Sheila LaRose used to see herself as a tough and determined public defender committed to fighting courtroom battles on behalf of her indigent clients, many of whom had long struggled with homelessness, drug addiction and mental health issues.
“I had a zeal for that work and I just loved it. I felt like I had a purpose,” said LaRose, 58, who started out in 2003 as a defense investigator for The Defender Association, now known as the Public Defender Association, before earning her law degree and returning in 2009 as an attorney.
But that all changed eight years ago when a client with a history of stalking women became obsessed with LaRose while she was representing him. He repeatedly called her at work, left women’s underwear on her car, showed up unexpectedly near her workplace and eventually peered into her bedroom window.
The growing terror LaRose endured through most of 2013 and into early 2014 was compounded by the sense of betrayal she says she felt when her supervisors failed to remove her from the case, which ended in his conviction. Even after his release from jail, she says her supervisors did nothing to stop his escalating behavior until he started showing up at her West Seattle home.
LaRose would later learn that another female attorney who also worked for PDA and had once represented the same client had been replaced by a male attorney after the client had made unwanted calls to the female attorney, once repeatedly professing his love for her.
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