Two men have been charged for allegedly pretending to be FBI agents, kidnapping two women and stealing $13,000 during a heist just outside Tacoma in August.
Brian Edward Butler, 53, and Christopher Andrew Colt Summers, 46, face charges of first-degree robbery and burglary, second-degree criminal impersonation and two counts of second-degree kidnapping, Pierce County Superior Court records show.
Butler and Summers were arraigned on Wednesday and Friday, respectively, according to court records. Not guilty pleas were entered on their behalf, and each defendants’ bail was set at $500,000, records show.
Butler and Summers were allegedly among three men who arrived at an apartment south of Tacoma city limits shortly after 8 a.m. on Aug. 30. The men were “dressed in FBI jackets, displaying badges, handcuffs, and a paper purporting to be a warrant,” according to a Pierce County Sheriff’s Office report. One was described as wearing a balaclava, authorities said.
The men entered the Tacoma address, handcuffed two female victims who lived there and ransacked the residence, stealing a firearm stored underneath a mattress, the report said. The suspects then took the victims against their will in two separate vehicles to a storage unit in Tacoma, which one victim ultimately couldn’t access, and to a credit union in Lakewood that was found to be closed, according to the report.
One victim, who rode in her own Lexus with a suspect, was instructed to send $13,000 via Cash App to an account that authorities tied to Butler, the report said. Sheriff’s Office investigators later learned that the victim had recently sold a vehicle for $13,500.
Cash App records showed that Butler dispersed stolen funds to associates later that day, including $3,000 to Summers, who owned a red Dodge Ram identified by surveillance video and a victim as having been the second vehicle used in the crimes, according to a second police report.
Summers was also placed by cell phone records at all three locations “during the time frame of the incident,” the report said.
Butler was identified in a photo montage by one of the two victims, although the other victim had identified someone else, according to a prosecutor, who noted in court records that the victim who chose Butler had spent more time with him in a vehicle. The same victim told authorities she was about 70% certain that Summers was a second suspect, according to a police report.
Neither man was charged in connection to the allegedly stolen firearm, court records show.
In statements filed in court Friday, attached to Summers’ case, the victims — who are sisters — described feelings of fear and anxiety in the aftermath of the incident. One asked for no bail or for bail to be “extremely high.”
“I’m afraid that someone’s gonna come into my home again. I’m afraid to go to work,” she wrote. “The home I once had no longer feel(s) safe.”
