Editor’s Note: Some names in this story have been changed for privacy; changed names will appear as only a first name. Readers should be advised this article contains profanity and details allegations of sexual violence that may be disturbing or inappropriate for some audiences.
Latona sat in a living room with a church mentor and a supportive friend.
Across from her were a detective and a deputy from the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office — coworkers of the man whose alleged crime she was reporting.
The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) estimates more than two of every three sexual assaults in the United States go unreported to law enforcement.
Latona met Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Joseph Solberg on Tinder around September 2019. They exchanged phone numbers. On the first date, they went to a bar in Centralia.
“He suggested going back to his place, and it was going somewhat OK. I was OK with it because he was a cop, so I thought I would be safe,” Latona recalled.
He lived in Chehalis at the time. When Latona pulled up, Solberg’s patrol vehicle was parked out front.
Inside, “at least” two unsecured rifles were “propped up” against a wall, she said in a recent interview with The Chronicle and in her 2020 report to the sheriff’s office.
“I remember thinking, ‘That’s kind of weird.’ But, then I dismissed it just as quickly because he’s a cop, he’s gonna have guns,” Latona said. “Now, of course, looking back, there’s not a single person I know who would just leave their guns out, ever.”
On his way home, Latona said Solberg stopped to buy a bottle of rum. She doesn’t recall him drinking any of it. They sat on the couch to watch TV.
“He wanted to kiss me. I was like, ‘OK,’” she said. “Then, he wanted to do more. … He was grabbing at my pants, pulling them down. I kept trying to pull them back up, but I knew it was a losing battle. So, I just stopped, and he pulled them down. He, uh, he fingered me.”
Latona said she eventually got her pants on and left.
In the following days, she talked with him about their first date. Latona had just ended a relationship, she said, and wanted things to move more slowly. The texts between the two of them are included in her initial report to the sheriff’s office.
On Sept. 18, 2019 shortly after midnight, Solberg texted and asked her to come over. She replied, “Just to cuddle?”
He wrote, “You know I may try and f-ck you? Haha” to which Latona responded, “Not if you can respect me.”
After asking her what she meant and Latona texting that she didn’t want to have sex with him, Solberg wrote, “Well I’m not going to rape you.”
According to Latona’s report, though, he did.
“He wanted me to stand up. He told me to bend over. At that time, he had his hand around my neck … I was struggling, like, breathing with it. I was coughing and trying to pull his hand back,” Latona said.
She claims Solberg then raped her while he continued to restrict her breathing.
“After he was done, he told me to leave. … I didn’t understand it. I didn’t really know what happened. It wasn’t until I was talking to some friends later,” Latona said, her voice catching as she added in a near whisper, “I couldn’t even say that it was rape for the longest time.”
Resignation
Joseph Solberg’s resignation from the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office took effect on April 30, 2020, three days after Latona sat down with Detective Jamey McGinty and then-deputy Jeff Humphrey. On a list of active employees with the sheriff’s office requested by The Chronicle about two months ago, Humphrey was listed as a sergeant.
She told the officers she’d been a lifelong Lewis County resident, but the incident made her so anxious Latona moved to a neighboring county.
Solberg had been put on administrative leave before choosing to tender his resignation. He was placed there before Latona’s report, however.
Around the same timeframe, between September and December of 2019, Solberg had inappropriate communication with a participant in a case, including sending messages of a sexual nature to the case participant while he was on duty, according to records from the sheriff’s office.
On April 13, 2020, deputies Blake Teitzel and Andrew Scrivner pulled Jane over.
“Searching for her vehicle documents, she made the remark, ‘I thought you were Officer Dick Pic at first,’” Teitzel wrote in his report. “I asked her why she would call me that. … (Jane) stated that a co-worker of mine had been sending her ‘dick pics’ since she was stopped previously.”
She told Teitzel, and in a follow-up interview, told Captain Kevin Engelbertson about her relationship with Solberg.
Initially, Solberg pulled Jane over for a traffic stop and found her to be driving with a suspended license. He issued her a citation. Later, Jane was involved in helping the sheriff’s office serve an arrest warrant for someone she knew. That’s how Solberg and Jane began chatting over Facebook messenger, according to both their reports.
Solberg was placed on leave while an internal investigation began. Engelbertson interviewed both Solberg and Jane, who both said Solberg had shared photos of his penis with Jane, who did not send him nude photos at any time. Multiple times in the string of their messages, Solberg told Jane he was on duty, including while he was asking her to send photographs of herself.
They talked for several months, Jane said. When Engelbertson asked her how the relationship ended, Jane said, “I called him an asshole because I found out all my tickets and sh-t were still out.”
“Why did you think they wouldn’t be?” Engelbertson asked during the interview on April 16, 2020.
Jane responded, “Because he said he’d talk to the prosecutor and it should all be cleared up.”
In 2017, Solberg worked as a cop in Forks. He earned a Brady letter for the relationship and for being dishonest during the investigation. According to Crosscut, a Brady letter is sent to defense attorneys to warn them of “dishonesty, lapses in judgment, bias or sloppy police work” by officers involved in their cases.
Then, Latona said Solberg went to work for Green Hill School. State salary data confirms he was working for the state Department of Children, Youth and Families (which oversees Green Hill) as a juvenile rehabilitation security officer in 2020 and 2021.
So, why now?
Latona and a Chronicle reporter made contact in April. She said on the three-year anniversary of reporting to the police, her anxiety spiked.
Since that report in 2020, she learned of two other women with the same story. She didn’t know about Jane until her contact with a reporter.
“I’m afraid that there’s more victims since then or before. I don’t believe he’s going to stop. Based on my experience and knowing what happened to the other two, he’s not going to stop,” Latona said. “And he definitely likes to target people who are not in a very good place. And knowing that he (was) working at Green Hill terrifies me completely. And I’ve been afraid of there being more. Because, I just, I don’t want anyone else to have to go through it.”
One of Four
After Solberg’s resignation, the sheriff’s office forwarded Latona’s case to the Chehalis Police Department. She was interviewed by them and by Lewis County Prosecuting Attorney Jonathan Meyer. Latona said Meyer was only interested in hearing about the first night, not the second, presumably, she said, because it was her choice to return.
“He made it seem like he was going to do something,” she recalled. “But, then, I never heard anything until sometime later. I was checking my mail and I had a letter from the prosecutor’s office saying, basically, ‘I’m sorry this happened to you, but we just don’t feel like there’s enough (evidence to press charges).’ Which I didn’t really understand.”
The same summer, a third report was filed with the Centralia Police Department by a woman who alleges Solberg attempted to rape her. A fourth woman, who never filed a report, also spoke with Latona to share that she'd been through the same thing, Latona said.
Latona said “feeling guilty” prompted her to come forward. After being interviewed by the sheriff’s office and Chehalis police, she recalled “assuming that it’s probably not going to lead anywhere.”
“Why did you feel like that was the case?” a reporter asked.
“Because he was a cop,” Latona said.
The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on this story. Solberg was reached for comment on Friday, and said he was aware of the records request made on his files. He also said he was involved in the prosecuting end of some “ongoing litigation.” Asked if he was taking legal action against the sheriff’s office, he declined to answer.
Asked about whether he’d raped someone, he said, “No, I have not,” and claimed “if I did” there would have been subsequent court proceedings.
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, rape is the most under-reported crime in the United States. In a fact sheet from 2015, the center states that one in five women and one in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives. According to RAINN, just 50 out of every 310 reported rapes in the United States lead to arrest and just 28 lead to felony convictions.
In Lewis County, the Hope Alliance has a 24-hour hotline and can provide emergency shelter, among a long list of other services for survivors.
For the Hope Alliance local number, call 360-748-6601.
