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February 9 - 15,
2023 FREE Community Newspaper of Blaine and Birch Bay
Rule introduces bill on vehicle pursuits, page 2
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Ferndale cop walks from underage sex solicitation charge
Charge dropped due to insufficient evidence
B y I an H aupt woman called Langton to let him know a neighbor probably had video footage of
A criminal case against a former Ferndale police officer accused of soliciting sex with the 12-year-old daughter of a woman he met while responding to a 911 call was dismissed February 6.
Whatcom County deputy prosecuting attorney Kellen B. Kooistra filed a motion in Whatcom County Superior Court February 6 to dismiss the attempted second-degree child molestation case against Michael Scott Langton, 47, of Blaine. The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning the case can be tried in the future.
Whatcom County prosecuting attorney Eric Richey said the prosecutor’s office didn’t have enough evidence to proceed.
Since Langton was charged with attempted child molestation, Richey said to convict him the prosecutor’s office would have to prove he made a substantial step, which requires an overt act, to commit the crime. Langton requested sex but those were mere words, Richey said, which are not enough to convict.
“We thought this was the correct thing to do based on the evidence provided,” Richey said.
In the motion to dismiss, Kooistra wrote that the prosecutor’s office had probable cause for the charge and sufficient evidence that Langton intended to commit a crime. What it lacked was sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he took a substantial step toward committing the crime as the law defines it.
According to the affidavit of probable cause (APC), Langton responded to the woman’s home after a report of a collision in her apartment parking lot on July 10, 2022. Langton gathered her contact information as a witness. He returned to the woman’s apartment the next day, and the woman’s 12-year-old daughter answered the door. Langton called the woman and said he forgot the name of her apartment complex.
