Local elections bring a high level of scrutiny on each candidate for city council. While most candidates have a minimal history with the law, some do not have a clean record. This article looks into the criminal or court histories of Bothell Council Candidates vying for position 4.

A Bothell Reporter investigation has found through King County Court documents that Bothell City Council candidate James G. McNeal, 49, was charged with, and pled guilty to, felony eluding of police when he was 19 years old and had extensive issues with the Internal Revenue Service from unpaid taxes concerning a business he owned.

However, the candidate said that racial profiling and harassment by police within King County started long before and contributed to the Class C Felony charge. McNeal also said that he has learned from the tax mistakes made while owning his own business.

McNeal, offspring of a white mother and a black father who was an inspector for the city of Seattle, started having run-ins with the law around the time he started to drive.

“When I turned 16, I got my driver’s license and from there my world changed,” McNeal said. “I had bought my own car and paid for all my own stuff, and when I started driving I started seeing another world and that’s when I started having problems getting pulled over.”

McNeal claims that he endured racial profiling, harassment and a disregard for his humanity. He states that during the course of many months, law enforcement within King County pulled him over for minor issues, such as defective license plate lights, tail lights out and other minor offenses.

“My first incident with the police, getting pulled over, was when I bought a Nissan pickup truck,… and I was proud of that because it was flashy, it was new, it had the hot stereo system in it,” McNeal said. “I was driving down the road [near Finn Hill in Kirkland] and I remember it like it was yesterday.”

The officer pulled McNeal’s friend to the side and had McNeal, then 16-years-old, put his hands on the hood of the car. A second patrol car arrived and the two officers then proceeded to tear apart McNeal’s truck, according to the council candidate. According to McNeal, they pulled the stereo out, the speakers were torn from the car, ensuring that there was nothing stolen or hidden within the pickup truck.

“It was a little rainy, and all of my stuff was sitting out in the rain, and after that incident they let us go,” McNeal said. “And he warned me ‘You know when you drive cars like this, you’re going to have problems.’ That was the first run-in I had with the law.”

McNeal would be pulled over for not having tailpipes long enough, mud-flaps wide enough, not having license plate lights, noise disturbance for an in-vehicle stereo being too loud, and more.

“I remember coming home everyday as a prep cook and getting pulled over in the same spot by the same cop, five days in a row,” McNeal said. “I started to get frustrated and angry; I didn’t think ‘Because I was black I’m getting pulled over.’ Back then ‘racial profiling’ wasn’t a term we used.”

The culmination of the police harassment came when McNeal was 19-years-old; a felony eluding police charge.

“I’m not bitter about it. It’s what made me who I am today and it’s made me better for it,” McNeal said. “What happened to me was, it caused me to do something that I had no idea would come back to effect me 29 years later. And that is running from them.”

Even in his own words, made in a court record statement, McNeal said that his actions were illegal and dangerous.

“In King County, while driving a motor vehicle, [I willfully failed] to bring the vehicle to a stop and, driving in a willful and wanton disregard for person or property, while attempting to elude a marked police vehicle which has given a visual and audible signal,” McNeal wrote in a 1986 court record.

Prosecutor Lisa Roehl, based on police reports, states in the Certification for Determination of Probable Cause that McNeal disobeyed a police officer’s lights and sirens, and failed to pull over for not having a drivers license.

“The driver of the motorcycle turned around and looked at the patrol car and then accelerated very rapidly, refusing to stop. The driver then accelerated his motorcycle to 60 miles per hour in a 30 mile per hour zone… [driving] at speeds of 75 miles per hour in a residential area,” the record states. “The driver, identified as the defendant James McNeal, stated he fled because he did not have a driver’s license.”

However, neither the prosecutor’s determination of probable cause nor the police report state that the conduct of police officers leading up to the elusion of police was unlawful harassment.

“The state’s certification for determination for probable cause indicates that at the time of his arrest, James indicated that he fled because he did not possess a driver’s license,” the presiding judge’s sentencing memo states. “This is not in fact what James stated to the police officers nor is it true. James did and does possess a valid Washington driver’s license.”

According to documents obtained by the Reporter, the judge presiding over McNeal’s felony case deemed the actions of police a pattern of harassment and, while not vindicating McNeal, led the courts to be lenient in sentencing.

“His reason for not stopping involve a pattern of harassment by the King County police towards James, which has included numerous stops of him without justification over a period of the past two years,” the judge’s sentencing memo states. “The harassment initiated following James’ refusal to act as an informant for King County police. During incidents of harassment, the officers have specifically stated that ‘James has to pay the price’ for his refusal to cooperate with the King County police…”

“Numerous officers assigned to the precinct, which includes the area in which James was stopped, know James by sight and know his motorcycle. It is unquestionable that officer Samenville recognized James prior to the stop,” the judge’s memo continues. “James acted in fleeing out of both fear and frustration. On numerous prior occasions when he has been stopped by King County police officers, without justification, he has been manhandled and subjected to verbal degradation.”

“This is not an isolated incident,” the judge states, finalizing the case observations.

According to McNeal, the defending attorney was able to prove that the police were lying and that McNeal did not wreck his motorcycle, incurring injury, but was beaten the night of the eluding police.

“I got off the motorcycle and there were guns pointed at me, yelling for me to put my hands in the air… I put my helmet on the seat of the motorcycle, and as soon as I put the helmet on the motorcycle I flew in the air, and they beat the [expletive] out of me,” McNeal stated. “They dislocated my shoulder, they bruised my ribs, they broke my glasses, [and] they marred up my face.”

Through a series of questions to the police, the attorney proved the police were lying about McNeal’s injuries being connected to an alleged motorcycle accident.

And, while this case was not isolated in his claims of harassment, it also wasn’t the last time McNeal would have a run-in with the law.

According to Washington State records, he has had a minor assault charge in 1987 and a DUI in 1993. However, it would be another 10 years before he had any kind of run-in with the courts – this time concerning unpaid taxes.

Legal issues with taxes

“There’s always been that entrepreneur spirit, some things have been successful, some things haven’t,” McNeal said. “I started painting numbers and addresses on curbs, I’ve always tried to pay my own way.”

In 2003, he began having tax issues involving a business he owned, called MDI Divisions. According to McNeal, he was paying his employees first and the government second.

The council candidate said that the issues came about after his company completed maintenance work and his clients were not paying their bills. So, instead of paying taxes, McNeal paid workers first and taxes second.

“What happened was, we’d go out and do all this work, the guys would need to get paid and you would need to pay [Labor and Industries], but the association doesn’t pay you. So now what you’re doing is using your profits from one job to pay another job,” McNeal said. “When you’re doing the large volume that we did, it started to snowball on us.”

While McNeal did have an accountant, he concedes that he should have looked at the tax information more carefully.

“So there was a lady who did accounting for me…In the end, I take full responsibility for my companies failure,” McNeal said. “I will tell you that was a learning lesson for me, regardless of who is doing your books, you still need to review your books.”

According to McNeal, he sold his old house in order to pay off tax debts and that the accounts were closed. According to Washington Court Records, all tax issues have been finalized and closed.

Here are the other candidates for Bothell City Council position 4

Tim Ottersburg

Tim Ottersburg has had a few minor parking tickets from when he lived in Seattle.

Bob Carsrud

Bob Carsrud has gone to court twice, once for a divorce and another time as a tort case.

In 2006, Carsrud was sued by an inmate of Monroe Correctional Facility, along with eight other defendants from the Department of Corrections, concerning a question of bias or factual errors in doctors reports. The case was summarily dismissed by a King County Superior Court judge.

“As I recall, I was deposed and that was really my involvement in the case, I don’t even think I got an official notice from the [Attorney General’s] office that it had been dismissed,” Carsrud said.

The charging documents state that “The defendants Sparks, Carsrud and Leeberg were not properly trained or supervised by the DOC and Clarke, a circumstance which proximately caused the defendants to engage in actions which were torts against the plaintiff and his interests causing him harm” for allowing an evaluation of the patient “to contain false and misleading information about the plaintiff and permitted it to be used for official purposes.”

Editor’s Note: The subheading ‘Legal issues with the IRS’ has been changed to ‘Legal issues with taxes’.