Pierce County deputy charged with custodial sexual misconduct being released on own recognizance

TACOMA -- A Pierce County sheriff's deputy charged with custodial sexual misconduct for allegedly forcing a woman to have sex with him or face arrest appeared in court Friday.

A judge ruled deputy Joey D. Tracy, 34, could be released on his recognizance Friday night. He is due in court again next month.

Tracy has been on paid administrative leave since November 2015, sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said, adding that he is no longer being paid after his arrest Thursday.

According to court documents, sheriff's detective said Tracy was working as a patrol deputy in the Bonney Lake area in early January 2015  where he contacted the woman during a traffic stop near her Bonney Lake home while she had nine outstanding arrest warrants.

She told detectives that she begged him not to take her to jail and that he eventually took her to an area in Wilkeson and "and basically told me if I didn't sleep with him he would take me jail for all my warrants.:"

She said she slept with the deputy in the back of his patrol vehicle and then he took her back home. She also told detectives that she had sex with him a second time on another occasion.