The Seattle police have arrested one of two men suspected of breaking into the rapper Macklemore’s house this summer, attacking his nanny with bear spray and stealing his jewelry, including a championship ring for the Seattle Sounders, the Major League Soccer team.
A SWAT team arrested the man, Patrick Maisonet, 29, on Aug. 21, at his home in Renton, Wash., south of Seattle, on a warrant for an unrelated robbery, the police said. The police called him “the “primary suspect” in the home invasion at Macklemore’s house, and said they planned to refer charges to prosecutors in the coming days.
It was not immediately clear if Mr. Maisonet had a lawyer, and the Seattle police, who announced the arrest on Thursday, declined to say how detectives had connected him to the robbery.
Macklemore, along with the producer Ryan Lewis, broke out of the Seattle hip-hop scene with the song “Thrift Shop,” a lighthearted tune about the thrills of hunting in secondhand stores, which spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 2013. The duo went on to win four awards at the 2014 Grammys, including for best new artist.
Macklemore is also a minority owner of the Seattle Sounders and he flashes the team’s 2019 MLS Cup ring in the video for the 2022 song “CHANT,” as he raps, “I was supposed to be a one-hit ringer, now I’ve got too many rings and not enough fingers.”
The robbery took place on June 7 at about 12:30 a.m., when two masked men crept inside Macklemore’s house through an unlocked door, the police said.
Macklemore was not home at the time, and a 22-year-old nanny, who had put the family’s three children to bed, was sitting in a bean bag chair, the police said.
One of the men sprayed the nanny with bear spray and demanded to know where the jewelry was, the police said.
When she told them it was in an upstairs bedroom, they ordered her to take them there, the authorities said. The robbers ransacked the room, rifling through drawers, cabinets and a closet full of clothing, jewelry and shoes, the police said.
The men stuffed valuables into bags, including the MLS Cup ring, the police said.
One of the robbers then threw the nanny on the floor and put a boot on her neck, the police said. She screamed, and when one of the robbers tried to hold her mouth shut, she bit down hard on his hand, forcing him to release her, the police said.
The nanny ran out of the house, and started knocking on doors in the neighborhood before someone let her inside to call the police. By the time officers arrived, the robbers had left.
After the SWAT team arrested Mr. Maisonet, the investigation led detectives to a jewelry store in South Seattle.
On Wednesday, officers executed a search warrant at the store and found a trove of valuables that had been stolen from Macklemore’s house and from the homes of other “high-profile celebrities,” the police said. The MLS ring was among those items, the police said.
Representatives for Macklemore did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.
The police released photos of some of the valuables they had seized, including Rolex watches, pearl necklaces, stacks of cash and a handgun. The Seattle police said that the second man who robbed Macklemore’s house had not been arrested and that the investigation was continuing.
Michael Levenson covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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