UO employee arrested on campus on Washington fugitive warrant

Federal marshals arrested Jerdil Castillo, 31, inside the Frohnmayer Building in Eugene and booked him into the Lane County Jail on a fugitive warrant from Benton County, Washington, a case that immediately pushed campus safety questions to the front of the line.

Castillo faces a Benton County charge for communicating with a minor for immoral purposes. University of Oregon records identify him as a Graduate Employee in Music with office 114 in the Frohnmayer Music Bldg., which helps explain why the arrest happened in that part of campus rather than at a home or off-campus location.

The arrest also places a major public institution in the middle of a law-enforcement action tied to another state. Court and jail records identify the case as a fugitive matter from Washington, and separate reporting said Castillo failed to appear for an April arraignment there. The Benton County charge was filed in March.

For students, parents and staff, the immediate issue is not the allegation itself but the campus response. The University of Oregon says it sends Campus Crime Alerts, also called Timely Warnings, to students and employees when it learns of crimes within its Clery geography that represent a serious and ongoing threat on campus property or immediately adjacent public property. Those alerts are part of the university’s federally required Clery reporting system and are designed to warn the campus community quickly when safety could be affected.

The Washington statute tied to the case, RCW 9.68A.090, generally classifies communicating with a minor for immoral purposes as a gross misdemeanor, though some circumstances, including certain electronic communications, can elevate it to a class C felony. Castillo remained in the Lane County Jail, which Lane County says is the only jail in the county that can hold felony-level defendants and offenders.

What remains central for the UO community is the practical question of protections and reporting. The arrest took place on campus, in a building tied directly to Castillo’s university role, and it underscores how quickly an outside warrant can become a campus matter when an employee or student is taken into custody in a place where classes, rehearsals and daily office traffic continue around them.