Sex Offender Julian Willis Plans to Say His Actions with a Minor Kamiak Student Were "Totally Consensual". This is False.
A sentencing hearing today will determine Willis' sentence and whether an attempt to paint his actions as part of a consenting relationship with a minor student will be allowed to stand
Disgraced former teacher Julian Willis admitted committing a felony sex crime against a minor in a plea deal filed last month. The plea was a win for Willis. The negotiated outcome dispatched with all but one of the original five felonies he’d faced; and despite a DNA match tying him to the felony case – Willis struck a deal that keeps him out of prison entirely, as long as Judge Jon T. Scott doesn’t stray from the agreed recommendations forwarded by prosecutors and the defense.
CONTENT WARNING
SNOHOMISH COUNTY COURTHOUSE — After obtaining a plea agreement that takes prison time off the table (on a case that initially carried the possibility of 25 years in prison) former Kamiak teacher Julian Willis has filed documents claiming that that his repeated sexual predation of a minor Kamiak student was just part of a relationship that Willis claims was both consensual and legal in almost any scenario but his own. On at least five occasions in a 41-page sentencing memorandum filed by his lawyers last month, Willis explains to the court that his victim was in fact “a willing participant” in a “consensual sexual relationship” – and as a result, Willis admits that he doesn’t see the point in punishment when in fact it’s therapy that’ll truly help him.
While Willis has technically accepted responsibility for one felony minor-involved sex crime, defense statements submitted ahead of tomorrow’s sentencing hearing paint a different story, with Willis repeatedly claiming that the sex crime involving a 17-year-old Kamiak girl came from a sexual “relationship” that was both consensual — and would’ve been “completely legal” - but for the fact that Willis was “on staff at Kamiak.”
“Notably, the consensual sexual relationship with (the victim) was made illegal only by the virtue of Julian’s status as an (educator) with the school district. Had Julian not been on stafff at Kamiak, the sexual relationship between (the 17 year old) and Julian would’ve been completely legal.”
Further, according to Willis, it’s not like he was enjoying any of this.
“I was a nervous wreck,” Julian Willis says, describing his state of mind in 2022 when he groomed and repeatedly had sex with a minor student at Kamiak High School. In a memo filed last month, Willis told the court he was “powerless to stop” what he describes as a “brief consensual relationship with a 17-year-old Kamiak High Student” that he found himself caught up in.
That might explain why Willis ignored the minor girl when she told him no and asked him to stop during a painful sexual encounter in 2023. In that encounter, Willis didn’t stop, he carried on pleasing himself until he was finished, telling the girl “we’d make a great couple” after he “ejaculated in her throat”.
Whether Willis was powerless to stop has nothing to do with the lack of consent involved in this felony sex crime, to which Willis pled guilty last month in a sweet deal through which he hopes to avoid prison time.
Setting aside the power dynamic and the fact that Willis was 33-year-old teacher repeatedly pulling a minor girl out of class – in the middle of the day – just so he could attempt sex with the her in empty classrooms – charging documents filed in April and October of 2023 straight up say Willis both physically harmed the girl AND ignored her calls for him to stop. This can’t be true and consensual. And while Wills took the opportunity to rebut the allegations of multiple women in his recent filing, Willis did not challenge the Kamiak girl’s description of the sexual contact with Willis.
“You’re almost 18, a couple more months left.”
Content warning for the nature of the material that follows, but a visceral and exact retelling of what happened to the girl is required in order to understand how to process the fact that Willis labels this behavior “consensual sexual relationship” and is set to face no prison time for these actions.
“Entirely Consensual” - The First Kamiak Encounter
The 17-year-old girl recalls lying on the closet floor of an empty rental property off Casino Road, overcome by Willis’ “smokey musk”, attempting to shut out the pain by focusing on a tattoo that loomed above her field of view. The tattoo said “‘I love you’ – in French,” the girl told detectives. She recalled focusing on the tattoo while battling to remain conscious, before eventually squeezing her eyes shut.
“So a lot of that was black,” the girl told detectives. “I tried to hold my breath in and take it,” the girl recalled.
When Willis was done with her that first night, the girl stated she was in “a lot of pain” and was “not able to walk properly”.
Does this sound consensual and entirely legal?
The girl further told detectives that Willis told her not to say anything of the incident or “something bad would happen”. So she remained silent.
After Willis ejaculated on her back he drove her home, sending her off by saying “you’re almost 18, a couple more months left.”
This was the first of five documented instances of sexual predation that occurred between the then 33-year-old public high school teacher and someone’s 17 year old daughter, whom he’d been entrusted to teach.
In a 41 page sentencing memorandum filed by Willis and his team last month, Willis repeatedly refers to his predation of the Kamiak student – a girl whose consent is contradicted notmonly by her stated requests for Willis to stop hurting her, burnt also by the protection order issued on her behalf, and the fact that she participated in the felony prosecution of Willis. This is atypical behavior for a “brief” and “entirely consensual” relationship.
While Willis takes time to rebut accusations of sexual assault from a woman in an inpatient facility where he worked and from family friend in Idaho who filed a police report stating Willis raped her on two occasions, the sentencing memo doesn’t attempt to square his repeated statements describing his actions with the minor student as “entirely consensual” against the victim’s description of painful, non-consentual sex during which Willis repeatedly physically harmed her, according to the investigation of Mukilteo Police and probable cause documents filed with the court. Simply put, this isn’t a consensual sexual relationship and the furtherance of justice requires that Willis can’t be allowed to both avoid the consequences of his actions while taking the opportunity to label his crimes against a minor girl as nothing more than normal consensual sex in an official record of the case.
A teenage girl blacks out on the floor of a closet…in a vacant house…while a man twice her age and twice her size ( with tattoo that says “I love you” in French) grinds away on her until she can’t “walk properly”. The girl keeps her mouth shut and tries “to take it”, scared silent by the man’s threats that “something bad will happen” if she talks.
Pinned to a desk by a 220-pound man with a hand on her throat, a teenage high school student fakes an orgasm in an attempt to make the pain stop, in an attempt to get the married football coach off of her.
Parked at a dead-end cul-de-sac, the girl recalls feeling “uneasy and uncomfortable” in the coach’s red “drop top Camaro”. The girl silently prepares herself for the latest episode in the increasingly painful series of attempts at sex that the man twice her age has subjected her to over the last four months.
“Julian told her he had missed her and began kissing her. The girl saw the look on his face and recognized that he wanted to get physically sexual. Julian pulled his pants down and the girl performed oral sex on him.
Julian “inserted his fingers” in the girl, “but she told him to stop, as it felt uncomfortable”.
Julian ejaculated in her throat and continued “aggressively touching her” after she’d asked him to stop. The pain only stopped when the girl again faked an orgasm.
In each of the above episodes, the victim states that Julian Willis subjected her to physical harm through non-consensual sex. Setting aside the issue of whether consent is even possible between a minor student and a teacher twice her age and size, we know the girl didn’t consent because she told him to stop, and he didn’t. We know these episodes don’t represent the “consensual sexual relationship” described by Willis sentencing memorandum because faking orgasms in order to get the hand off your throat, in order to get the pain to stop, in order to get the man twice your size off of you…this isn’t a picture of consent or a relationship.
Taken alone, the fact that Willis has the gall to repeatedly claim the felony sex crime he just pled guilty to is, in actuality, nothing more than a “consensual relationship” is beyond insulting to the victim.
Further, Willis’ claims that his sex crimes eminated from a consensual relationship simply isn’t true. Given the opportunity, Willis did not rebut or counter any of the girl’s accounts of his actions (in a memorandum in which he directly contradicted the allegations of at least two other alleged victims), so taken at face value, harming a minor through sex, refusing to stop when told to, threatening a partner to remain silent…this is simply not a consentual relationship. It’s a lie. And the court can’t let it stand.
Consider what it’d be like to be that girl, on the floor of the closet in an empty house. Visualize the encounters – exactly as recounted in charging documents.
Do you see the “completely legal” consenting sexual relationship Willis describes in the sentencing memo?
Or do you see a 33-year old teacher committing sex crimes against a minor student? And attempting to get away with it.
Again.
Because when placed in context, that’s how it must look to the wide swath of Willis accusers that’ve surfaced as a result of this case.
For them, this case represents all the justice they’ll ever get. And we’ve spoken to many of these women. Given the manner in which this case has splayed out, the way in which the convicted sex criminal is on the cusp of avoiding prison time while painting his serial assault of a minor girl as both “consensual” and (nearly) legal…one can hardly argue with the viewpoint that its smarter to just not get involved. The problem with keeping your head down isn’t JUST what happened to you. It’s dealing with the ramifications of what occurs next. A long trail of allegations provide a compelling case against any claims that Willis has committed has last crime against women.
Hell, Willis tells us in his sentencing memo that he takes “his role as a father and a husband incredibly seriously”.
This is the same guy that chased a minor girl around a popular grocery store …in his hometown…on Father’s Day… only days after getting publicly fired… for sex crimes involving a minor girl. As if the entire picture wasn’t quite enough of a direct affront to the concepts of family and marriage, Willis straight up told the girl that he was divorced (he wasn’t) and that he “used to be a father” (whatever that means).
All things being equal, what’s more likely: this guy has finally changed or this guy is – as he admits – scared of prison?
It doesn’t take the cast of Mindhunters to arrive at the conclusion that a guy who chases a 16-year-old girl around a local grocery store while under criminal investigation for minor-involved sex crimes is not the type of guy who is done causing problems for his community.
It does take courage to arrive at a conclusion that departs from the sentence recommended by the defense and prosecution in this case.
Because in all truth, the court can’t possibly parse all of the accusations against Willis.
A Changed Man. Question Mark.
Waking every day at 5:00 am, Julian Willis begins a four-hour regimen of silent prayer, Bible study and quiet meditation. He’s doing the work, confronting the demon of addiction and facing the road “it” took him down recently.
Yes, Willis admits that his struggles with sexual addiction and personal trauma resulted in what he calls “a brief consensual relationship with a 17-year-old Kamiak High School” – a sexual relationship that Willis didn’t want – but “felt powerless to stop.” To his credit, he even sought help at the time, availing himself of the Mukilteo School District’s Employee Assistance Program, engaging in seven counseling sessions that ultimately proved fruitless as the counselor was unable to address the root causes. Fearing the “likely consequences” of his actions, Julian did not, however, tell the counselor about his ongoing sexual relationship with a minor Kamiak student, and thus he was unable to get the help he needed.
Left unsaid? Willis continued to use his position as a substitute teacher to yank the student out of class, spiriting her off to be used as his personal sex object in vacant rentals, deserted cul-de-sacs and even – on at least two occasions – to empty classrooms on Kamiak’s campus.
This passage provides a direct glimpse into the mindset of a soon to be convicted sex offender. The information he volunteers reveals a a man who appears far from change or the acceptance of responsibility - considering how Willis both describes himself as the victim of circumstances out of his control – and simultaneously admits awareness of the crimes he was engaging in came with serious consequences.
Yet he either lacks free will or was entirely unwilling to admit wrongdoing or stop his behavior.
Why? Probably because he liked having sex with minor student.
And while he was scared of the consequences, he wasn’t scared enough to stop, and certainly not empathetic enough to consider his minor victim nor to cease the serial sexual predation of the girl that – through this telling passage – we know he realized was wrong.
Willis didn’t tell the counselor he was having sex with a minor student because he didn’t want to face the consequences. He also didn’t want to stop, so he continued subjecting the girl to painful episodes in which he attempted painful sex with the girl – over her stated objections – leaving her in great physical and emotional pain.
And now, despite the fact that his defense team somehow negotiated five felonies and up to 25 years in prison into a plea agreement that recommends a sentence that includes zero prison time… in exchange for Willis pleading guilty to just one felony count of sexual misconduct with a minor…Willis has decided against silently accepting what for him is an unqualified win, instead deciding to throw the lack of consequences he faces as a result of his sex crimes in the faces of his previous victims and to the surrounding community as a whole.
Does This Look Like Consent?
Today, Willis intends to argue that his sexual relationship with a minor Kamiak student was – in actuality – both “entirely consensual” and “only illegal by virtue of his status as an educator”.
This isn’t just a one off. Willis labels his predation of the minor girl as a “consensual sexual relationship” no less than SIX TIMES in a 41-page sentencing memorandum that attempts to mitigate the sentence set to be handed down at 1:00 pm April 15 (Tuesday) in Snohomish County Superior Court while also previewing the points Willis plans to make in addressing the court.
To put it bluntly, it doesnt really seem like Willis is taking any responsibility at all for the felony sex crime he just pled guilty to.
That’s a secondary matter.
The primary issue on the day of Willis’ sentencing is the fact that the entire process is rendered moot if — after a case that involves Willis inflicting sexual pain on a minor student, at school, while he’s employed to teach, against her stated objections, again and again for a period covering five months — he’s allowed tthe both skate and call the whole thing consensual….The fact that this probable outcome comes from a case that yielded the disturbing revelation that prosecutors believe Willis is a serial sexual offender who avoided culpability by fleeing open sexual assault investigations in at least three states.
And so today, at 1:00 pm, Judge Scott will decide whether Willis will be allowed to avoid prison time despite his arrest on five felony counts of sex offenses committed against a minor student - charges that were in no way rebutted and in fact stand linked to Willis via the DNA match achieved by analyzing the genetic material Wills spewed on the carpets of Kamiak portables… after his victim faked an orgasm long enough to get his hulking body off of the top of her.
Will the court agree that charging documents — detailing five episodes in which — against the victim’s stated will, Willis inflicted bodily harm on a minor girl through sexual predation — and on at least one occasions directly ignored her repeated pleas to “STOP”?
Will Willis be allowed to both label this predation of a minor student by a 36-year-old teacher a “consensual sexual relationship” – even as the girl describes Willis choking her, ignoring her stated request to stop, and leaving her unable to walk properly? THIS is consensual and also worthy of an exceptionally light sentence?
Consider the actual experience the girl went through. CONTENT WARNING.
If anything, the fact that Willis finally accepted an iota of responsibility, at least legally if not morally (“the victim in this case was of legal age to consent to sexual activity…and was a consensual participant, at least in the traditional sense of the word.”) by pleading guilty to the Kamiak sex crimes both reinforces the credibility of the accounts coming from the long trail of alleged victims that led us here – and provides the court with an opportunity to show those victims that Willis will finally face repercussions of some kind for his actions.
This process should reach a conclusion that serves the community and the victims – two audiences that aren’t considered in Willis’ recounting of the case.
And if service of victims and community is at all the point, the following just can’t stand:
On six occasions in the defense sentencing memo, Willis dismisses the minor girl he victimized as a willing, consenting sexual partner.
If the court believes this, it would be better to overturn the guilty plea and set Willis free than to rubber stamp his conclusions that the trauma he put that girl through was just part of a “consensual relationship” between a high school teacher and his minor student. Because one would have to be insane to call what is described below as “consensual”.
Willis telling the court that his predation of a minor was both consensual and the result of his need to be “loved” and “seen” is a tough pill for victims to swallow. Willis made his 17 year old victim deal with worse. Episodes that she describes as painful and against her will – episodes that, according to Willis, are consensual and pretty much legal. And since this difference in opinion is at issue at today’s sentencing hearing, J425 is publishing some of the source material that describes exactly what “consensual” sexual episode between this 33-year-old married father of two and someone’s 17-year-old daughter looks like.
CONTENT WARNING
When the 17 year old girl volunteering as an athletic trainer first realized that the then-33-year-old Willis was hitting on her during football practices, she first assumed he must’ve simply mistook her for an adult trainer instead of as the student volunteer athletic trainer role she served in.
“What I want to do would get us both in a lot of trouble.”
- Julian Willis
When she ultimately informed the 33-year-old coach that she was — in fact — a 17-year-old Kamiak student, Willis said “I’ll keep that in mind”, adding that he’d actually mistook her for younger than her stated age.
The girl told police that she expected her acknowledged status as both a minor and a student would end the matter. Far from it.
From this point, court docs detail how the man entrusted with teaching and coaching at a public school progressed from complimenting the minor student on her looks to “sizing (the girl) up… as if he wanted to get to know her sexually” during football games. Willis quickly proceeded to more direct verbal come-ons.
“What I want to do would get us in a lot of trouble,” the married father of two told the girl during one game, before adding that he “didn’t care and wanted to risk it.” The girl told police she assumed he was talking about sex. She was correct.
“It Hurt Too Much” - Minor Victim Describes Crimes
And while defense sentencing memos attempt to paint what occurred next as all-but-legal and “entirely consensual” — the girl — who remains protected by a no-contact order — painted a different picture to detectives. When Willis used his wife’s real estate credentials to spirit the girl off to a vacant for-sale property, the episode that happened next was far from romantic. Willis put the girl in the bottom of an empy closet, removed her clothes “and attempted to insert his penis in her vagina” according to charging docs.
“It hurt too much” the girl recalled. She remembered the smell, the pain, the worries that her mom would find out.
“I just kept trying to look at one thing to try and distract me,” the girl said, stating that she focused on a tattoo of a French phrase on Willis’ body.
“I just tried to hold my breathe in and take it,” the girl said, adding that she closed her eyes so “a lot of it was black.”
When the football coach twice her age and more than twice her size was done with her, the girl said she was in pain and having trouble walking.
His victim’s pain apparently wasn’t front-of-mind for Willis though — he was thinking about himself, “warning” the girl that “if she told anybody about what was happening, “something bad would happen.”
As Willis took the girl home, she recalled him joking that she was “almost 18, a couple more months left.”
The victim did indeed have a couple months of this left.
During a school day, in a Kamiak portable classroom:
“The victim said she felt very uncomfortable…and surprised when Willis put his hand on her throat….Julian told her to be quiet (because) there was a teacher in the adjoining classroom.”
“The victim tried to endure a bit of pain because she …wanted to satisfy him.”
“(She) was in pain and felt uncomfortable…
Dealing with a man twice her age and twice her size on top of her…. subjecting her to painful attempts at sex with his hand on her throat, the 17-year-old victim “led Julian to believe she was climaxing. Julian ejaculated on the floor shortly after hearing that.”
Faking enjoyment in order to get someone to stop hurting you is not part of consensual sex between partners, even setting aside the fact that the victim is a minor student.
In summary, Willis tells the court that he “wonders what purpose it serve(s)” to send him to prison, stating that the “real cure to the behavior that got him here is …treatment and therapy.”
To be clear, he’s talking about himself. He fled sexual assault allegations in four states and pled guilty to the sexual predation of a minor, sex crimes that occurred after society entrusted him to look after other people’s daughters. And through that, Willis has arrived at the conclusion that he doesn’t need to face repercussions for his “consensual relationship”, he just needs therapy. The fact that Willis argues against punishment in the same breath that he admits 1. That he fears prison; and 2. That in 2019, through therapy he finally realized
escribing this series of sex crimes as a consensual relationship that was “in all ways legal” but for the fact that Willis was employed as an educator is not a tact that smacks of repentance. Especially given the fact that the plea deal that dispensed with all but one of the five initial felonies arrives at the end of a trail of carnage that charging documents and independent reports say covers at least four western states and involves a roll call of alleged victims, all of whom say they were sexually assaulted by Willis, and none of whom have received justice.
And while Willis may see repercussions as beside the point, there’s plenty of evidence that repercussions for his actions should be the entire point. Because he’s guilty.
Because by labeling his sex crimes as consensual sex he’s avoiding responsibility — and showing a strain of sociopathic vanity that just isnt present in the repentant.
And also because the limited repercussions from his previous predations were the only thing aiding that 16-year-old girl Lake Stevens girl in the grocery store last Fathers Day.
She recognized Willis from local reporting and knew to evade him, as he chased her through the store, telling her he was “divorced” and “used to be a father”.
Willis clearly believes that his criminal prosecution for felony sex crimes should arrive at an end result designed to service him. In the words of the Willis defense memo: “It is a shame that a period of incarceration should be imposed in this case.”
Whether Willis be allowed to stand on the sentencing memo his team entered which not only labels the sexual predation of someone’s daughter just part of a “consensual sexual relationship” – but also directly contradicts the allegations of multiple other women who allege that Willis sexually assaulted them? The veracity of the accounts may not be measurable.
What is measurable is the sheer number of victims that have come forward – and how now — via a sentencing memo — for the first time, Willis is at least acknowledging sexual contact with these women, even if in all cases he contradicts their claims and informs them that they actually consented to his sexual activity.
While the prosecution and the defense may feel that a sentence without prison time is appropriate for a man who describes what he did to that student as consensual… and admits the existence of women in multiple states whose sexual assault allegations trace back over a decade — while also contradicting their accounts by labeling those encounters (wait for it) …consensual…it’s hard to believe that this sentence serves justice, the community or the victims.
In closing, to accept the sentencing recommendation requires the acceptance of Willis’ claim that his serial sexual predation of a minor is nothing more than a “consensual sexual relationship” impacted by a little red tape.
The question here is whether Willis is the guy with a hand on the throat of a teenage girl in an empty classroom, telling her to shutup so the teacher next store doesn’t hear…or whether Willis’ is a God-fearing father and husband who “wakes every morning at 5:00 am, and for four hours, he prays, meditates, reads the Bible and…continues the work he needs to engage in to cease his sex addiction1.”
Shouldn’t be too hard to figure that puzzle out.
Whatever that means. In order to cease something, you just cease it. You don’t engage in work needed to cease something. This is bullshit. It’s as believable as the idea that his predation of someone’s daughter is an example of “a consensual relationship”.