La Pine man arraigned on new sex abuse charges
(Update: Details on arraignment, new charges)
A 47-year-old La Pine man arrested last week on charges he raped a girl five times in the early 2000s was arrested again Wednesday, the day after his release with a GPS tracking monitor, and was arraigned Thursday on charges he abused abusing three other females over the past 15 years.
Bend police first arrested Rusty Allen Pugh a week ago on five counts of rape after a two-month investigation involving a now-23-year-old woman.
Police at the time asked others with any information regarding suspicious contacts with Pugh to contact them. Since then, ” detectives have received numerous follow-up calls for investigation, ” Lt. Juli McConkey said.
Pugh had been released from the Deschutes County Jail on Tuesday afternoon with a GPS tracking monitor after posting $25,000 bail, she said.
Around 5 p.m. Wednesday, Bend police and county sheriff’s deputies made a traffic stop at Burgess and Huntington roads in La Pine of a vehicle Pugh was riding in.
Pugh was arrested again taken back to the county jail, where he initially was held Thursday on $850,000 bail, facing seven new counts of first-degree sex abuse and five counts of first-degree sodomy.
Police said he’s now also charged with abusing a now-6-year-old girl in Deschutes County and two women, now 19 and 22, who live in Yamhill County.
Pugh made an initial court appearance Thursday afternoon by video hookup from the jail on a 12-count charging document, including one count of first-degree rape, five counts of first-degree sexual abuse, one count of first-degree unlawful sexual penetration and five counts of first-degree sodomy.
The alleged abuse involved three female victims, under ages 12 or 14, as far back as 1998 and as recently as this month, court documents show.
Pugh was ordered held on $500,000 bail and is due back in court Friday afternoon on an expected formal indictment on the new charges, as well as the previous five first-degree rape charges.
Bend police continue to actively investigate several cases involving Pugh, McConkey said.
” When we get information on someone who is a victim of a crime, whether its years past or present, a lot of times people will keep journals or photos or anything of investigative purposes, maybe doctors’ visits. We will get the information from it and go forward with it, ” McConkey said.
Police again encouraged anyone with more information regarding Pugh to call the county non-emergency dispatch number at 541-693-6911.
