JULIAN WILLIS ARRESTED IN LAKE STEVENS, CHARGED WITH SIX SEX CRIMES AGAINST A MINOR
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JULIAN WILLIS ARRESTED IN LAKE STEVENS, CHARGED WITH SIX SEX CRIMES AGAINST A MINOR
Former Kamiak coach and substitute arraigned Friday and charged with five felonies. The 33-year-old is facing 25 years in prison and mandatory sex offender registry
DEVELOPING STORY: JULIAN WILLIS ARRESTED IN LAKE STEVENS, CHARGED WITH SIX SEX CRIMES AGAINST A MINOR.
UPDATE: 10:00 pm Friday - Julian Willis bonded out of Snohomish County Jail moments ago. Conditions of his release are not yet known.
Previously: Former Kamiak football coach arrested in Lake Stevens Thursday evening, booked into Snohomish County Jail.
The TikTok slinging substitute faces 25+ years in prison with a child molestor jacket.
Willis, 33, is charged with six sex crimes involving a minor – all require mandatory sex offender registry
Arraigned Friday in Everett, Willis was officially charged with five counts of felony sexual misconduct and held on $7500 bail.
Lake Stevens and Mukilteo Police departments collaborated on the arrest – Mukilteo took the collar
Willis turned up heat on himself two weeks ago after he approached and followed 16-year-old LS girl on foot and via car
Teenager ID’d Willis, surreptitiously took his pic while he hit on her, declaring himself single. After J425 published her account, several other LS incidents came to light, including another incident with a 16-year-old-girl
Also - new details first reported in the Lynnwood Times reveal Willis was disciplined in December for harassing another Kamiak teenager footnote.
Willis was told not to comment on student appearances, district allowed him to substitute in January, providing him means and opportunity to commit another sex crime against a minor student
Investigations continue in Mukilteo SD: Federal, state probes likely ongoing. District needs to answer how the football program failed to supervise Willis and protect the victim - a student vounteer.
Other questions remain regarding allegations of other relationships and the manner in which Willis was able to pull the victim out of class in plain view of teachers and students for the sole purpose of abusing her in an empty portable.
LAKE STEVENS - It took three months to get where he was going, but Julian Willis finally arrived behind bars. And he better get comfortable with the new surroundings: with the charges he’s facing, it appears likely he’ll be dining on prison goulash for a long time.
Lake Stevens and Mukilteo police descended on Willis at 4:14 pm Thursday, at a residence in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Lake Stevens, arresting the former Kamiak football coach “without incident”.
Willis was booked into Snohomish County Jail on a total of six minor-involved sex crimes – five of which are Class C Felonies.
Prosecutors followed up quickly: Willis was arraigned Friday in Everett and charged with five counts of Sexual Misconduct with a Minor in the First Degree, a Class C Felony; and one count of Communication with a Minor for Immoral Purposes, a Gross Misdemeanor.
Each felony sexual misconduct charge carries with it up to five years in prison and a $25,000 fine. The communicating with a minor charge adds on another year, along with another $5k.
All six charges include lifetime mandatory sex offender registry requirements.
Update: Willis reportedly made bond moments ago, at 10:00 pm Friday night.
A Familiar Face Surfaces in Lake Stevens
Above: J425 Live discussion of societal responsibility in the presence of evil.
Thursday’s arrest ended a tense couple weeks in which the alleged sex offender – whose public life in Harbour Pointe all but ended after J425 revealed that he was the target of an active felony sex crimes investigation – resurfaced in Lake Stevens, sans wife and kids – and still on the prowl for underage girls.
Willis’ life changed forever on March 31, when allegations of sexual misconduct involving a minor student (who’d volunteered with the football team) surfaced via an anonymous complaint processed by Kamiak High School Dean of Students Bryant Thomas12.
The complaint ultimately led to a 17-year-old female student, who provided detectives with a shocking, painful and deeply disturbing account of a married, trusted educator twice her age subjecting her to increasingly painful and stomach-roiling attempts at sexual intercourse.
She describes the stench of his genitals, the acrid smell of body odor and brutish attempts to use her sexually – as he clumsily painted self-centered tales of what could-have-been “If only I hadn’t met my wife…”.
The well-manicured image of father, husband, coach and teacher rolled up like so much wet carpet after detectives obtained a search warrant seeking that genetic material Willis had reportedly spewed across classroom floors.
Willis’ tact for nightmarish attempts at intercourse occurred across a series of equally disturbing settings: on the closet floor of a rental house Willis had a key to, the passenger seat of his beloved drop top Camaro, atop a desk in the new football coach’s portable after school…in another portable during school etc.
The victim’s descriptions are so precise, her precise recall of his tortured sexual behavior so specific (she recalled Willis spewing his bodily fluids directly on the floor before rushing the two out the door, just ahead of an incoming class.
Investigators figured they could probably locate the exact spot. Er, spots. And they did.
Willis’ sociopathic predation of a volunteer football trainer, the salacious, sexually explicit TikToks he filmed on campus that seemed to presage his misconduct and the fact that Willis brazenly pulled his victim from class in order to assault her in empty portables – during a regular school day – stunned the 425 and the story spread across the 206 and beyond.
The well-manicured image of father, husband, coach and teacher rolled up like so much wet carpet after detectives obtained a search warrant seeking that genetic material Willis had reportedly spewed across classroom floors.
Sure enough, detectives located the deposits as expected, seized the carpet and sent it to the Washington State Patrol lab in Oympia for genetic processing.
Arrest Caps Tense Situation in Lake Stevens
After a quite few weeks marked mainly by the disappearance of ubiquitous online marketing collateral depicting the 33-year-old alleged child sex predator as one half of a real estate power couple, as the patriarch of a God-fearing Christian family, Thursday’s arrest capped an increasingly tense situation in Lake Stevens, where Willis had recently made his presence known in a new hunting ground via a bizarre and frightening episode that occurred in the Lake Stevens Haggen grocery store June 18 – the morning of Father’s Day.
A 16-year-old Lake Stevens girl reported that Willis literally ran into her in the produce department of Haggen grocery store.
“I’m sorry, beautiful.” Willis purred, in a voice a little too rich from a distance a little too close.
As he turned toward her, she recognized him for who and what he was – and with a bolt of adrenaline – she backed away sparking an incident in which the 33-year-old alleged sex criminal pursued the girl up and down the aisles of the store, from one corner to another, until he eventually chose the self-checkout lane next to hers.
As Willis saddled up alongside the girl and volunteered that his wife had recently left him; and that he used to be a father (two questions at the top of every 16-year-old-girl’s list, one would assume), the girl bravely snapped a picture of the semi-pro football player at the checkout stand before making a bee line for her car and jetting across 91st.
Willis jumped in his car and followed the girl to a different shopping center, where he parked, jumped out and attempted to engage her in conversation yet again. When Willis ducked into the vape store, where he’d offered to buy her whatever she wanted, the girl jumped in her car and got away.
It was this incident that likely tipped off LSPD to Willis’ presence in their jurisdiction, and the Father’s Day incident combined with a noticeable community response to the news that Willis was preying on Lake Stevens kids that likely sped up external investigatory timelines.
After speaking with the girl, who provided J425 with the photo and a full description of her run-in with Willis, J425 was able to locate and confirm Willis’ Lake Stevens residence, and Lake Stevens Police were informed of his presence and his activity Father’s Day morning.
J425 published an account of the incident on June 19, and within 72 hours we received three additional local complaints regarding Willis – one from yet another underage girl (who’d escaped a scary run-in with Willis without physical harm).
Today, J425 can exclusively report that on the day he was arrested, Willis was busy on social media making contact with underage Lake Stevens girls – this despite the fact that he was a named suspect in a minor sex crimes case, and that J425 had previously detailed a series of sexual social media posts that Willis had filmed from Kamiak classrooms on days he was substituting. J425 can also confirm that since the incident on Father’s Day, Willis’ presence in Lake Stevens was an issue monitored by the highest ranking elected and appointed officials in the city.
As previously stated, Willis was arraigned in Everett District Court earlier Friday and charged with five felony counts of Sexual Misconduct with a Minor and two counts of Communication with a Minor for Immoral Purposes, a gross misdemeanor.
He remains in Snohomish County Jail, held on $7500 bond. Given that he wasn’t able to make bail at his arraignment, he will likely stay behind bars through the long holiday weekend. Should Willis make bail at a later date, a law enforcement source told J425 he will likely be subject to strict conditions, prohibiting any contact with minors. UPDATE: Willis made bail at 10:00 pm Friday.
Willis faces a long legal road ahead of him, even if no further charges are added to the docket. As is, Willis faces up to 27 years in prison. All six charges require lifetime mandatory sex offender registry.
Further, the law enforcement source told J425 that Willis’ former record – which as J425 exclusively reported — includes assault, domestic violence, harassment, DUI and multiple counts of theft – will make it difficult for Willis to reach anything resembling a significant plea deal.
The source further told J425 that the presence of DNA evidence at the scene of two of the sex crimes transforms what is ordinarily a difficult charge to prove into something more akin to an open and shut case.
As the criminal case moves forward, so to do the parallel administrative and civil investigations at the district level. More on that in the days to come.
In our next comprehensive report, J425 expects to obtain and publish new documentation supporting Thursday’s arrest and charges. In the meantime, search “Willis” in the archive tab or visit our indexed list of J425 investigative reports of predators in public schools.