Bellingham man who molested 3 boys sentenced to 25 years in prison

March 31--BELLINGHAM -- A Bellingham man asked for forgiveness Thursday before a Superior Court judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison for molesting boys over the past 3 decades.

City police found at least eight men who say they were raped, molested or perhaps touched in their sleep by Lee John Weeda, 44, when they were children. As recently as a few weeks ago, Weeda denied molesting any of the boys, according to a state Department of Corrections report.

"It's their word against mine," he told a state corrections officer, when asked why he would plead guilty to the crimes. "I'm getting 25 years, instead of 28 to life."

Charges

An investigation began in the summer of 2014, when Weeda used his Hotmail account to upload sexual images of prepubescent boys to Microsoft OneDrive. The photos showed one boy being raped by a man, and other kids engaged in lewd acts with each other. Authorities traced the IP address to Weeda, who lived in Birch Bay, according to court records.

Months later officers served a warrant at his new apartment at 202 N. 34th St. in Bellingham, where they found "hundreds" of explicit images of children on CDs.

At a police interview in January 2015, Weeda disclosed he molested a preteen boy in the early 1990s. A detective, Pauline Renick, tracked down that alleged victim -- now an adult -- and others who say Weeda molested them over the past decades. The statute of limitations expired in his case.

One man alleged Weeda pulled his pants and sexually touched him in the late 1980s or early 1990s. That case was too old to press charges as well.

County prosecutors leveled charges in three child molestation cases: One man said Weeda molested him at least twice when he was under the age of 9 through the 1990s. Another man and his brother described sexual abuse from 1996 to 2005. The older brother was too afraid to report what happened, he said.

Weeda was charged, too, with five counts of dealing child pornography.

Other cases

Other accusations of sexual abuse, or highly questionable behavior, emerged through the police investigation.

A detective uncovered a Blaine case from 2000, though the original police report had been lost -- possibly in a flood, court records say. A boy, 13, said Weeda knew his family through his fast food job, and he would buy presents for the teen that his mother wouldn't get him. One day he fell asleep as Weeda massaged him. He awoke with his clothes off. He felt drugged, but didn't remember if he'd been sexually abused. No charges were filed.

A man reported Weeda raped him in 2008, according to court records. At the time the two men had been in a consensual intimate relationship. Charges weren't filed. Two days later Weeda accused that man, who was a registered sex offender, of having a lockbox full of child pornography in a bedroom.

In June 2015, a mentally disabled man in his 20s told police, in two- or three-word sentences, that Weeda raped him when he was a toddler. Today that man functions at the level of a 6-year-old child, according to court records. A deputy prosecutor, Jonathan Richardson, said the investigation could not pin down when, where, or what exactly happened, so no charges were filed in the case.

Yet another man in his 20s recalled going to sleep one night in his underwear when he was about 10, according to court records. He woke up naked, with Weeda passed out next to him. But if anything sexual happened, he did not remember, according to his report.

The detective found photos on Weeda's computer of teenage boys and some girls, in various stages of undress, drinking alcohol. Weeda explained he took the pictures about 5 years ago. He said he'd been mentoring teens -- whom he met through Myspace, Facebook, and the dating site meetme.com -- as they tried to come out as gay, according to the corrections investigation. The officer who wrote the report, Darrell Feller, called that supposed mentorship "beyond disturbing."

Sentence

As he awaited trial Weeda sent judges about a half-dozen requests for a new attorney. Weeda claimed his deputy public defender, Darrin Hall, "badgered, belittled, called me a liar and has even tried strong-arming me with threats of more charges." Hall remained on the case, however, to its resolution.

Weeda -- a balding man with a handlebar mustache, a ponytail, and graying hair at the temples -- pleaded guilty last month to three counts of second-degree child molestation, one count of third-degree assault, and four counts of first-degree dealing in depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Superior Court Judge Charles Snyder sentenced him Thursday to 25 years in prison and three years on probation, as suggested by the plea deal. None of the victims spoke at the court hearing.

The judge asked Weeda if he wanted to say anything before he was sentenced. Weeda paused for a moment.

"I would ask for forgiveness from the people I've hurt, and mercy from the court," he said.

"Well," Snyder said, "as to the people who have been harmed, that's -- that's going to be something only they can decide."

Caleb Hutton: 360-715-2276, @bhamcaleb

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