King County Assessor John Wilson violated four ethics codes, according to the King County Office of the Ombuds.
On Sept. 1, the King County Office of the Ombuds, an independent organization within the King County government that investigates allegations of fraud, waste, abuse and ethics violations, issued an Ethics Report and Findings on Wilson, spurned by a complaint from King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci. In the report, they determined Wilson violated the King County Ethics Code in four separate sets of issues involving the use of county resources, the authority of his office and campaign-related activity.
Wilson allegedly violated KCC 3.04.020 (A), which says no county employee shall request, use or permit the use of county-owned vehicles, equipment, materials, or other property or the expenditure of county funds for personal convenience or profit, three times. Wilson used his King County email address to engage in conduct expressly prohibited by court orders, to initiate and negotiate terms for a personal residential lease and to ask the King County Sheriff’s Office to conduct a wellness check on his domestic partner.
Wilson was also said to have violated KCC 3.04.020(C) when he allegedly he used his county-issued email to induce a property manager and/or owner into a residential lease agreement for Wilson and his partner, and KCC 3.04.020(E) when he allegedly used the county email system, his county email address, and county software to support his 2025 campaign for King County Executive.
The Ombuds Office also found Wilson violated the King County Information Technology (KCIT) Acceptable Use Policy, after investigators identified sexually explicit language on county-owned technology assets.
Balducci made a complaint in June 2025 alleging Wilson was using King County resources to contact, stalk and harass his former domestic partner, which led the Ombuds Office to make a preliminary assessment and later pursue an investigation.
“I thank the Ombuds staff for their thorough, deliberate, and professional investigation into these serious concerns,” Balducci said. “Once again, we see our King County assessor has acted in ways that are unfit for an elected representative, including new findings of misusing his office for personal convenience and gain, among other improprieties.”
In the report, Wilson’s former domestic partner, Lee Keller, stated that she has received more than 35 texts and 18 phone calls from Wilson, including eight from his King County office phone after she blocked his personnel number. Subpoenaed records also showed Wilson emailing Keller eight times in June, 2025, from his King County email address. Between May 13 and Aug. 14, 2025, Keller had at least one restraining order against Wilson prohibiting him from contacting Keller through testing, phone calls or any other means.
The ombuds office found records of Wilson and Keller searching for a residential property to lease, including several emails about a property on Lake Sammamish from around March 2024 on the county email. These included, negotiation over the lease, Social Security and driver license information, a notarized copy of the lease agreement and bank wire instructions. In one email exchange, Wilson notes he is the King County assessor and includes an embedded link to an official King County government website.
The report included the following excerpt from the email:
“I’m John Wilson, the King County Assessor. I’ve been elected countywide to this office three times since 2015. I am also active in the greater Seattle and Eastside communities, speaking to various groups about property taxes and serving on the Board of Directors of the Washington Association of Counties. I chair a committee of large county jurisdictions for the International Association of Assessing Officers. 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 report found this was a case of Wilson using his county-owned email address and description of his role as assessor to negotiate a transaction involving the property management agency, which culminated in a contracted lease for Wilson and Keller to reside in a Lake Sammamish home.
On April 5, 2024, King County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call at Wilson and Keller’s residence of domestic violence. On April 22, Wilson emailed KCSO from his personal email asking to amend the previous police report because he exaggerated the incident as more serious than it was.
On May 9, Keller filed a petition for protective order against Wilson. The following day, Wilson contacted Sheriff Patricia Cole-Tindall via his personal email rescinding his previous email and requested a wellness check on Keller because he said she was acting “distraught and agitated.”
Two hours later, Wilson sent another email to the sheriff, this time from his county email address, requesting a wellness check on Keller, who he said was in a “manic, agitated state.” The report said Wilson communicated several times over the next 12 hours with the KCSO, mostly through his county email.
The ombuds office acknowledged anyone can contact local law enforcement asking them to conduct a wellness check from their personal email. However, Wilson switching to his county email address when he wasn’t getting a response was an attempt to wield his power under the guise of seeking help for Keller, the Ombuds Office concluded.
The report found Wilson also had two emails from his county email box containing content related to his 2025 campaign for county executive. One was a message sent to chief deputy assessor Al Dams and communications director Chris Vance on May 25, 2025, about setting a Zoom meeting to discuss the media coverage about Wilson and Keller. The other was an unsent draft addressing the allegations made by Keller and Wilson’s commitment to running for county executive.
The Ethics Code and King County Policy forbid any county employee or county elected official from using any of the facilities of King County for participating in the political process or assisting in a campaign for any elected office.
While reviewing document evidence, the ombuds office found an Outlook contact card on Wilson’s mailbox exchange which used “vulgar and demeaning language” to describe someone else’s job title. A Word document authored by WIlson from April 8, 2024, reflected on his relationship with Keller and included parts “explicit in a sexual sense” about Keller. The ombuds office concluded these were prohibited uses of the email, per the KCIT Acceptable Use Policy but not an ethics violation.
Wilson was contacted for comment, but has not responded.
