‘She told me she was 19’ – man’s sex trial begins
KAREN HUCKS; The News Tribune
Last updated: May 12th, 2006 01:26 AM (PDT)

Stanley Scott Sadler is either a rapist, kidnapper and child pornographer, or he’s a victim of a big lie. He’s either a man who blackmails women to keep them as sex slaves, or a man who fulfills their fantasies.

The Pierce County jury that will decide heard those conflicting portrayals Thursday in opening statements in Sadler’s trial. The 48-year-old Fircrest postal worker, charged with 38 crimes, is accused of preying on a 14-year-old girl in 2004.

Sadler had tried to stop the trial by asking the Washington State Court of Appeals in Tacoma to reconsider Superior Court Judge Vicki Hogan’s pretrial rulings. She had ruled that defense attorney Michael Schwartz couldn’t present evidence that the girl had advertised on sexual Web sites that she wanted to be a sex slave and that she had told other men she was 19.

The appeals court commissioner, Ernetta Skerlec, rejected the request Thursday morning. Both sides then made their opening statements.

Deputy prosecutor Rosie Martinelli said Sadler advertised on a sadomasochistic Web site for “a pleasure slave.”

“And he found one,” the prosecutor said. “The problem is, she was 14 years old.”

The girl was “the perfect victim” – “a troubled youth who found solace in her computer and writing poetry,” Martinelli said.

On Aug. 29, 2004, the teen left her foster home in Camas, Clark County, without permission and met Sadler. He took her camping with his three children, who are 7, 12, and 14, and introduced her as his new girlfriend. Then he took her to his house in Fircrest.

“The pleasure slave was home,” Martinelli said.

Meanwhile, the Clark County Sheriff’s Department was looking for the teen after she went missing. Eventually, an online group that looks for sex offenders on the lnternet led investigators to Sadler’s house.

On Sept. 12, 2004, police knocked on Sadler’s door several times before he answered and led them to his bedroom, where the half-naked girl was on his bed.

Police also found sex toys, bondage and discipline items and photos of the teen engaged in a sex acts with Sadler and a woman. Martinelli said the other woman, who lived in Kansas City, Mo., will testify about norms in the bondage and discipline community for meeting and having sex with people.

“You immediately ask how old they are, and you don’t stop there,” Martinelli said. Sex partners get each other’s identification, Social Security number and other personal information such as their mother’s name – both to make sure everyone is of age and potentially for blackmail, the prosecutor said.

Martinelli said that as soon as Sadler’s relationship with the woman began, Sadler started blackmailing her. He threatened to tell her boyfriend, her boss and her family if she stopped flying to Washington to be his slave, she said.

On Sept. 8, 2004, Sadler got the woman and the teen together in a bondage, dominance and master-slave ritual. Afterward, Martinelli said, he e-mailed photos of the teen to two friends, who expressed concern that the girl might have been underage.

In his opening statement, defense attorney Schwartz told jurors the case was about lies, role playing and consensual sex.

“This case is about a big lie, and how that big lie ensnared Mr. Sadler into having an affair with an underage woman,” Schwartz said.

He told jurors about Sadler’s eight years in the U.S. Marines, his three years in college, the computer foreclosure business he started and how he ended up at the U.S. Postal Service because he wanted more reliable employment.

Schwartz told them how, after two marriages, a single Sadler started experimenting with bondage and other alternative sexual practices, and meeting partners over the Internet.

He started talking to the teen, in 2003, through a Web site in which participants certify they’re at least 18. She had posted an advertisement of herself as an 18-year-old interested in bondage, as well as more extreme sexual activities he wasn’t interested in, Schwartz said. At the time, she was 13.

During the year that followed, the girl told Sadler she was working in a day care, had dropped out of school at 17 and was working on her GED diploma, Schwartz said. She asked for Sadler’s phone number and called him several times, Schwartz said.

The girl and Sadler talked about sex and fantasy, Schwartz said.

In May 2004, Sadler linked up through the same Web site with the Kansas City woman, who was 27.

“She was interested in being abducted and raped,” Schwartz said, adding that the woman was detailed about what she wanted and that she said no matter how much she begged, Sadler shouldn’t feel sorry for her and let her go.

The attorney said that after the woman found Sadler, she took down her ad, visited him in July 2004 and extended her stay.

“They were in love with each other,” Schwartz said.

The also were interested in bringing another “slave” into their relationship, the lawyer said.

When Sadler advertised for that, the teen responded. Now, Schwartz said, her online profile said she was 19. Using a Web camera, the teen showed Sadler an identification card and an out-of-state birth certificate saying she was born in July 1985, the attorney said.

Sadler met her on Aug. 29, 2004, at her request, at a Camas grocery store. The teen said she’d left a note letting her mother know where she was.

They spent time at a crowded campsite and went to restaurants and fishing and boating together with his children. He left her alone several times, Schwartz said. At his house, Sadler, the teen and the Kansas City woman had sex and took photos.

On the day Sadler and the teen took the woman to the airport to return home, they went back to sleep later and woke to police knocking on the door, Schwartz said.

“Mr. Sadler is asking, ‘What’s wrong?’” the attorney said. “The officer says to him, ‘You’re under arrest. She’s 14 years old.’ And the first thing out of his mouth is, ‘She told me she was 19.’ He repeats it. ‘She told me she was 19.’”

Karen Hucks: 253-597-8660

karen.hucks@thenewstribune.com

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