FORT WORTH — A convicted sex offender who passed himself off as an executive chef at the Renaissance Worthington Hotel offered several people jobs and groped at least two 17-year-old girls, police said.
He told one of the girls that this was what to expect from drunken hotel guests, police said.
Robert J. Washington, 41, was issued two citations Thursday accusing him of assault by contact.
Police say they learned of the ruse Monday night after some of those who were offered jobs showed up at the downtown hotel, only to find that Washington did not work there.
Detective Kerry Adcock said Washington denied deliberately touching anyone inappropriately or promising people work but acknowledged posing as a chef to "impress people and because he didn’t want to tell them he’s a sex offender."
Tarrant County court records show that Washington pleaded guilty in 1991 to aggravated sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in exchange for a 15-year prison sentence.
A 17-year-old college student told police that she called Washington after learning through someone at her church that he worked at the hotel and was reportedly hiring. She said Washington offered her a hostess job for that night and gave her a ride home from college to discuss it.
But as they arrived at her home, the teen told police, Washington warned her about drunken hotel guests.
"He told her, 'They might try to do this’ and then he reaches over and starts grabbing her breasts," Adcock said.
The teen jumped out of the car, she told police, but Washington didn’t leave and kept insisting that he could get her a job. He also told about a half-dozen others gathered in the area, including a few men, that he could get them jobs that night at the hotel, too, Adcock said.
Adcock said Washington instructed the people to dress in black pants and a white shirt and said he would arrange to have a bus pick them up around 9 p.m. During his talk with the group, police say, he grabbed the breast of another 17-year-old girl.
"She was wearing a tank top, and Washington grabbed her breast, saying, 'You will have to cover those up,’ " Sgt. Cheryl Johnson said.
The girl told police that she told Washington to get his hands off her and that he apologized.
When a bus didn’t show up at the designated hour, someone in the group called Washington and was told that the hotel’s restaurant had been closed and that he wouldn’t need anyone that night. But Washington returned to the neighborhood, recruiting an 18-year-old woman to supervise the cleanup, police said.
Police were called after that woman, accompanied by one of the 17-year-olds and a man, went to the hotel and learned that Washington did not work there.
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