Explosive new details uncovered in case of attorney in serial rape case

SEATTLE — KIRO 7 Reporter Amy Clancy has uncovered explosive new details about the serial rape investigation of Seattle attorney Danford Grant.

Grant is charged with seven counts of rape, attempted rape and burglary for alleged attacks on women at massage clinics in Bellevue, Seattle and Shoreline.

Grant bailed out of jail and is at home where he is being monitored electronically while he awaits trial.

On Tuesday, KIRO 7 uncovered the search warrant that reveals the evidence investigators hope to find that will prove Grant’s guilt.

One of the key holders of possible evidence is Grant's black Honda Pilot.

According to documents, during the first few days of the investigation, Grant's vehicle was not located during the initial search of his home.  It was also not found during the search of Grant's downtown Seattle office building.

Yet three days after Grant’s arrest, while he was in jail, Grant's card key was used to enter his office garage.  The search warrant revealed that it was Grant's wife who entered his office building driving a minivan.

Investigators said they tried "several times to contact Jennifer Grant to learn the location of her husband's Honda Pilot, but she refused to speak with police."

Jennifer Grant's criminal defense attorney eventually contacted investigators and told them the same day that Jennifer Grant used her husband's pass key to enter his office building, she also picked up his car near the massage clinic where the last rape allegedly occurred and drove it to 86th and 35th Northeast in Seattle, where she then parked it-- more than a mile away from the Grants' home on Northeast 94th.

The same day Jennifer Grant's attorney provided that information, detectives located the vehicle and took it as evidence.

The search warrant does not reveal why Jennifer Grant "removed the pass key to enter her husband's building parking lot,"  but said she "has since returned" it to the car and "has removed nothing" else from the car "or disturbed anything inside."

KIRO 7 has also learned that one of Grant's law partners may have provided police with crucial evidence that could be used against him.

According to the search warrant, on Sept. 24, Grant had dinner with David Onsager, one of his law partners at the downtown firm formerly known as Bailey Grant Onsager.

Hours after the two parted that night, Grant was arrested by Seattle police near a Greenwood massage clinic where he had allegedly committed two violent rapes.

A week later on Oct. 1, Onsager met with detectives and according to documents told them, "he believed, based on the news information, that Grant's work computer may be of importance to a police investigation."  Onsager revealed that after his law partner's arrest, he made sure Grant's computer was disconnected, locked up and handed over to police.

Investigators said they wanted the computer because they believe Grant used his online tools and his knowledge as an attorney to research his alleged victims, find where they lived and who they loved, so that information could be used against them.

The search warrant showed that in addition to Grant's computer at his most recent law firm, investigators are also looking into his Internet activity at his prior firm, Stafford Frey, because two of Grant's alleged rape victims said he tried to sexually assault each of them as early as 2011.

Clancy has called and emailed Onsager to ask whether he was suspicious of Grant before his arrest, but he has not responded.

Meanwhile, the warrant revealed police have searched Grant's home and office specifically for condom wrappers and a black-handled silver knife his alleged victims said he used.  Investigators will also search his car and will be looking for evidence Grant impersonated a police officer.

They also want the Honda's GPS to determine if it will provide evidence that Grant was where the attacks allegedly occurred.   Clancy has contacted Jennifer Grant's attorney but has not heard back.

Shortly after KIRO 7 broke the news of the search warrant, Danford Grant’s attorney, Richard Hansen, called Clancy.

Hansen claims, "police have distorted the facts as they are written in the search warrant."  He also maintains that "nobody was hiding" Grant’s Honda Pilot, instead, "the police failed to find it, even though it was right under their noses, a block away" from where Grant was arrested.  When Clancy asked, why --  when Jennifer Grant retrieved the vehicle she parked it a mile from the family’s home, not in their garage or driveway --  Hansen insisted Jennifer Grant did that "because she was being hounded by the media."   When Clancy asked why Jennifer Grant took the garage key card out of her husband’s vehicle, Hansen says she "borrowed it to visit an attorney, and has used it many times in the past."  Richard Hansen claims “Jennifer Grant has done nothing to alter evidence.”

KIRO