Fourth person charged with child rape in case of Bonney Lake teenager
Posted 4:10 PM, June 8, 2018, by Q13 FOX News Staff, Updated at 09:32PM, June 8, 2018
TACOMA, Wash. — Nicholas David Biancalana, 29, was charged Friday with third-degree child rape in connection with the trafficking case involving a Bonney Lake teenager. He's the fourth person to be charged in the case.
Investigators believe Biancalana was one of two men who had sex with the 15-year-old girl, who left her home last month and who police believe became a victim of sex trafficking. She was found safe last weekend in Puyallup and is now back with her family.
Q13 News is no longer naming the teen since she has been found and is believed to be a victim of sexual assault.
On May 9, police officers began searching for the teenage girl after her mother reported her missing. Her mother said she believed her daughter left the house to go meet someone she had communicated with on social media. Officers later arrested Christopher Fitzpatrick, 39, and Maria Counts, 29, and charged them in late May with rape, kidnapping, and possession of depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
A Tacoma man, William Kent Pittman, 34, was charged earlier this week with third-degree child rape for allegedly having sex with the Bonney Lake girl.
On May 26, officers visited co-defendant Pittman's home and learned that Biancalana and Pittman had talked in front of people about having sex with the girl. That same day police found Biancalana at Pittman's home hiding in a bathroom shower, the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office said.
Biancalana described meeting the girl and said he thought she looked 18, but didn't ask her age. Biancalana said he and Pittman got high on heroin and both had sex with the girl, the prosecutor's office said.
Biancalana was being held in Pierce County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail.
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