A former Coupeville man was arrested in an online sting operation targeting child sex predators earlier this month, according to court records.
Prosecutors charged David “Pete” Vier in King County Superior Court Nov. 21 with attempted commercial sexual abuse of a minor.
Vier, a 60-year-old Everett firefighter, is accused of contacting a man through a fetish website and agreeing to pay $150 to have sex with the man’s 15-year-old daughter; in reality, the man was an undercover detective with the Seattle Police Department and the girl doesn’t exist, according to the detective’s report.
Vier previously lived in Coupeville but has owned a home in Arlington since 2013, according to the Snohomish County Assessor’s Office.
Vier is well known in Central Whidbey. His Facebook friends include many prominent residents of the area.
Detective Ed Wallace with the Island County Sheriff’s Office said deputies arrested him in 2005 on suspicion of a felony domestic-violence assault, but the prosecutor did not charge him “based on the victim’s request,” he said.
The alleged victim in that case also reported that she suspected him of burglarizing her Coupeville home twice in 2010, but deputies didn’t have evidence to arrest him, Wallace said.
Vier, a firefighter and paramedic, has worked for the city of Everett since 1991, the Everett Herald reported.
Vier was demoted from a higher post of division chief at the fire department earlier this year; he was placed on paid administrative leave from his $87,000-a-year city job shortly after his arrest last week, according to the Everett Herald.
In the undercover sting, the Seattle detective placed an ad “on a popular fetish website’s personals section” and was contacted via email by a man later identified as Vier, according to the police report.
The detective claimed he had a 15-year-old daughter who had sex with older men. Vier agreed to pay $150 to have sex with the girl, the report states.
“He also discussed in graphic detail sexual acts he wanted to perform on the 15- year-old and inquired about sexual acts other men had done to the child,” the senior deputy prosecutor wrote in a case summary.
Vier also tried to persuade the “father” to bring his other daughter to the meeting, the summary states.
Police arrested Vier at the meeting place Nov. 19. They searched his car and found 32 condoms, a bottle of lubricant, a vibrator, a package of batteries and Viagra and Cialis pills, the police report states.
A judge set his bail at $50,000. He posted bail the same day.
