A former Puyallup police officer fired by the department earlier this year after his arrest on suspicion of felony rape has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and been released from jail, according to court documents reviewed by KNKX.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge James Orlando sentenced Niamkey Ange Amichia, 32, on Friday to a maximum sentence of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine for paying a prostitute to have sex. Amichia was immediately released because he had been jailed for 134 days since his arrest in early March. Orlando did not order probation for Amichia.
Prosecuting Attorney's Office spokesperson Adam Faber told KNKX that convicting Amichia of third-degree rape hinged on whether his non-use of a condom was non-consensual, and text messages between him and the victim "significantly undermined" the woman's allegations. Deputy prosecutor Richard Weyrich wrote in court documents that a conviction was "doubtful."
Public records first reported on by The News Tribune showed Puyallup Police Chief Scott Engle began recruiting Amichia in July 2022 at the same time he was failing field training with the Bellevue Police Department.
Bellevue training officers reported he lacked a basic understanding of local laws and often put inaccurate information in reports. In an email to Puyallup officials, Engle referred to Amichia as a "gamble hire" due to his training issues. The Puyallup Police Department had been struggling to attract officer candidates and hired Amichia shortly after he resigned from Bellevue in lieu of termination.
Charging documents accused him of raping a prostitute while off-duty on Oct. 7 of last year. The woman told Pierce County Sheriff's deputies that she met her attacker online and agreed to accept a $400 payment. But when they met in person in unincorporated Pierce County, he demanded unprotected sex and she said she complied out of fear of harm. She alleged her attacker said she was lucky he didn't kill her before forcing her out of his truck. The woman also gave the license plate of her unknown attacker to the authorities.
In a phone call with KNKX on Monday, Bryan Hershman, Amichia's attorney, called the woman's allegations false and accused her of lying. Hershman said his defense team found messages from the woman requesting that Amichia pay more for unprotected sex before they met and offering her services again after her police report.
Charging documents show Pierce County detectives could not immediately re-interview the woman because her voicemail inbox was full and she did not call back.
In late February, the state crime lab matched DNA from the woman's rape exam to an unsolved 2016 rape in Waterbury, Connecticut, where Amichia lived at the time, according to Pierce County charging documents. The Connecticut victim had alleged her attacker posed as a police officer and bound her inside her home. Court records indicate Amichia has not been charged in that case.
After DNA from the Pierce County and Connecticut cases matched, Pierce County detectives searched the license plate from the local case, according to charging documents. The truck's owner was listed as Amichia. Sheriff's detectives then formally interviewed the Pierce County woman.
Pierce County deputies coordinated with Puyallup police to arrest Amichia as he was arriving at work for a final field training examination. Amichia had yet to work the streets alone since graduating from the state police academy in 2021.
After his arrest, court documents show Amichia told Pierce County detectives the encounter was consensual. When questioned about the 2016 case, Amichia said he had been role-playing as a police officer when he zip-tied a woman during sex.
When he was hired in Puyallup last summer, Amichia, a West African immigrant, had a conditional green card through marriage, according to public records. It's unclear if Amichia later received permanent resident status or whether his misdemeanor conviction would make him ineligible to request it. His attorney declined to comment.
Puyallup police spokesperson Capt. Ryan Portmann told KNKX that Amichia's termination is finalized and he did not appeal it prior to a filing deadline.
