In Motion to Dismiss Restraining Order, County Assessor Calls His Ex-Partner Unstable and Vengeful
The broadside comes days after the county council called on Wilson to step down amid well-documented allegations that he stalked and harassed his domestic partner.
By Erica C. Barnett
King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson, who was the subject of a no-confidence vote by the King County Council earlier this week, has filed a motion to dismiss his domestic partner Lee Keller's temporary restraining order against him, arguing that she is emotionally unstable and is trying to harm him politically.
PubliCola broke the news about the new stalking and harassment allegations against Wilson in May. The Seattle Times covered earlier allegations against Wilson in January.
Wilson, who is running for King County Executive, has never publicly denied Keller's allegations that he texted and called her incessantly, showed up at her home uninvited, followed her movements using tracking apps, and called the workplace of a man she had been seeing to accuse him of sexual assault in an attempt to get him fired. These actions, among others, were the basis for the county council's call for Wilson to resign as county assessor, a position that affords him access to personal data about King County taxpayers.
Many of Keller's allegations, including one in which Wilson said the man he's alleged to have falsely accused of sexual assault "deserves my wrath," are documented in text messages and phone records. Keller's latest filing includes a text exchange in which she told Wilson, “LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!" and he responded, "Never," following up with several more unanswered texts.
Wilson posted a link to his declaration on Facebook, writing:
"As King County Assessor, I took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the State of Washington - including those cherished principles of the rule of law, the presumption of innocence, and due process.
The King County Council, by voting 8 to 0 to demand my resignation, has shown utter contempt for these principals. They want to deny your choices at the polls and rig the election. Yesterday's hearing was nothing more than a kangaroo court.
I will NOT resign. I will NOT give up my campaign fighting for the everyday people of King County. But the craven behavior of Councilmembers Balducci and Zahilay show they are unfit to serve the people of King County—let alone as Executive."
King County Councilmembers Claudia Balducci and Girmay Zahilay are the frontrunners in the race for county executive; Wilson has consistently trailed both in fundraising and endorsements.
In his new motion, Wilson claimed that he, rather than Keller, was the victim of abuse, pointing to an incident in April 2024 in which he claims Keller "shoved me and nearly made me fall down a flight of stairs." He called the police, Wilson wrote, because he "felt I had been threatened and was personally at risk."
A police report by an officer responding to Wilson's call in 2024 tells a somewhat different story. According to the 2024 report, Wilson told the officer that he and Keller "got into a verbal argument" after Wilson went into Keller's text messages and discovered she had been communicating with an ex. In his telling, Wilson calmly "talked to Keller about not being transparent" and she became "enraged." Wilson claimed Keller pushed him "in the chest," which "caught [him] off guard"; he did not mention stairs.
Keller also called police about the incident, meeting with the same officer who had interviewed Wilson at the hotel she was staying in after she fled the home she and Wilson shared. She told the officer that Wilson "hacked" into her messages without her permission and told her they needed to talk, saying he had "proof" that she had been lying to him. Keller told the officer she and Wilson got into a shouting match while she was standing in the entry to their home and Wilson was standing on the stairs, and said she "never laid a hand on him." Keller told officers Wilson had tried to push his way into the laundry room where she was feeding her dog before she left for a hotel, and that she broke a ceramic dog bowl while trying to shut the door.
While the officer was interviewing Keller, he noted in the report, Wilson "called her approximately 15 times and sent roughly 10 text messages saying that there was an emergency and that she needed to call him." Wilson continued trying to reach Keller, the officer noted, even after the officer picked up one of Wilson's calls and asked him to stop calling and texting her. Wilson has not publicly disputed any of this; in fact, he included Keller's police report in the exhibits attached to his filing.
Wilson claimed repeatedly in his motion to dismiss Keller's restraining order against them that Keller's "instability" and "volatility," not Wilson's documented behavior, is the problem. "Unfortunately, as much as I love Lee, her volatility and instability has become a real issue for me both personally and professionally," Wilson wrote, adding that "once Lee calms down, she wants to see me."
There are many different reasons that women return to men who are abusive or drop restraining orders against their partners, and the decision to drop a restraining order is not proof that a woman filed the order frivolously or that the relationship is not abusive.
Wilson said the two met in a public place on May 23, 11 days after Keller for the restraining order, and "Lee seemed genuinely happy to see me," but said things turned sour after Wilson refused to help pay her rent.
"I firmly believe that victims of domestic violence should be protected. However, restraining orders should be a shield for victims and not a sword because someone is mad at you and is lashing out, especially when that someone has a long history of volatility and instability as it is evidenced by the number of times Lee has filed a Petition and then dismissed it," Wilson wrote.
Keller was unable to comment immediately when I contacted her this morning; I'll update this post when I hear back.
On June 3, Keller said in a statement that the "restraining order against John Wilson remains in place. I will not be changing my mind, despite his repeated efforts to coerce me to dismiss it. A hearing on the restraining order will be held on June 30, 2025. I welcome the opportunity to address John's reference to a signed agreement at that time, and inform the court of John's continuing violations of the very active restraining order."
Wilson responded to my request for comment by saying, "Your reporting has been so horrendously biased, inaccurate and loaded that I really have no interest in talking to you" and encouraging me to "start by reporting on" his filing.
Also on Thursday, Jayson Morris, a longtime local Democratic Party activist who has expressed support for Wilson and liked several of the county assessor's defiant Facebook posts, filed a complaint with the King County Democrats, alleging that they had violated their own rules by dual-endorsing Balducci and Zahilay in the county executive race.
Morris' complaint also claims that the Democrats violated their commitment to Democratic Party values by endorsing candidates whose "conduct"—voting for the resolution calling on Wilson to resign—"has created ethical issues that reflect poorly on the party."