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A 19-year-old Randle man arrested in September 2024 for allegedly raping a girl under the age of 18 the month prior is facing additional charges after a second victim came forward.
Jonathan Jace Linder was initially arrested and booked into the Lewis County Jail on Sept. 11 after the juvenile victim reported the sexual assault to the Centralia Police Department the day prior, according to previous Chronicle reporting.
Linder was charged Sept. 12 in Lewis County Superior Court with one count each of indecent liberties, second-degree assault and second- and third-degree rape.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and trial is scheduled to begin April 21.
Linder has been in custody on $250,000 bail since his arrest.
On Sept. 18, a Centralia Police Department detective received a message from a woman who “wanted to speak to him about her ex-boyfriend, Jonathan Linder,” according to court documents.
She told the detective that she had read The Chronicle’s Sept. 13 article about Linder’s case “and recognized some details that she was very familiar with,” reporting that “she had briefly dated Jonathan Linder and he had raped her multiple times,” according to court documents.
The victim reported that she began dating Linder in December 2023 and broke up with him publicly in June 2024 “because Jonathan was becoming more abusive and more physical with her” and “she was so scared of him,” according to court documents.
Linder is accused of raping the victim at least eight times over the course of their relationship by pressuring or physically forcing her to engage in sexual acts, including immediately before and after she underwent surgery, and ignoring her when she told him no.
The victim reported that “frequently during their relationship their sex started off as consensual at the beginning but then he would get very physical,” with Linder allegedly being violent toward the victim without her consent, according to court documents.
The times the victim did tell him no, Linder allegedly “told her she was lying and that she liked it,” according to court documents.
She reported that “if she told him she didn’t want to have sex, that meant she was cheating on him, and he would then threaten her with harm at this point.”
Linder allegedly physically abused the victim outside of sex at least once, with the victim describing an incident where Linder allegedly threw a Stanley cup at her, which hit her in the knee and caused significant bruising, according to court documents.
Linder was charged March 7 with four counts of second-degree rape, domestic violence; and four counts of third-degree rape and one count of fourth-degree assault, domestic violence.
The second-degree rape charges each carry a maximum penalty of life in prison. Third-degree rape is a class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Fourth-degree assault is a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to 364 days in prison.
Linder had his preliminary hearing on the new case on Tuesday, March 18, where defense attorney Shane O’Rourke had asked for a no-bail hold pending the resolution of Linder’s initial case, which O’Rourke said Tuesday he “highly believed” Linder would be acquitted on.
If the court would not approve a no-bail hold, O’Rourke asked for bail to be set at $50,000.
Because the allegations in this case were not collaborated by evidence outside of the victim’s testimony, O’Rourke said, “it hamstrings the defendant that he can’t really present anything to the court other than ‘I didn’t do this.’”
Judge Paul Strophy opted to grant the prosecution’s request for $250,000 bail, saying, “These (allegations) are very serious risks to community safety based on the pattern of conduct that these allegations represent.”
With the $250,000 bail set in Linder’s initial case, Linder must post a total of $500,000 bail to be released from jail.
Arraignment on the new case is scheduled for Thursday, March 27.
