Sex offender posed as police officer

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SEATTLE, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- A Washington state man who posed as a police officer to force women to have sex pleaded guilty to charges of sexual assault and rape, court records showed.

Seattlepi.com reported Tuesday from King County Superior Court that Sasidhar Vanapalli faces a jail sentence of eight to 10 years for second-degree rape, first degree extortion and first-degree criminal impersonation of a police officer.

Vanapalli could be held longer unless he is found fit for release under Washington's indeterminate sentencing laws applicable to sex predators, the news service said.

On two separate incidents in October, Vanapalli waited for women whose Craigslist advertisements for sex he had answered, the report said.

In one incident, Vanapalli waited in his Bellevue, Wash., apartment for an 18-year-old victim to whom he showed a fake police officer's badge and threatened to destroy her clean record unless she had sex with him -- and agreed to it as an ongoing arrangement, the report said.

"She was nervous, embarrassed and she was desperate not to be arrested. The defendant continued to warn (the teen) about being arrested if she did not have sex," Sean O'Donnell, Senior Deputy Prosecutor said.

In the other incident, Vanapalli waited for a woman in a Redmond, Wash. apartment borrowed from a co-worker. Again, posing as an officer, Vanapalli threatened to arrest the woman unless she provided him with sex, the report said, then pulled a pistol and threatened the woman before allowing her to leave.