An Oregon police officer, who faced child molestation accusations in 2010, appeared Thursday in Clark County Superior Court on new allegations he raped a 5-year-old relative.
Christopher R. Warren, 33, of Vancouver faces charges of first-degree rape of a child at his June 6 arraignment.
Judge Barbara Johnson ordered him held on $250,000 bail. He plans to hire his own attorney.
Court records indicate that the child’s mother alerted Vancouver police that the child had disclosed that Warren had fondled the child’s genital area during a bath. In a May 14 interview at Clark County Children’s Justice Center, the child said that Warren also had penetrated the child’s private parts with a pencil, according to a probable cause affidavit.
This isn’t the first time the Beaverton police officer has been accused of such a crime.
Warren was put on paid leave in 2010 while Multnomah County and Washington County authorities investigated allegations that he failed to report suspected child abuse about six years ago involving a friend, The Oregonian reported. The friend, Sugar Ray Black, was convicted earlier in 2010 of sexually abusing three other girls who were 14 or younger.
That same year, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office also investigated separate claims that Warren had molested a minor girl when he was 17, according to the newspaper.
Prosecutors did not charge Warren with a crime because the victim declined to cooperate, the newspaper reported.
Warren had already been placed on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation into his arrest in April in Washington County related to misuse of food stamps, said Beaverton police spokesman Officer Mike Rowe.
Paris Achen: 360-735-4551; http://twitter.com/Col_Courts; http://facebook.com/ColTrends; paris.achen@columbian.com.
