Julia Marquand executed a now-infamous hollaback, using social media to shame the man she said groped her, get other women to tell their stories, and get the Seattle Police Department to respond better than they did at first. Hats off to you, Ms. Marquand. Now a man has been charged in connection with her case.
  • Image Courtesy of Julia Marquand
  • Julia Marquand executed a now-infamous hollaback, using social media to (1) shame the man she said groped her, (2) get other women to tell their stories, and (3) get the Seattle Police Department to respond better than they did at first. Hats off to you, Ms. Marquand. Now a man has been charged in connection with her case.
The man accused of groping a Seattle woman near Westlake Mall last week has now been charged by the Seattle City Attorney with one count of Assault with Sexual Motivation, a gross misdemeanor, according to the City Attorney's Office. The man will be arraigned tomorrow morning. He has a previous conviction for a felony Assault with Sexual Motivation from 2011.

As you may recall, ten days ago, a woman named Julia Marquand tweeted out a photo of a man she said had just groped her, adding in her tweet that she'd tried to give the photo to the police officer she reported the crime to, but "the cops don't want it." First reported (as far as I saw) over on Seattlish, the tweet and the story soon went viral. Seattle police spokesperson Sean Whitcomb told Seattlish he didn't know why the officer didn't want the photo, and the department followed up with Marquand, announcing a few days later that they'd arrested a "person of interest" in the case.

From the SPD on October 15:

The victim, understandably frustrated by the incident, pro-actively circulated a photo of the man via social media, along with an account of her experience reporting the incident. [Department of Corrections] officers contacted SPD detectives about the case after recognizing the man in the photo as a level III sex offender on DOC supervision.

Now, City Attorney Pete Holmes has announced that he's charging Daryl R. Sharma, a 36-year-old Kirkland man, with Assault with Sexual Motivation "in connection with an Oct. 12 incident in which he allegedly groped a 27-year-woman as she walked into a store near Westlake Park." The city will request $50,000 bail at his arraignment, due to his previous conviction and a "subsequent flight to Oregon."

As Marquand's story got shared widely, other Seattle women started reporting similar stories and saying their attacker looked like the man Marquand took a picture of. The City Attorney's Office notes today that "SPD continues to investigate Sharma for potential assaults on other women."