Federal prosecutors announced today that they plan to retry embattled Washington State Auditor Troy Kelley. This is after a federal jury failed to reach a verdict on all but one of the 15 charges levied against Kelley previously. The News Tribune reports that the prosecution will again argue that Kelley pocketed $3 million in fees which should have been refunded to homeowners as part of his work in a business called Post Closing Department. The defense, which expressed surprise over the decision, argues that homeowners were never promised any refund, so no wrongdoing was done. The judge set the new trial for March 13 next year, after Kelley's term as auditor ends.
Seattle’s tech boom is widening racial divides in the city and leading to so-called “black flight,” reports the Seattle Times. Between 2000 and 2013, the median household income of a white Seattleite shot up from $45,700 to $70,200. During the same time, the median household income of a black Seattleite went down, from $32,000 to $25,700. The in-depth weekend report also notes that home ownership rate among black Seattleites fell in half. Nowhere are these changes more prevalent than the Central District, a historically black neighborhood which has seen many of its residents leave Seattle over the last few years.
Down in Tacoma, about 100 people marched outside the police headquarters Monday calling on the department to fire officer Jared Williams after a video was released showing him grabbing a 15-year-old girl by the hair, shoving her to the ground, and then using a stun gun on her. A News Tribune report, picked up by the Times, notes that the girl, Minoque Tillman, is suing the officer and the company that owns the mall where she was biking in the parking lot when the incident happened in 2014.
