$5 Million Paid by Washington for Attempted Rape of Seattle Woman by Mentally Ill Prisoner Released to Halfway House
by Chuck Sharman
The state of Washington will pay $5 million for a series of errors by the state Department of Corrections (DOC) that put a mentally ill prisoner in a Seattle re-entry center, from which he walked away and tried to rob and rape a woman at her business. The settlement between the DOC and the victim, Amber Myers, 45, was affirmed in a judgment issued on August 31, 2026, by the state Superior Court for King County.
The prisoner who attacked her, Jordan Benjamin Alexander, now 37, had begun a 43-month term in the DOC in July 2021 for a conviction on multiple robbery counts. Prior to that, he had accumulated 18 other theft and robbery convictions in King County between 2008 and 2020, along with five harassment charges and additional domestic violence incidents, KIRO in Seattle reported. Alexander was released to the Bishop Lewis Re-entry Center (BLRC) in July 2022, even though his history meant he “was not an appropriate candidate,” according to the complaint that Myers later filed.
Just over a month later, on August 31, Alexander left his day job and walked into Myers’ business, the Seattle Massage Pro, pretending to be a courier making a package delivery. Finding Myers alone behind the front counter, he jumped over it and “produced a knife and demanded money,” her complaint recalled. When she said that she didn’t have any, he forced her to lock the front door and marched her into a laundry room, “an enclosed area within the business where he sexually assaulted her,” the complaint continued. Fortunately for Myers, a colleague came by and interrupted the assault. Alexander fled on foot, dropping a bag that was found to be “full of knives,” KIRO said.
When Seattle cops finally arrested Alexander three months later, in December 2022, he was charged with attempted rape and first-degree robbery. But the charges were dismissed that same month when he was found incompetent to stand trial. Remanded to a state psychiatric hospital, he responded well to competency restoration treatment, the Seattle Times reported. The charges against him were refiled in 2024, and he pleaded guilty to third-degree rape and first-degree robbery, receiving a 20-year sentence in DOC custody.
Meanwhile, the BLRC suffered another custody failure in 2023, when a resident died of a fentanyl overdose; the DOC then canceled its contract with private operator Pioneer Human Services, which shuttered the facility, the Seattle Hoodline reported.
The same source reported that Myers’ attorney, Ashton K. Dennis of the Washington Law Center in Tacoma, discovered emails from the weeks prior to Alexander’s transfer to the BLRC describing his “unstable mental health” to a classification counselor. Yet without more specific instruction, the counselor approved Alexander for promotion to the minimum custody level necessary for re-entry placement—exposing a dangerous gap in DOC internal communications, Dennis said.
On Myers’ behalf, he filed suit in County Superior Court in April 2025, accusing the DOC of negligence in its supervision of Alexander and in its hiring and training of responsible employees. In the settlement agreement that he negotiated with the DOC, the prison agency did not admit to any liability. But it also didn’t want to go to trial, apparently, opting instead to make the seven-figure payout, which included costs and fees for Plaintiff’s attorney. Dennis said it was the largest settlement paid by the DOC in any case that wasn’t filed over a death or terminal illness. See: Myers v. State of Wash., Wash. Super. (King Cty.), Case No. 25-2-10740-2.
Additional sources: Hoodline, KIRO, Seattle Times
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