1. The second protest held by Bellevue landlord Jaskaran Singh Sarao against his tenant Sang Kim on Saturday was not the grand escalation that its organizers and promoters—including right-wing personality Jonathan Choe, who repeatedly doxxed Kim, posting his home address on X—might have hoped for. Around 40 people, about half as many as the previous week, gathered outside Kim’s house and once again listened to speeches from Republican Party officials. A woman who may have been Sarao’s wife cracked a joke about there being “other ways to implement justice” in India, their home country, “if you do not have the law.”
Sarao, who is barred by a restraining order from coming within 1,000 feet of Kim, joined the protest once it arrived at the Norwood Swim Club a few minutes’ walk away. He stood ostentatiously on one side of a sign planted in the grass that read “1,000 ft,” although the whole event took place well inside that distance from the house. At one point Sarao led the crowd in chanting, “Shame on Housing Justice Project!” — the nonprofit that is providing legal assistance to Kim and has an ethical duty to represent its clients — followed by “Are they human?” The crowd responded with a resounding “NO!”
Following the example of landlord mutual aid set by Jason Roth earlier this year, there is now a GoFundMe page raising money for Sarao. Although the Nextdoor post promoting the first protest stated that his losses amounted to $45,000 in unpaid rent and $12,000 in legal fees, the author of the page explains that “[d]ue to mounting financial losses and legal fees, we must raise $100,000 for our dear friend.” As of this writing, the page has raised $4,226.
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2. Choe, who has called Kim a “serial squatter” who refuses to take personal responsibility for his unpaid rent, doesn’t appear to apply similar scrutiny to his own actions. In December, Choe allegedly slammed his white 2011 Kia van into another person’s Tesla in a bank parking lot in Bellevue, hitting the vehicle so hard it was “rocking back and forth,” according to a police report, and attempted to flee the scene. He was caught and is now facing a criminal hit and run charge in King County District Court.
According to the police report (from which I have redacted Choe’s personal information), Choe crashed his van into the driver’s side of the parked Tesla and had started to drive away when the Tesla’s owner ran out of the bank after receiving an alert that his car had been hit. The Tesla owner confronted Choe and asked him if he had hit his car; after Choe denied doing so, the man reviewed footage from his car’s camera system that clearly showed Choe hitting his car, according to the police report.
“After observing that [Choe’s van] did impact the driver side of [the Tesla, the Tesla owner] walked back over to [Choe’s van],” the police report says, but before he “was able to talk to [Choe, Choe] drove away and left the scene. [The Tesla owner] called 911 to report the hit and run.”
When police later tracked Choe down through his license plate number (which was clearly visible in the Tesla’s video, the report says), he acknowledged trying to park his van next to the Tesla but refused to take responsibility for hitting the car and fleeing the scene. “Based on the fact [Choe’s van] impacted [the Tesla] hard enough to shake [the Tesla], the fact that after being informed about a collision involved his vehicle [Choe] did not check for any damage, and left the scene without exchanging any information with [the Tesla owner, and], the fact [Choe] did not leave a note or call 911, I determined I had probable cause to charge Choe” with a crime, the officer wrote.
When he pulled Choe over, the officer continued, he initially acknowledged trying to “squeeze in” front of the police car, but then “became verbally aggressive and dismissive during our conversation. To de-escalate the situation, I walked back to my patrol vehicle.”
Choe continues to refuse to take responsibility for crashing his van into the Tesla; he has pled “not guilty” to the hit and run and has retained attorney Seth Cooper to represent him. In addition to being a lawyer, Cooper is a former Claremont Institute fellow, Federalist Society speaker, and staffer at the Free State Foundation, an anti-regulation think tank.
Court records show that Choe has been charged with a number of moving violations in recent years, including using an electronic device while driving and failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk while making an unsafe lane change. In the latter case, from last year, a police report says Choe abruptly veered into the path of the officer’s marked police car, forcing him “to brake to avoid colliding into the vehicle.”
“The vehicle (being driven by the registered owner, Jonathan Choe…) had also stopped his vehicle in the crosswalk,” the report continues. “There were pedestrians that had the right of way and crosswalk signs illuminated for them to safely cross the crosswalk.” A woman “had to stop walking because Choe had blocked the path for her to walk.”
When he pulled Choe over, the officer continued, he initially acknowledged trying to “squeeze in” front of the police car, but then “became verbally aggressive and dismissive during our conversation. To de-escalate the situation, I walked back to my patrol vehicle.”
Choe appears to have received a deferred finding in this case, essentially a guilty plea that can be dropped in the future. Given that Choe frequently asserts his strong support, even adoration, for police, it seems odd that he would become verbally abusive when confronted by an actual officer—unless, of course, he believes personal responsibility is for other people.
—Katie Wilson, Erica C. Barnett
Full disclosure: I have also had a number of parking tickets and a red light camera violation—all visible at the Seattle Municipal Court records center—and was charged with shoplifting a bottle of wine in 2008, an incident I wrote about extensively in my book Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery (Viking, 2020). I also had a debt judgment for an unpaid parking ticket in 2007 and a credit card judgment in 2009. I was overpaid by a few hundred dollars for unemployment in 2012, a fairly common error that was not the result of any misrepresentation on my part, and paid the overpayment back. In 2018, I was sued by two talk radio personalities, “Ron and Don,” over an error that was briefly posted on the Atlantic’s website, in a story about the sexist backlash when female councilmembers voted against a new basketball stadium. The two plaintiffs later dropped their claim against me.—Erica
Ya know, I was gonna post something snarky about our resident journalist shoplifter but she owned up to it (and her horrible driving record) which is actually pretty admirable and she completely disarmed my attack in the process. 😞
Was this article about the Bellevue protest? Or about Jonathan Choe? I raise that question because two-thirds of the article was about Choe’s transgressions.
Did the author of this article reach out to either Singh or Kim to get their comments? I have seen videos of about 100-150 people in the protest. Calling such numbers as a ‘fizzled out’ protest does not seem right.
Based on the above 2 points, I wonder how much I can trust publicola and its articles.
More than anything else, these articles are one-sided and against the principle of fairness. There are 2 parties to this dispute here. The tenant’s responsibility is to pay their rent on time. And landlord’s responsibility is to keep the property habitable. No one can and should support a system where one party is taking advantage of the other. How did we reach here?
“Taking advantage of” – you say this but the reality is that both the landlord and tenant have attorneys. If the court hasn’t granted an eviction, then there’s a reason for it – whether is bc the landlord or his attorney didn’t follow the law.
If it were me, the landlord should be directing his ire towards his own attorney if he can’t get an eviction for back rent, probably one of the easiest things to evict over.
reader73 – The landlord has to pay for his attorney. And the tenant’s attorney is paid for by King County. That is the first place where the tenant is ‘taking advantage of’ the system. Second – one of the parties is doing what they are supposed to do, ethically and morally. The other party is not. What else do you call it – if not ‘taking advantage of’? Finally – there are (apparently) 600+ eviction cases pending in KC courts. That is a failure of the system. It is in the best interest of everyone (renters and landlords) that such cases are taken care of expeditiously – otherwise, there will be a point when landlords would rather keep their homes un-rented or rent them out to tenants with stellar credit, or demand a multi-month security deposit. Is that what we want?
Go read the Seattle Times then
It’s about both. They are connected. What do you think about the point that Choe is hand wringing over a pretty straightforward landlord-tenant dispute that is being properly handled through the legal system by fretting over personal responsibility, but himself has repeatedly tried to evade responsibility for his own actions?
Honestly – I do not know Choe from John Doe. But I did think he brings up a very valid issue facing homeowners in the Seattle region. Focusing on the author instead of the story – is bad journalism (in my opinion). I am saying that because I fail to see how Choe’s behavior affects this story.