Sex offender who fled Canada for U.S. arrested on rape charge near Seattle

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A convicted sex offender in Canada who fled the country illegally in 2013 has been arrested in Washington state on charges of rape and burglary, law enforcement officials said on Monday. Michael Stanley, 49, is accused of breaking into a home in the Seattle suburb of Bryn Mawr on Feb. 27 and sexually assaulting a 69-year-old woman, the King County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. Stanley, a U.S. citizen, has been known to law enforcement in Washington state since 2013, when he cut off his ankle monitoring bracelet in Edmonton, Canada, and fled to British Columbia, where he crossed the U.S. border unchallenged, the sheriff's office said. Canadian officials decided not to request his extradition. Stanley had a long criminal history in that country, including nine years in prison in the 1980s for assaulting an 82-year-old Canadian woman who was bound to a wheelchair in Alberta, police said. He also spent time in jail for sexually assaulting two mentally impaired boys in 2006, authorities said. After he fled Canada, Stanley arrived in Washington state where he registered as a level III sex offender, considered the most likely to re-offend, the King County Sheriff's Office said. Because he was homeless, he had been required to check in weekly with law enforcement, the statement said. Stanley was due to make a first court appearance on Monday represented by a public defender, the King County Prosecutor's Office said. Arraignment and a bail hearing will take place in the coming days. It was unclear how Stanley would plead. When he cut off his ankle bracelet in 2013 he was being monitored by police under an agreement that required him to stay away from children, Canadian media said. (Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Eric Beech)