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Jason Edward Price, 42, of Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood, is facing charges in King County Superior Court for commercial sexual abuse of a minor. Court records recently accessed by Public Data Ferret show he was charged March 8 after a sting operation set up by the Seattle Police Department’s Vice and High Risk Victim unit. According to a police report in the court file, Price conversed online with an apparent 15-year-old female prostitute, agreed to pay her $140 for oral and regular sex, and asked her to come to his home in the 5700 block of 17th Ave. N.E. – north of Ravenna Boulevard and just south of Ravenna Park – after 9 p.m. because his young children would be asleep by that time. When another undercover Seattle police detective appearing to be the 15-year-old girl met him at a pre-determined location near his home, and he motioned for her to cross the street over to him, he was arrested by SPD surveillance units who had staked out the spot.
In a statement to Public Data Ferret, a spokesman for the Seattle-based national business and technology consulting firm Slalom Consulting confirmed Price worked there but has been dismissed as a direct result of the company learning about the alleged crime.
According to the police report the lead-up to the arrest began with an SPD vice detective placing an ad at a popular online hook-up site, to which Price responded. The detective and Price then allegedly engaged in an “extensive” conversation in which the detective identified himself several times as a 15-year-old female high school student who, according to the police report, represented herself as looking to “meet men and perform sex in exchange for money.”
Police report asserts confession made
After the undercover sting, Price was taken by Seattle Police to their Vice and High Risk Victims unit office, where he waived his Miranda rights and was interviewed, with audio and video running. According to the police report, Price admitted during the interview that he came to the location with the intent to connect with the apparent 15-year-old girl to take her back to his dwelling where he was going to engage in sex with her for $140. Price signed a search consent form and police recovered from his home $140 and the cell phones used to communicate with the undercover detective who had first been posing as the girl. Nonetheless, Price pled not guilty at his arraignment March 21.
“FAQs on Public Data Ferret crime stories,” April 29, 2013, from our Tumblr site, Musings of MrDataFerret
In the Seattle Police arrest report, Price identified his employer as Slalom Consulting, a growing concern headquartered in downtown Seattle at 821 2nd Ave., but with 10 other offices around the U.S. An online profile at Slalom’s web site (cached, screen shot) identified him as a managing director for the firm. The page was removed from the site within several hours of calls to the company late Friday afternoon by Public Data Ferret to verify his employment there. Reached at home on the phone by a reporter Friday night, Price hung up immediately after the reporter identified himself.
We continued trying to confirm his connection with the company.
Slalom Consulting spokesman: company has dismissed Price as a result of charge
Saturday in an email to Public Data Ferret, a spokesman for Slalom, Paul Bergman of the top-tier Seattle strategic communications firm Cocker Fennessy, said, “Slalom Consulting authorized me to provide you the following statement: When made aware of the circumstances surrounding Jason’s arrest, the Company took immediate action to terminate his employment. There is zero tolerance for this type of alleged behavior. Jason is no longer with the Company. We have no further comment on this matter.”
On Friday Price’s Linked In profile showed him still employed at Slalom, but by Saturday it showed his tenure there ending in April 2013, adding he was “on sabbatical” and working as “head of household.”
A court order in the criminal case bars Price from any current unsupervised contact with minor children other than his own.
At Price’s last court date on April 16 the case was continued to May 14.
Recent, totally separate arrests on the same charge of commercial sexual exploitation of a minor have also resulted from Seattle Police stings of a teaching associate at the University of Washington-Bothell, in the University District, and an Orange County, Calif.-based financial software consultant, at a Renton Hotel.
According to the Revised Code of Washington, commercial sexual abuse of a minor occurs when someone offers or agrees to pay or does pay a minor or a third party either for engaging in sex with the minor or to facilitate that. It is a Class B felony, and the penalty upon conviction can be imprisonment for up to 10 years, or a fine of up to $20,000 or both. However, standard sentencing ranges can be far less.
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