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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2017
A bumpy ride Child molester behind bars
Seaview trailer-park day care shut
down after fraud and felony
By AMY NILE
EO Media Group
SEAVIEW, Wash. — A
judge has ordered a babysit-
ter and her live-in boyfriend
to serve time behind bars after
a girl told authorities she was
sexually abused at a day care in
the couple’s home at a Seaview
trailer park.
Marco Antonio Cortes, 51,
pleaded guilty to first-degree
child molestation in Pacific
County Superior Court. The
longtime cannery worker was
sentenced on Sept. 1 to 51
months to life in prison.
On the same day, his girl-
friend, Roxanne Marie Lytle,
41, was ordered to serve 30
days in the county jail after
pleading guilty to four related
felonies.
Lytle had been claiming
welfare assistance while run-
ning an illegal home day care
on the 1300 block of 30th
Street. That’s where the girl,
now 9, said she’d been raped by
Cortes on multiple occasions
from 2011 to 2014, according
to a Pacific County Sheriff’s
Office investigation.
The family went to authori-
ties in May after she told them
why she’d been crying at night
during the past few years. The
girl said she was 4 when Cortes
started putting “his penis in her
private parts.”
The girl said the abuse con-
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
A car crashed into the front porch of a residence at
Third Street and Lexington Avenue in Astoria Tuesday
afternoon. No injuries were reported at the scene of the
two-vehicle crash.
Zinke directs more
aggressive approach
to prevent wildfires
By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Inte-
rior Secretary Ryan Zinke
on Tuesday directed all land
managers and park superin-
tendents to be more aggres-
sive in cutting down small
trees and underbrush to pre-
vent wildfires as the smoke-
choked West faces one of
the worst fire seasons in a
decade.
In a memo, Zinke said
the Trump administration
will take a new approach
and work proactively to pre-
vent fires “through aggres-
sive and scientific fuels
reduction management” to
save lives, homes and wild-
life habitat.
Wildfires are chewing
across dried-out Western
forests and grassland. To
date, 47,700 wildfires have
burned more than 8 mil-
lion acres across the coun-
try, with much of the devas-
tation in California, Oregon
and Montana, Zinke said.
The Forest Service and
Interior Department have
spent more $2.1 billion so
far this year fighting fires
— about the same as in all
of 2015, the most expensive
wildfire season on record.
Those figures do not
include individual state
spending.
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tinued until she was in first
grade. She told the interviewer
Cortes would pull up her pants
when Lytle would come into
the bedroom while he was rap-
ing her.
County Prosecutor Mark
McClain said Lytle hindered
the investigation by telling the
children and their families not
to cooperate with authorities.
He suspects others were abused
at the day care but authorities
couldn’t get any of about 10
children who were interviewed
to talk about it.
“This guy would have zero
contact with the boys but he’d
have certain contact that I
would call grooming with the
girls,” McClain said.
Cortes, a Mexico native,
denied the allegations against
him. He said he couldn’t
believe anything like this could
happen to him and that he’s a
“good guy.”
He told deputies he has no
sexual desire because he has
diabetes. Cortes is being held
at the Washington Corrections
Center in Shelton until he is
placed in the appropriate state
men’s prison.
If Cortes is paroled after
serving his time, the Depart-
ment of Corrections is expected
to supervise him for the rest of
his life. Other requirements of
release include registering as
a sex offender and completing
a sexual deviancy treatment
program.
Lytle pleaded guilty to wit-
ness tampering, theft by wel-
fare fraud, perjury and false
verification, all felony convic-
tions. She’ll be on probation
for a year after her stint in the
county lockup.
McClain said he charged
her with crimes because she
“clearly took advantage of a
disenfranchised population of
parents who trusted her and
then actively worked against
unearthing whether her boy-
friend molested their children.
She collected money from
already cash-strapped fami-
lies, many of whom are immi-
grants, while claiming she had
no income and needed public
assistance, deputies and offi-
cials at the state Department
of Health and Human Services
found.
Lytle will be required to pay
about $3,000 in restitution to
the state and will be barred from
receiving public assistance for a
year. She is banned from oper-
ating a day care for life.
“I wanted to make sure she
got punished,” McClain said.
“All of this is about protecting
our community.”
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