By Erica C. Barnett

King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson, who faced charges last year for allegedly stalking and harassing his ex-fiancée, communications consultant Lee Keller, committed multiple violations of King County’s ethics code, the county ombuds office concluded in a report released today.

The ombuds was investigating a complaint made last year that Wilson used King County resources to stalk, contact, and harass Keller. Keller sought criminal charges against Wilson after he was arrested outside her house while under a restraining order that required him to stay at least 1,000 feet away from her.

The order includes newly disclosed information about Wilson’s behavior as county assessor, and concludes that he violated the county’s ethics code in at least four distinct ways, and violated a county rule about the appropriate use of county IT resources.

Negotiating a lease

In a 2024 letter of interest sent on his King County letterhead, which includes the information that the assessor determines property values, Wilson wrote, “I’m John Wilson, the King County Assessor. I’ve been elected countywide to this office three times since 2015. … As King County Assessor, I direct a team of highly professional residential and commercial appraisers who cover all of King County. I know from traveling the county how rare it is to find a residential gem like your property, for rent.”

The ombuds found that by using his position to help secure a lease, Wilson violated an ethics code provision against using public resources for personal gain. “Not only did Assessor Wilson make clear that he and/or his office sets property values, and that he is the Assessor, but in the letter to the Property Manager and property owner, Assessor Wilson included an embedded link that led directly to the official King County Assessor’s website while describing what a ‘residential gem’ the property is,” the report says.

“The clear implication of the letter as a whole was that Assessor Wilson should receive special consideration due to his position in County government. … There is no legitimate reason for the King County Assessor to be negotiating for personal residential property and lease terms from their official County email address.”

Violating a protection order

The ombuds found that Wilson used his county email to contact Keller at least eight times over a span of three weeks when she had a restraining order against him, asking her to go to events with him five times and repeatedly sending her information about an audit that required county employees to verify their dependents’ eligibility for King County health care. The ombuds found that these emails violated the protection order, “which is illegal.”

Wilson was ordered to wear an ankle bracelet and stay away from Keller last year while misdeamenor charges against him were pending, but successfully fought the requirement, claiming his doctor had ordered him to soak his legs every day because of a medical condition. While his case was pending, Wilson posted several mocking social media posts from his hot tub, prompting a judge to order him to wear the monitor. Soon after, though, Keller said she no longer wanted to pursue the case—a pattern that had repeated previously in their relationship, according to the extensive court documents for the case.

Sending in the sheriff

Wilson also contacted King County Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall, asking her to go or send someone to Keller’s house to perform a “wellness check” after she refused to talk to him at an event. Wilson’s emails came one day after Keller got a domestic-violence restraining order against him in May 2024. Over several emails sent from his county address over a 12-hour period, Wilson told the sheriff Keller was “distraught and agitated” as well as in a “manic, agitated” state. and said he would call 911 and ask for a wellness check on Keller.

During the email conversation, Cole-Tindall told Wilson “Ms. Keller not wanting to talk to Assessor Wilson was not an indication of risk of self-harm,” the report says, adding that the assessor “switched to his county email address when he wasn’t getting a response.”

Knowing that Keller had a restraining order against him, the report continues, “Assessor Wilson continued using his official King County email to try to force a wellness check on Ms. Keller.” In one email, he “acknowledged the Sheriff was busy with a visit from the President of the United States, and again requested that someone do a wellness check on his former domestic partner,” saying he would otherwise call 911 and have them send someone to Keller’s home.

“As an elected government official of the 13th largest county in the country, Assessor Wilson has power and authority that Ms. Keller doesn’t. The Ombuds Office finds that Assessor Wilson attempted to wield that power under the guise of seeking help for Ms. Keller,” the report says. “We do not conclude that this was a genuine, County-related emergency worthy of an elected official, acting in their official capacity, to reach out to the head of a law enforcement agency to request action.”

Election Damage Control

The report also found that Wilson had used his county email address to set up meetings with campaign supporters, including two of his staffers, communications manager Chris Vance and deputy assessor Al Dams, to do damage control in early summer 2025. (Dams later called on Wilson to resign). Wilson sent the emails to Dams’ and Vance’s personal accounts, indicating that he knew county employees weren’t supposed to do election work using county property.

This was shortly after PubliCola and other media reported on the latest stalking and harassment allegations against Wilson, which came about six months after news broke about a previous domestic violence restraining order Keller had let lapse.

The emails included a document from May 25, 2025 titled “ElectJohnWilson Exec Team—The Options” which set a Zoom meeting “to strategize and discuss media about he and Ms. Keller and the news stories at that time,” according to the report. They also included a draft email with a Word document addressing “the allegations made by Ms. Keller and Assessor Wilson’s commitment to running for King County Executive.,” dated June 2. Wilson stayed in the King County Executive race more than a month longer as demands piled up for him to withdraw from the race and resign.

“Political campaign-related activity on King County technology assets is strictly prohibited,” the report notes.

“Black dildo boy”

Finally, in searching Wilson’s emails, county investigators found two instances where Wilson used sexually explicit language in violation of county policy.

In one instance, his county phone referred to a person on his contacts list as “black dildo boy.” In the other, a “personal, ‘diary-like’ reflection on his relationship” with Keller, titled “Open Letter to John Wilson,” included explicit sexual references to Keller. These two incidents, while not a violation of the county’s ethics code, do violate the county’s policy on acceptable uses of King County resources, the ombuds found.

Wilson did not respond to an email seeking comment. A group of his staff called for his resignation today, due to “our lost confidence in your leadership, the impact on employees, the continued degradation of the department’s credibility, and the best interests of the department.”

Wilson has rebuffed every previous effort by elected officials and his own staff to pressure him into resigning, and plans to attend the International Association of Assessing Officers conference in Calgary next month, according to his social media. Wilson’s most recent social media post, about a celebration of life for longtime Seattle journalist Joel Connelly, includes a photo of the back of Keller’s head.

Keller declined to comment on the report.