A Centralia man with a long history of arrests was charged this week for allegedly forcing neighborhood children to do chores in his house and refusing to let them leave.
Wellington Miles Waggener, 29, was charged Thursday in Lewis County Superior Court with two counts of unlawful imprisonment, and one count each of fourth-degree assault and malicious harassment.
Superior Court Judge James Lawler signed an order of commitment and Waggener is scheduled to be back in court June 14 for a Western State Hospital Review.
According to the Centralia Police Department, officers responded at 7:50 a.m. to the 1300 block of Lum Road and arrested Waggener.
According to court documents, early that morning, a 12-year-old boy left his home on the same block to start his mother’s vehicle, so she could take he and his siblings to school.
The boy reportedly saw Waggener, who told him to “come here.” The boy walked over and Waggener allegedly picked the boy up by his coat and carried him to his own home, then reportedly refused to let him leave. Waggener also allegedly hit the boy on the face and demanded he clean up the yard and sweep.
The boy’s siblings and mother started looking for him and went to Waggener’s house, and Waggener allegedly also refused to allow them to leave. One of the children called 911, Waggener became distracted and the family fled, according to court documents.
One of the children, a 15-year-old boy, told police “Wellington told them that they knew what it was like to be slaves.”
Waggener was last arrested in September 2016 on suspicion of kicking out a police car’s window after being detained as part of an assault investigation. Before that, he was arrested in July 2015 on suspicion of burglary with sexual motivation after being accused of entering a woman’s hotel room in Centralia. That charge was eventually dropped, but Waggener was sentenced to nine months in jail on charges of assaulting corrections officers while in jail awaiting hearings on the burglary charge.
At one of his July 2015 court appearances, Waggener was dragged from the courtroom by four corrections officers after jumping over a barrier between a desk reserved for defendants and a seating area for the public. Waggener is listed as standing 6 feet, 9 inches tall and weighing 250 pounds in court documents.
He spent time at Western State Hospital while those cases were pending before being declared competent to enter a guilty plea.
Earlier in 2015, Waggener received a $300,000 settlement from Lewis County for an incident in the Lewis County Jail in 2014 in which he was allegedly sprayed in the face with a full three-inch can of pepper spray and left in a cell without water for five hours.
