Sex crimes mean Tacoma man must register as sex offender

A court hearing Friday ensured that Younes Kerrou, a 25-year-old Tacoma man, will have to register as a sex offender from now on.

He entered guilty pleas in two cases that he was charged with in July.

One was for kidnapping and raping a woman outside a Tacoma restaurant. The other was for having sex with a 13-year-old DuPont girl he met online.

In both cases, charges were reduced as part of his pleas. He is to be sentenced May 6.

Kerrou met a woman at a Sixth Avenue restaurant July 19 and went outside to share a cigarette with her. They went to his car for a lighter, charging papers say.

The woman said he lured her inside with an offer to show off his car stereo system and then used child safety locks to keep her in the back seat while he drove to a nearby residential neighborhood and sexually assaulted her.

The initial charges were first-degree kidnapping and first-degree rape but were reduced to third-degree rape because the woman was too drunk to remember everything that happened.

Plus, officials said, surveillance footage from the restaurant disproved some details of the victim’s story.

Less than a week later, Pierce County prosecutors charged Kerrou with second-degree child rape for meeting a 13-year-old girl online, hanging out with her at a coffee shop and having sex on a nearby beach.

When the girl “told the defendant she was 13, the defendant said he thought age was secondary,” according to charging papers.

The girl’s father found out after going to authorities with suspicions his daughter was having relationships with men. Police found evidence on her cellphone and computer.

On Friday, Kerrou pleaded guilty to communication with a minor for immoral purposes.

This story was originally published April 15, 2016 at 4:40 PM with the headline "Sex crimes mean Tacoma man must register as sex offender."