Man charged with child rape, kidnapping for alleged assault on Pierce County ferry
Prosecutors on Tuesday charged a man accused of sexually assaulting a seven-year-old on the Pierce County Ferry with first-degree child rape and first-degree kidnapping.
Annan Soloman Brown, 34, is being held without bail. Pierce County Superior Court Judge André Peñalver ordered an evaluation at Western State Hospital to determine whether he’s competent to stand trial.
Sheriff’s investigators arrested the man Friday.
Charging papers made these allegations about what happened:
The seven-year-old was on the ferry to Steilacoom on Aug. 3 when he told his mother he’d been sexually assaulted in the bathroom by a man he didn’t know.
The boy told investigators the man began speaking to him, carried him into a bathroom stall, locked the door, and told the child he was 13. The seven-year-old told investigators he didn’t believe the suspect was truthful about his age. He said he seemed to be in his late 20s.
The man sexually assaulted the boy, and the child told him to stop.
“The defendant then told him to wait 15 minutes before leaving and to keep this a ‘secret,’” the declaration for determination of probable cause said. “The victim said he only waited a few moments before leaving the bathroom.”
Surveillance video showed Brown leave the bathroom, notice the boy going into the restroom, then follow the child back inside. About six minutes later both left.
Investigators connected Brown to a vehicle they saw him enter.
They went to the home he shares with his mother, and both he and his mother described him as disabled.
The mother allegedly said he has “mild developmental delays,” that he is “intellectually disabled,” and that he has the capacity of a 12-year-old.
“Police asked if this was her intuition or if there was a doctor that diagnosed this,” the probable cause statement said. “She said, ‘some of both.’”
When investigators asked, she allegedly said she couldn’t give them documents to support that, and she declined to give them the name of his doctor.
Investigators also asked her if her son had been in other trouble.
Brown was found incompetent, she said, when he was “adjudicated” out of state.
Brown allegedly said on the ferry, on the way to jail: “I haven’t done any sexual stuff with a kid. Not since I got here.”
This story was originally published August 10, 2021 at 2:02 PM.
