Charges filed by the KCPAO: Tuesday, Dec. 20

The overwhelming majority of criminal cases filed daily by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office don’t receive public attention.

That’s not the fault of the public or news reporters — it’s understandable with the volume of felony cases we file each day.

The KCPAO is sharing the number of adult cases filed each day and additional details about a handful of specific cases to highlight the kinds of cases we handle. Details of the alleged crimes below are from the public charging documents.

Charges filed by the KCPAO: Tuesday, Dec. 20

• Assault In The Second Degree (3 charges)
• Being A Fugitive From Justice (3 charges)
• Burglary In The Second Degree (1 charge)
• Failure to Register as a Sex Offender (2 charges)
• Felony Harassment — Domestic Violence (2 charges)
• Identity Theft in the First Degree (1 charge)
• Possession Of Stolen Vehicle (2 charges)
• Rape in the Third Degree (1 charge)
• Rape of a Child in the First Degree — Domestic Violence (2 charges)
• Rape of a Child in the Second Degree — Domestic Violence (1 charge)
• Robbery In The First Degree (11 charges)
• Robbery In The Second Degree (1 charge)
• Theft In The First Degree (2 charges)
• Theft of Motor Vehicle (4 charges)
• Unlawful Possession of a Firearm in the Second Degree (3 charges)

22–1–06734–5

Robbery In The Second Degree

Bellevue police found the victim in this case bleeding from his head after being attacked. He told investigators he’d finished eating at Daniel’s Broiler and was walking back to his hotel and carrying a Grinch ornament that he bought for his daughter. As he was walking through the crosswalk, the defendant attacked him from behind, and the victim believed the defendant hit him with a chain. The defendant also kicked him while the victim tried to crawl away and sole the ornament, police said. Another person called police for the victim, and Bellevue Police found the defendant, who had been trespassed Kemper properties earlier that same evening. King County prosecutors rush filed the case and argued that the defendant, who had an active warrant out of Edmonds Municipal Court at the time, is a danger to the community and should be held on $150,000 bail. The first appearance judge agreed. This is the first case for the defendant referred to King County prosecutors since a 2020 case that was rush fled and that led to a conviction for Theft in the First Degree.

22–1–00813–6

Theft in the First Degree (2 charges)

Identity Theft in the First Degree (1 charge)

This case involves a former employee of Zulily scheming to steal shipping fees with what he called the “OfficeSpace project,” according to Seattle Police investigators. The defendant was employed at Zulily from December 2018 until he was fired on June 9, 2022. While at Zulily, he was employed as a software engineer as part of Zulily’s “Shopping Experience” team, and he had direct involvement in the coding of the customer checkout process of the Zulily website. Starting in the spring of 2022, the defendant began editing Zulily’s software code in ways that allowed him to steal from the company. Police said specifically, and at different times, the defendant inserted three types of malicious code in the checkout process at Zulily. The first was an original code that diverted some customer shipping costs from Zulily’s account to his personal account through which the defendant unlawfully obtained $110,240.71. After Zulily began investigating that first issue, police said a replacement code that double-charged a small percentage of Zulily customers for shipping, allowing the defendant to route a ‘full’ shipping cost to both Zulily’s accounts and his own account, through which the defendant unlawfully obtained $151,645.50 from customers. He’s also accused of reducing the cost of expensive items that he was purchasing on Zulily.com to pennies per unit, a method by which he unlawfully obtained $40,842.31 from Zulily. Through these three methods, investigators said the defendant stole a combined $302,278.52 before his employment was terminated in June 2022. In an interview with police, investigators said the defendant confirmed that he named his scheme after the movie. In the movie Office Space, characters who dislike their jobs plant a virus in the banking system to embezzle fractions of cents on each financial operation into a personal account to embezzle money, according to IMDB. The characters take more than $300,000.

22–1–05307–7

Possession Of Stolen Vehicle

Unlawful Possession of a Firearm in the Second Degree

On Dec. 16, Renton Police were dispatched to a vehicle with no plates in which the defendant was slumped over in the driver’s seat. The vehicle was registered as stolen and the vehicle had significant ignition damage. When law enforcement attempted to remove the defendant from the vehicle, the defendant refused to exit, resulting in law enforcement having to use both physical force and Tasers to attempt to remove the defendant from the vehicle. While attempting to remove the vehicle, officers observed a Ruger pistol in the vehicle between the driver’s seat and the door next to the defendant. When King County prosecutors rush filed this case, the defendant had three active warrants and is prohibited from having guns because of multiple previous felony convictions, including previous unlawful gun possession cases. We argued that he should be held on $15,000 bail.

These case summaries, which were posted Dec. 27, 2022, are not expected to be updated. To see additional details in each case, go to the KC-Script Portal.