Retired school official indicted for alleged Richland sex sting

A federal grand jury on Tuesday returned an indictment against a former Kennewick school superintendent for allegedly trying to arrange a sexual encounter with two teen girls at a Richland hotel.

Paul W. Rosier already had been charged in U.S. District Court with one count of attempted child sex trafficking.

The 75-year-old Olympia resident is scheduled to appear Wednesday in a Yakima courtroom.

Rosier has been wearing a GPS tracking device since his release from federal custody last Thursday.

According to the criminal complaint, Rosier exchanged text messages over a three-day period with someone he believed was a 16-year-old girl, but actually was a Kennewick police detective who had assumed the girl’s identity and was using her social media account.

Rosier said he would be in the Tri-Cities for the weekend and wanted to “hook up” with a girl. The teen said she had a 13-year-old friend who would be available and Rosier, after initially insisting she be of legal age, agreed to the encounter, the complaint said.

Rosier was arrested April 1 in the lobby of the Hampton Inn as he allegedly was heading to the parking lot to finalize the deal. He was carrying the exact amount of money that he had agreed to pay the girls, the complaint said.

Rosier led the Kennewick School District between 1994 and 2006, when he left to take a job as executive director of the Washington Association of School Administrators in Olympia.

This story was originally published April 11, 2017 at 6:21 PM with the headline "Retired school official indicted for alleged Richland sex sting."