Local News

Your guide to the latest news from around the Northwest

An Edmonds police officer charged with having sex with a woman he had detained in May has resigned from the department.

Officer Daniel Lavely was charged on Nov. 1 with first-degree custodial sexual misconduct, a felony. Lavely, 48, had been with the Edmonds Police Department for eight years.

Lavely’s resignation came after he was told that the department had investigated his alleged crimes and he faced possible termination, according to a department press release.

According to charges filed by Snohomish County Deputy Prosecutor Adam Cornell, Lavely first contacted the alleged victim, a 28-year-old Seattle woman, after she reportedly jaywalked on Highway 99 in Edmonds on the night of May 6.

Early the next morning, Lavely encountered the same woman while responding to a 911 call about her fleeing from the emergency room at Swedish Medical Center, Edmonds Campus. Lavely found the woman at a nearby motel and placed her in the back of his patrol car.

The Seattle woman told investigators that Lavely drove her to the “poorly lit back parking lot” of the Burlington Coat Factory in Edmonds and forced the woman into sex, charges said.

While Everett police say the woman was not handcuffed, the charges say that she was “detained, under arrest or in the custody of the defendant.”

Everett police were brought in to investigate the sexual-misconduct allegation.