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No jail time for Kelso man who pleaded guilty to sex crimes

By Matthew Esnayra, The Daily News
Published: January 6, 2023, 7:31am

LONGVIEW — A 20-year-old Kelso man was sentenced in December after pleading guilty to sex crimes, including rape, and received alternative sentencing as part of a plea deal that won’t require jail time. Some of the incidents occured when he was a minor.

Tanner Wayne Currence was arrested in 2021 on suspicion of five counts of rape, two counts of assault with sexual motivation, two counts of indecent liberties, and unlawful imprisonment.

The Department of Corrections recommended, and Currence accepted a Special Sex Offender Sentencing Alternative in each of the five cases. He is ordered to attend sex offender treatment.

Not every person accused of a crime is eligible for SSOA. A person has to have been found guilty of a sex crime other than second-degree rape, enter a plea deal, have no past convictions or felony sex crimes, and the accusations must not “result in substantial bodily harm to the victim.”

According to the Cowlitz County Prosecutor’s Office, Currence’s age and mental “impairments” were factors when the court determined his punishment. If he violates the deal, he could land in state prison for 86 to 160 months, according to the prosecutor’s office.

Police say Currence has a timeline of sexual assaults.

2018

A person who was 16 years old in September 2018 told authorities in 2021 Currence offered them a ride to Kelso High School after missing the bus. However, instead of going to Kelso High, the victim said Currence, who was also a minor at the time, drove to Rotary Skate Park and proceeded to sexually assault them.

Currence allegedly told the person he wouldn’t take them to school until they had sex and then forcibly removed the victim’s clothes. The person said they tried to escape, but he locked the car doors and windows.

2019

A police report states a parent brought her 15-year-old child to the Kelso Police Department in July 2019. The parent reportedly told investigators that her child “snuck out of their home in Longview” and was driven to Currence’s Kelso home, where he allegedly undressed and sexually assaulted them with force.

Currence, who was 16 years old during the alleged assault, was interviewed by Kelso police in August 2019, but he denied the assault took place, and investigators could not find enough evidence to charge him, a police report states.

Authorities documented that the victim had visible “hickeys and marks” on their face and chest area.

2020

In March 2021, a third underage victim came forward with a story that during a five-month relationship with Currence in 2020 he sexually assaulted them on three separate occasions, one of which they claimed he raped them in the backseat of his car — similar to the 2018 incident.

Currence would have been between the ages of 17 and 18 when he allegedly committed the three assaults, according to court documents.

On March 23, 2020, a parent also filed a restraining order on behalf of his child against Currence. The parent asked the court to issue a sexual assault protection order, writing that he feared that Currence “may continue to sexually assault” his 14-year-old child and that he may “manipulate [them] to lie and say it did not happen.”

A judge later denied the order due to a lack of evidence.

May 1, 2021

On May 11, 2021, police arrived at Kelso High School to conduct a rape investigation that involved a 16-year-old student and Currence, according to a police report.

The student said the pair were headed to local Dollar Store for art supplies on May 1, 2021, but Currence, who was 18 at the time, took a detour to an empty church parking lot on Solomon Road, where he attempted to kiss them. Currence allegedly “became angry” with the victim and reportedly started choking them in his car’s back seat.

The victim told police Currence raped them while they were “screaming and crying” for him to stop. Currence allegedly bit the person several times and left scratch marks on their back.

Later the same day, Currence reportedly denied to police that he heard the victim scream for help, but admitted that he did hear them say “no.”

May 6 and 7, 2021

Around the same time police were talking to the 16-year-old Kelso High student, they also interviewed a senior who had reportedly had two similar interactions with Currence.

The person told authorities five days earlier, they were at Riverside Park, when Currence grabbed their chest even after the victim said “no.”

The following day they met again, this time in the back seat of his car, and Currence “pinned my hands to the seat and my legs down to where I could not physically move,” the victim told police in a report. The person said he sexually assaulted them, even choking and biting.

The person would later provide a text message from Currence in which he apologized, saying “ I’m sorry I hurt you, I really am.”

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