Shelley sentenced to nine years for having sex with minor
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A King County Superior Court judge this morning sentenced Christopher Shelley to nine years and three months in prison for having sex with a 12-year-old Mercer Island girl last year.
Shelley, 18, who has two other juvenile sexual assault convictions, befriended the victim and had sex with her despite warnings issued to Mercer Island residents about his past history.
Defense attorneys had sought a sentence of four to five years for Shelley because of his history of abuse at the hands of a male babysitter. But Judge Carol Schapira denied that request.
"I can't take the chance that other people are victimized," she said.
Nonetheless, the sentence issued by Schapira was less than the maximum for second-degree rape, which is 12 years and three months.
Before sentencing, Shelley apologized to the victim's family, saying he was sorry he took advantage of their trust. Shelley and his 17-year-old girlfriend were living with the victim and her family when the assaults took place.
"I know the feeling of victimization," Shelley said.
A judge had ordered that Shelley be tried as an adult because of his history of sex crimes and because he would only face about three years of juvenile detention if convicted as a minor. Originally charged with two counts of second-degree rape for twice having sex with the girl, prosecutors dropped the second count in exchange for a guilty plea in January.
Shelley, who grew up in Lynnwood, was convicted in 1993 for raping a 6-year-old boy and convicted again in 1998 for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl at his middle school.
Shelley spent time for those crimes in Echo Glen Children's Center and a special foster home for young sex offenders in Concrete, Skagit County, according to court records. Those convictions don't count under the state's "two strikes" law for sex offenders because he was a juvenile at the time.
His juvenile probation files state that he was sexually molested as a young child.
After Shelley was released from another juvenile facility in 1999 for a burglary in Edmonds, he lived out of his car because his parents refused to take him back in, court records said.
Shelley, then 17, moved into the Mercer Island home of his 17-year-old girlfriend's grandparents. Although police and residents circulated sex-offender fliers with Shelley's picture on it, he befriended the family of the 12-year-old neighbor and was allowed to move into their home with his girlfriend.
Gina Kim can be reached at 206-464-2761 or at gkim@seattletimescom.