Charges: Man harassed, assaulted lesbian couple at Seahawks game

King County prosecutors have accused a 34-year-old Tacoma man of harassing a lesbian couple for their sexual orientation at a Seahawks game last month, groping one of the women and punching the other in the face.

Jay Dee Harp III was charged last week with second-degree assault and malicious harassment, Washington's hate crime statute. He bailed out of jail the day after his arrest, but a King County Superior Court judge increased his bail and issued a warrant for his arrest.

The incident occurred the afternoon of Dec. 30 during the Seahawks' game against the Arizona Cardinals. Two married women were sitting in section 118 of CenturyLink Field with one of the women's mother.

They claimed a man wearing Arizona Cardinals apparel sat in their row and passed them several times to leave their section and return with beer. He allegedly issued several harassing remarks throughout the game, such as, "Do you need a man in your life?" and other comments that included anti-gay slurs or referenced his genitalia.

During the third quarter, the man left to buy another beer, according to reports. Upon returning, he pulled on the jacket of one of the women, unzipped it and grabbed her breast. She tried to push him off of her, police wrote, but he threw his beer in her face.

The woman's wife told him not to "put hands on my wife," according to court records, and other fans intervened and took the man to the ground.

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