Island man charged with rape for Sunday assault

Jaime Silva-Arroyo, 26, of Bainbridge Island is being charged with third degree rape.

The man accused of trying to rape a Bainbridge Island woman as she walked home from Safeway Sunday was arraigned in court Tuesday on a felony charge of third-degree rape.

Jaime Silva-Arroyo, 26, was arrested Monday. Police said he sexually assaulted a 19-year-old woman July 22 but broke off the attack after the woman fought back.

The young woman told police that the man she later identified as Silva-Arroyo followed her as she walked into the Safeway on High School Road.

She noticed him behind her and walked to the Rite Aid in the same shopping center, where he continued following the woman. She left the store and started on her way home as the man continued to follow her.

The young woman told police that the man grabbed her arm as she was walking near Ihland Way and Madison Avenue and said something to her in Spanish that she could’t understand. She noted that he held a small wallet in his hand as he spoke to her.

She then broke away and crossed Madison Avenue and onto a gravel trail.

The woman said the man pushed her, and she turned around hit him. He then knocked her to the ground, jumped on top of her, grabbed her neck, and tried to remove her pants.

As the man tried to hold the woman down, two of his fingers went into the woman’s mouth, and she bit him. The assailant then ran away, leaving behind a baseball cap and a sandal as he fled.

The woman — who received scrapes, bruises and other injuries from the attack — then went home and called police.

The woman gave police a description of her attacker, and an officer retrieved a video of the suspect taken by a security camera at Safeway.

Police later went back to the place where the woman was attacked and retrieved the baseball cap for evidence.

On Monday, a detective noticed a man matching the description of the suspect and the Safeway video who was leaving an apartment complex on Madison Avenue. The detective approached the man and spoke to him in Spanish.

While talking to the man, later identified as Silva-Arroyo, the detective found a small amount of marijuana in his possession. Silva-Arroyo told the detective that he lived with friends in the area and that he worked at the Harbour Pub.

The detective asked Silva-Arroyo if he could take his picture and he agreed.

Later, the detective showed the young woman the picture, in a line-up of other photographs, and she identified Silva-Arroyo as her attacker.

Detectives also interviewed a manager of the Harbour Pub and showed her an image taken from the Safeway video. The manager identified the person in the image as Sylva-Arroyo.

Sylva-Arroyo was working at the pub at the time, and police inspected his hands. He had a cut on his middle finger of his right hand, and another mark on the finger next to it. The detective determined that the marks were consistent with a bite mark.

Sylva-Arroyo was being held in the Kitsap County Jail on $100,000 bond Tuesday.