La Grande man arrested for failure to appear on sexual abuse charges

By Garrett Christensen on Friday, August 15th, 2025 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News

LA GRANDE – A La Grande man arrested last year on a slew of charges, has been arrested again for failure to appear on those same charges. On Wednesday, August 13, at around 12:50 p.m., 28-year-old Damon Troy Smaage Jr. was arrested by the La Grande Police Department at an 18^th street address on three Union County Failure to appear warrants.

The charges for these warrants, as listed in a recent LGPD press log, include, “FTA/Numerous Weapons Charges; FTA/Resisting Arrests; FTA/Sex Abuse 1 x3 and luring a Minor.”

Smaage was originally arrested last year following an incident on February 4 and 5, 2024 where, after an altercation with his father, he allegedly pointed a firearm at two LGPD officers, escaped, and was then taken into custody following a brief standoff on Adams Avenue.

Later in March 2024, while in custody at the Union County Jail, Smaage was indicted on three counts of First-Degree Sexual Abuse and Luring a Minor. The newer charges stemmed from a early 2022 incident where Smaage allegedly, as written in an indictment from the Union County District Attorney’s Office at the time, “did unlawfully and knowingly, by means of forcible compulsion, subject (the victim) to sexual contact.”

According to Oregon Judicial Department public records, Between December 2024 and January 2025, three Failure to Appear Warrants were issued for Smaage on charges for the 2024 arrest and the 2022 sexual abuse case.

Full charges on the first FTA warrant, issued December 3, 2023, include: Escape in the First Degree, Felon in Possession of a Firearm, Unlawful Use of a Weapon x2, Menacing x3, and Pointing a Firearm at Another x3. The second FTA warrant, also issued December 3, 2024, includes a single charge of resisting arrest. The final FTA warrant, issued January 7, 2025, includes charges for Sexual Abuse x3 and Luring a Minor.

Smaage was lodged in the Union County Jail as of August 14. For more information on Smaage’s original arrest and previous charges, see our previous article here.

(The most recent mugshot of Smaage, as used in this article, was originally posted in 2018 and may not be representative of his current appearance)