Jordin house arrest protested

Both a rape crisis advocate and the woman raped by landlord Arlin Jordin in 2004 criticized a judge’s decision Wednesday not to jail Jordin immediately amid new allegations that he violated the conditions allowing him to remain free on bond pending an appeal of his 2006 conviction.

Spokane Superior Court Judge Neal Q. Rielly ordered the 60-year-old landlord and insurance executive into house arrest at the home of his parents while his lawyer prepares for a hearing Tuesday that could send him back to jail for allegedly offering a young woman alcohol in his apartment.

Jordin, as a condition of his release on a $100,000 bond last August, was not to possess or consume alcohol.

“I was very disappointed by Judge Rielly’s ruling,” said Marcia Black-Gallucci, a crisis intervention specialist with Lutheran Community Services’ Victim Rights Response Team.

Police reports filed Monday with Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor John Love’s motion to revoke Jordin’s release “say that Jordin violated the terms of his parole,” Black-Galluci said.

The young woman at the center of Jordin’s conviction for second-degree rape and indecent liberties said Jordin should never have been freed. She was present at the Wednesday hearing.

“I was disgusted he was allowed to be out on bond in the first place. He was convicted of a violent crime,” she said.

Rielly said the new accusations against Jordin required his immediate house arrest with his ankle monitoring bracelet on.

“He can’t leave the house,” Rielly said.

The hearing was scheduled after Spokane County prosecutors filed a bond revocation motion Monday prompted by allegations from a young woman that Jordin asked her to his place during a day of apartment-hunting on Sept. 20, tried to drug her and repeatedly offered her bourbon.

The woman told police detectives she became woozy and tried to leave, thinking she might have been drugged, but Jordin bolted the door and kissed her before she got away.

Rielly agreed to a request from Jordin’s attorney, Carl Hueber, for a week’s extension to prepare Jordin’s defense.

In the nearly 14 months that Jordin has been free, he’s undergone 72 alcohol and 72 drug tests and hasn’t flunked any of them, Hueber said.

“I submit he’s followed the conditions of release and Mr. Jordin did not possess alcohol, as has been alleged,” Hueber said. He noted that Department of Corrections officials searched Jordin’s apartment Sept. 21, and no alcohol was found.

Hueber proposed the house arrest at Jordin’s parents’ Spokane Valley home, saying “principles of community safety” warrant new restrictions on his client until his fate is decided next week.

Love, the deputy prosecutor, opposed the parental house arrest, arguing that Jordin is a convicted felon who has violated his release conditions.

“Having elderly parents be responsible is not sufficient. The safest place for Mr. Jordin to be is in the Spokane County Jail,” Love said.

Also Wednesday, two other young women contacted The Spokesman-Review in response to the latest accusations about Jordin and said that he took an odd personal interest in them when they responded to newspaper advertisements for apartments.

Marta Rials, 32, said she responded to an ad in 2002 for an apartment in Browne’s Addition.

Jordin showed her a packed storage room in an apartment complex where he lived.

“I went there, but he just wanted me to drink with him. I wasn’t interested,” she said.

Sarah Marie Sutphin, 32, said Jordin earlier this year showed her an apartment in the complex where he now lives at 1827 W. Ninth but seemed more interested in discussing details of her recent breakup with her boyfriend.

“In the beginning, he seemed like a father figure. But he scared me. I never let myself be alone with him,” Sutphin said.

At the end of Wednesday’s hearing, Jordin chatted on his cell phone while his house arrest order was being prepared and then left with his lawyer, striding by a cluster of news cameras on the fourth floor of the Spokane County Courthouse.

He had a two-word response when asked about the recent allegations from the young woman who accuses him of drugging her: “Not true.”

Karen Dorn Steele can be reached at (509) 459-5462 or by e-mail at karend@spokesman.com.