Seattle pays $1.9M to woman who says police officer raped her as a minor, decades ago

The city of Seattle has paid nearly $2 million to settle a lawsuit that alleges an officer working for the Seattle Police Department in the 1970s raped an underage sex worker during that period.
Two women who were forced into sex work decades ago built different lives for themselves in the intervening decades. They have retained the connection, friendship and support they developed all those years ago.

Candace Sparks wears a T-shirt that says “Stand In Your Truth.” It’s what she says she was doing when she filed a civil suit against the City of Seattle and former Seattle Police officer KC Smith, Jr, back in December 2021.

These days, Sparks is a deputy King County Court clerk. But decades ago, as a teenager, she was living in a girl’s home in north Seattle.

“The pay phone rang, and that was the beginning of my story,” Sparks said in an interview with KUOW.