PORT ANGELES — Bail of $50,000 was set Monday for Net Nanny child-sex-sting defendant Clinton Roy Caldwell of Sequim on a charge of felony harassment of a family member.
The woman said Caldwell, 67, blamed her for his March 26 arrest and was afraid he wanted to kill her.
On Friday, the same day Caldwell was arrested, the family member and two women who had lived at his three-bedroom Bogey Lane home, were granted protection in Clallam County Superior Court after they said they feared that Caldwell would hurt them.
When arrested, Caldwell had bailed himself out of the Clallam County jail on $100,000 bond on first- and second-degree attempted child rape charges stemming from the Net Nanny operation spearheaded by the State Patrol and regional law enforcement agencies.
Caldwell was among a dozen men arrested mainly March 23-26 at or near a house rented by the State Patrol in Port Hadlock where suspected predators were told they could go to meet children.
Superior Court Judge Brian Coughenour set additional bail for Caldwell at $50,000 Monday and Caldwell’s arraignment on the felony harassment charge for 9 a.m. Friday.
Authorities began investigating Caldwell in the child-sex sting after receiving complaints that he was luring abused and homeless women with promises of housing to his Bogey Lane residence and requiring sex in exchange for rent, according to court records.
The Clallam County Sheriff’s Office is investigating reports dating to 2012 made by 41 individuals — mostly women — who “have made various complaints of anything from harassment to sexual assault ” against Caldwell, Detective Sgt. Eric Munger said Monday.
“We’ve got a handful that have have claimed sexual assault thus far, but we haven’t contacted nearly all of them yet,” Munger said.
“We have no prior complaints of him being sexually involved with children.”
The arrest over which Caldwell allegedly threatened the family member involved him making sexually explicit statements about the supposed 8- and 12-year-old daughters of an undercover agent to the agent, who posed as the girls’ mother, according to the probable cause statement.
Authorities interviewed Caldwell when he was arrested at 12:38 p.m. March 26.
“Caldwell made some statements that he was there to save the girls,” according to the probable cause statement.
The family member who is the alleged victim of felony harassment said Caldwell showed up April 4 — after he had posted bail — at her Clallam County home, where another family member lives.
“I learned that Clinton blames me for his recent arrest for attempted rape of a child 2 counts,” the woman said the family member told her, according to her petition for the protection order.
“He thinks I set him up.
“We are all afraid he will become violent.”
The Net Nanny investigation is ongoing, authorities from Clallam and Jefferson counties said.
A woman interviewed March 30 who said she lived in Caldwell’s house said he talked “about murdering people, rape, incest and how he wanted to kill [the family member],” according to the probable cause statement for the felony harassment charge.
The woman recorded a conversation with Caldwell “for her own safety and wanted the recording in case her own body came up missing,” according to the probable cause statement.
Caldwell tells her the family member “is gonna get hers,” according to the recording as quoted in the statement.
He also says he has killed people before.
“I don’t talk about or brag about it,” Caldwell says on the recording.
“That’s why I never get caught.”
One of the women who received a sexual-assault protection order Friday against Caldwell said she lived at his home after she answered Caldwell’s advertisement for a free room on Craigslist.
The woman, 51, said he manipulated her for sex, threatened to kick her out of his house, restricted her movements and “said things about crimes he’s committed against people and violence/torture,” according to her petition for the sexual-assault protection order.
“I believed his veiled threats and they kept me there and from leaving,” the woman said.
Caldwell is 6 feet tall and weighs 265 pounds, according to the protection orders.
The other woman who received a protection order Friday said Caldwell threatened her “with fists, gun and verbally,” according to her petition.
“He has threatened to kill me more than once and in a fit of rage he has no control over himself,” said the woman, 63.
Once, he threatened to beat her “and make me eat his gun,” according to her petition.
Whenever she left his property, Caldwell would text her, she said.
“He texted me 140 times in a four-hour period,” she said.
Caldwell also has a May 16 district court trial set on a charge of unlawful carrying a weapon capable of bodily harm.
The charge is related to an alleged March 22 road-rage incident east of Port Angeles on U.S. Highway 101 involving a female driver.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
