UPDATE: Royce Shorter posted bail on Feb. 18 and is no longer in custody.
A Renton minister is being held on $350,000 bail after he pleaded not guilty to accusations he raped a teenage girl during music lessons at his Seattle studio. Royce C. Shorter was arraigned Thursday morning at the King County Courthouse in downtown Seattle on two counts of third-degree rape and one count of third-degree child molestation. Shorter, 54, of Tacoma has been free on $25,000 bail since charges were filed Feb. 3. However, he was taken into custody Thursday after prosecutors requested the higher bail because of an ongoing investigation into allegations of sexual assaults against at least four more victims, according to the King County Prosecutor’s Office. One of the women interviewed suggested there may be as many as 25 more victims, according to charging documents. Shorter is minister of the Ecclesia Community Church and owner of ‘N Time Music Productions, both housed in the same building on South Third Street in downtown Renton. He purchased the building in spring 2007. Bail of $350,000 is considered high for such charges, but it was requested because the investigation found other potential victims, said Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office. The ongoing investigation wouldn’t result in additional charges against Shorter, because too much time has passed, Donohoe said. Some of those cases go back to the 1980s. Charging documents were amended in advance of Thursday’s arraignment to reflect interviews with the other potential victims. Those interviews began just after Shorter’s charges were reported publicly on Feb. 9 and continued until Wednesday. In preparing the amended document – the certification for determination of probable cause – Seattle Police Detective M.L. Smith wrote that he objects to Shorter’s release. “It is not known if Shorter is currently victimizing other females,” he wrote, noting that Shorter’s business and church in Renton are still operating. “Shorter has the ongoing opportunity to continue to contact juvenile females,” he wrote. “It is in the interest of public safety that he be held in custody during this investigation.” Shorter was booked into the county jail in downtown Seattle at 9:45 a.m. A case-setting hearing is 1 p.m. March 15 at the county courthouse in downtown Seattle. Prosecutors allege in charging papers that Shorter had sex multiple times with a girl in Seattle and Tacoma for two years, starting in July 2006 when she was 15.
