Jury finds ‘sexual predator’ former Seattle indoor soccer owner Dion Earl guilty on all counts

By Geoff Baker

The Seattle Times

PHOENIX — The official court record shows former Seattle Impact indoor soccer owner Dion Earl was found guilty Thursday on all six counts in a sexual assault trial involving two Arizona women hired to babysit his children.

But what became apparent throughout this two-week jury trial in Maricopa County Superior Court is that Earl, 47, will now spend years in prison not only for crimes against the babysitters in 2017, but also likely because of potentially influential testimony about unpunished sexual assaults in King County he allegedly committed five years ago.

While the incidents from 2014 detailed in court by two former Impact female dance team members weren’t on trial in this case — a point defense lawyer Jesus Acosta repeatedly tried making to jurors — they undoubtedly bolstered the prosecution’s contention that Earl is a repeat offender with crimes extending well beyond Arizona. Lead prosecutor Yigael Cohen had summed it up thusly in closing arguments that countered claims the Seattle women prejudiced the jury: “The defendant is not a victim. He is a sexual predator.”

Earl, who is to be sentenced Oct. 11, remained impassive as the verdicts were read. He faces 7 to 17 years in prison, though it’s unlikely he gets more than 12 as a first-time offender.

For Elizabeth Buslon, 27, one of the Seattle-area women flown here by prosecutors, the offer of a day in court she’d previously been denied proved too compelling to refuse.

“The more I thought about it, if he did that same thing to them after he did it back then to me, he’s not going to stop,” she said in an interview after her testimony.

The Seattle Times has a policy of not naming sexual assault victims in most circumstances, but Buslon agreed to being named for this story and a prior 2014 report about her allegations in The Times.

Earl’s legal woes aren’t over. After his October 2017 arrest in the Arizona cases, Kirkland police reopened a decade-old investigation into an alleged assault on a massage parlor attendant and King County prosecutors charged Earl in June with second-degree rape.

That case is on hold pending the conclusion of this one.

Earl, who often commuted between dual residences in Kent and Mesa, Arizona, also was indicted last year on federal charges of orchestrating a $1.3 million tax fraud scheme involving the Impact and his other businesses.

Former Impact office manager Amy David, who had long advocated for the two dance team members and assisted Arizona police with some early information gathering, hopes the women finally gain some closure.

“I’m so proud of the strength and courage that all of his victims have shown,” David said Thursday. “I truly hope that this gives other victims of similar situations the courage to come forward. We pray that Dion Earl never has the opportunity to hurt anyone else ever again.”

David, the two dance team members and three Impact office staffers in January 2017 received a default judgment for $742,000 in damages — $410,000 going to the dancers — and $215,500 for legal fees in a lawsuit against Earl alleging the assaults, harassment and emotional distress. They have yet to collect any money, but their lawyer, Jason Rittereiser of Seattle-based HKM Employment Attorneys, said Thursday he’s put a lien on Earl’s home in Kent and that it should be sold this fall to help pay some of that judgment.

“Today, we are proud of the justice system and of our clients whom have been steadfast in their pursuit of holding Dion Earl accountable for his conduct and the harm he has caused others,” Rittereiser said. “The law can be a powerful tool to hold those to account, and while the wheels of justice may turn slowly, today justice has been done.”

Inside the courtroom Thursday, as a clerk read the guilty verdicts on one count of sexual assault, one for sexual abuse, two for kidnapping, one for public sexual indecency and one for assault, one of the babysitters present, now age 20, began crying, as did her mother. It was that babysitter’s claim in October 2017 that Earl restrained her in a bedroom at his Mesa home, fondled her and masturbated in front of her that led to police arresting him immediately after.

He’s been held without bail for the nearly two years since.

“This is the ‘West Coast Predator,’ ” the babysitter’s father, OD Harris, told reporters outside the courtroom. “That’s what I’ve always called him. And with the guilty verdict, I can truly say this is the West Coast predator. He toured the whole west wing of the U.S. sexually assaulting women and it finally came to an end.”

Flanked by their attorney, Benjamin Taylor, Harris and his wife, Elizabeth, long critical of authorities’ inability to stop Earl before he assaulted their daughter, called on prosecutors and police in Washington and elsewhere to keep going after him.

“You have the facts now,” he said. “Guilty in Phoenix, Arizona. Will there be a guilty verdict in Seattle? We’re asking you to act now. Open the cases, wherever you may be. Open up the cases against this man. Look into the details — even if you think that it’s not enough details or evidence there. Do the victims a favor. Go and investigate.”

Mesa police had already been investigating Earl for a complaint by another babysitter six weeks earlier, who said she’d been restrained on a bed at his home, fondled and molested. In that case, it was a Lyft driver who’d later alerted police, testifying the babysitter was distraught and curled in a “fetal position” in his car after he picked her up at the home.

Earl’s lawyer, Acosta, argued throughout that the prosecution lacked scientific evidence and that the Seattle women — and a nanny from yet another unprosecuted case who testified Earl sexually abused her during multiple family trips to Las Vegas — were distracting the jury beyond the two babysitters.

“You listened to the evidence, you listened to all of it and you’ll decide two cases,” Acosta told jurors Wednesday during his closing argument. “We’re not talking about five versus one. We’re talking about two cases.”

But prosecutor Cohen countered in court that the testimony of all five women was indeed crucial evidence.

“The defendant would have you believe that these five women — only two of whom knew each other — are all liars,” Cohen said. “And that he is the one who is being victimized by some conspiracy. The testimony of these five women is remarkably consistent with each other in each case.”

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One of the Impact dance team members testified that Earl in September 2014 took her to the “VIP” room of an exotic dance bar in Sodo, put his mouth on her breast and hand on her crotch before she pushed him away. The incident occurred after she’d gone with Earl and two Impact players to hand out promotional team flyers outside a Sounders game.

Buslon testified that Earl invited her to a 2014 business meeting at his Kent home, pushed her over an ottoman and began rubbing himself against her buttocks. She told the court Earl also rubbed her breasts as she struggled to leave the home.

The King County Sheriff’s Office investigated but prosecutors declined to file charges. The dance team and several office staffers resigned shortly after while the majority of Earl’s players quit in protest after only one game of the Impact’s first and only Major Arena Soccer League season.

Earl was forced to disband the Impact soon after The Times reported in December 2014 on the allegations and his history of alleged misconduct toward women over nearly two decades prior. At least five protection orders had been sought against him, while he also lost a high school coaching job in Bellevue in 1998 for asking a female student out on a date.

But he’d also avoided any serious legal consequences — until now.

For former Impact dance team member Buslon, facing Earl in court proved tougher than expected.

“I thought I would do a lot better emotionally because it’s been so long,” she said. “I feel like it was just yesterday now. When you have to relive it and see it all in person, it felt like no time had passed.”