk of re-offending.