"Hunter acquitted of assault charges"

By Julie Emery,
Times staff reporter

Seahawk Patrick Hunter has been acquitted of charges that he roughed up two women and intimidated them to avoid criminal prosecution.

Hunter, 25, grinned and traded quips with King County Superior Court jurors after yesterday's verdict was made public.

"No more women's bathrooms!" on smiling woman juror told Hunter in reference to testimony that Hunter had barged into a women's lounge in a Bellevue restaurant disco last October in what became the opening volley in Hunter's trial on two assault charges.

"No more women with names ending in i-e," he said.

Jurors said they did not believe the women, Angela (Angie) Collins, then Hunter's girlfriend and a Sea Gal, and Jamie Thompson, whom he had dated earlier.

The two were not credible, foreman Tom Healy and juror Johsel Namkung said.

"Another woman juror summed up the fuss as a "bummer love triangle. I felt he was pretty much the victim."

"I was the victim in that courtroom," Hunter said.

"Unbelievable," said Thompson, 23, a social worker, reacting to the verdict. She said it sends the wrong message about assaults against women.

"It reinforces the fact that it's OK to beat women...'You're still our hero,' "she said.

Hunter lowered his head and smiled broadly at defense attorney David Allen as Judge R. Joseph Wesley read the verdict not guilty on two counts of fourth-degree assault."