King County prosecutors on Jan. 25 charged a 39-year-old Kent man with one count each of first-degree assault and first-degree robbery for allegedly stabbing a woman and threatening to rape her outside the Muckleshoot Bingo Hall Jan. 19 in Auburn. He also reportedly attempted to run over a witness.
According to court documents, Marlon Pamintuan Bautista also tried to cover up his actions by claiming that he, too, had been assaulted and kidnapped.
The woman told Auburn Police she had spent an hour in the bingo hall, in the 2100 block of Auburn Way South, and was leaving when a man approached her by opening the driver’s side door of her Kia Spectra in the parking lot.
The man demanded money, according to court documents. When he learned that the woman didn’t have any money, he reportedly pushed her inside the car, threatening to rape and kill her if she tried to get away and stabbing her seven or eight times in the neck, face, chest, and lower torso.
The woman fought back, later telling police she had tried to use an anti-theft device against her assailant, but that he took it away from her. The woman finally fought her way out of the car and ran back to the bingo hall.
Witnesses told police the man began to drive off in the woman’s car and tried to run over one of the witnesses. One witness said that as the car sped off he grabbed a small rock and threw it at one of the windows to make it more noticeable but that the stone hit the car instead.
Auburn Police later found a Ford Explorer registered to Bautista parked alongside the Kia with its driver-side door open. They also found blood in the vacant parking stall between the two vehicles and blood-covered glasses on the ground that were later identified as belonging to the woman.
Police received a 911 call the next day concerning a man who claimed he had been robbed, according to court documents. Police said they found Bautista, shirtless, jacketless and shoeless sitting on the curb of Riverwalk Drive Southeast. He claimed he had been tied up, beaten and robbed by three men outside the bingo hall.
Bautista also told police that the men had also tried to make him smoke marijuana and other drugs, but that he had resisted. He claimed that his assailants had finally taken him to the 2600 block of Riverwalk Drive Southeast and released him.
Officers brought Bautista back to the bingo hall, where a witness positively identified him as the man who had attacked the woman. Investigators said that security footage from the bingo hall contradicted Bautista’s claim that he been in the building before the alleged assault against him.
Prosecutors asked for bail in the amount of $750,000. Bautista’s criminal history includes identity theft, forgery and negligent driving. He is in custody at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.
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