Plaza Select Foods is located on Madison Street near the intersection of Boren Avenue and Madison Street. It is a local convenience store less than a minute on foot from my — the victim's — residence. It is in this crowded shop that the incident took place.

In the mind of the Prosecution — and likely the Court, as this same notion is later confirmed by both the Defense and the Judge — criminal history appears to mean only criminal convictions and sentencing within the King County judicial system. Criminal history does not appear to include charges entered into the public record at the County District or Municipal Court levels, for example, unless the defendant is subsequently arraigned and convicted of a crime.

For example, on April 19, 2021 — a mere eight months before I was assaulted, my assailant was arrested and charged with two accounts of assault and two accounts of harassment in the Municipal Court of Seattle. A bail was set for $1,000 and apparently paid by my assailant. On the following day my assailant (Deangelo Majed Arnett) failed to appear in court, and no complaint was filed. The case was eventually dropped.

When I inquired with the city as to why no complaint was filed, I was told by Natalie Walton-Anderson that the city was under no obligation to answer my question and would not — this despite, my having explained that I was a victim of assault by the same person later in the same year. This incident is not considered to be a part of my assailant's criminal record.

Deangelo Majed Arnett was arrested at his home, brought to the King County Jail, and confined until his arraignment hearing. Shortly after his arrest he was brought before the District Court by his jailors, whereupon a District Court judge decided that the suspect would remain in custody. At this time a bail was also set. Within several weeks of the suspects arrest and subsequent confinement, my assailant was brought before a Superior Court judge and arraigned. Whereupon my assailant was scheduled for his first hearing and a trial date was set.

In well over 90 percent of criminal cases in America today, a trial never takes place!

Please find below my correspondence with the City of Seattle.

• Request
• Automated Acknowledgment
• Decline Notice
• Follow-up Explanation

  Brief Description: The explanation was not provided with the Decline Notice. I was compelled to contact the office of the Assistant City Attorney, Natalie Walton-Anderson, in order to obtain the explanation. What you see is what I was provided.

The restitution packet that I submitted consisted of several documents including the official government form that typically accompanies a formal request for restitution as well as a letter from my karate instructor and my family physician. Other documents were also included, but for reasons of privacy I have not made them available in the <attached packet>.

Was the judge in possession of the packet at the time of the sentencing hearing? I do not know.

I had sent many documents to the Prosecutor's Office; some were addressed to the Court, because I was told to address the Court via the Prosecutor's Office. I was not made privy to what documents the Judge had in front of him at the time of the hearing.

We will return to the issue of restitution later in the “play”.

Before the hearing began I had asked the prosecution to allow me to be seated during my presentation. Typically, both the prosecution and defense attorneys stand when addressing the judge.

Although I am somewhat familiar with the law, I am not a practicing advocate, and the jargon of the criminal judicial system and the judicial system in general are not areas of expertise that I can claim. My reference to the Court in this context was to the entire criminal justice system — specifically the State and the Prosecutor's office.

The amount of time between the arraignment and the sentencing hearing was extraordinary. In my first meeting with Brynn Jacobsen (see Stage Crew above) I was told that it could take up to a full year for the case to be processed. Our meeting took place in August of 2022; it was now May 10, 2024 — a full nine months beyond what I was given as a probable upper-limit by the attorney. Not only had the State sat on the case for a full year before a plea deal was agreed between the Prosecutor's office and my assailant's “public” defender, but my assailant was allowed to sit on the matter for an additional seven months. Had I not requested, for a second time, that I be allowed to speak to a judge in early November of 2023, I am certain that even more time would have passed, or that the case would have been dropped all together.

Not only was there a willing witness to the crime, but the entire incident was captured on video with an audio recording. There was little, if anything, to dispute that had not been mentioned in passing at the arraignment, and only then because Detective Cruise had indicated doubt in his Certificate for Determination of Probable Cause. In this statement the good detective wrote:

“They both stood motionless for a few seconds and then the suspect could suddenly be seen lunging forward toward V/Stegemann. V/Stegemann reacts by looking downward at first, then turning toward the suspect and possibly pushing him.

I did not push my assailant; I did not even touch him. I turned abruptly to surprise him, but he was completely ready. That the Detective's doubt was turned into stated fact by my assailant's “Public” Defender was a clear warning that I had better do my homework. This became a primary motivation for my further research of my assailant's public record. The numerous police reports that I discovered showed clearly that my assailant is accustomed to denial and on-the-spot improvisation. In short, he was a liar of convenience.

Important was that the case against my assailant was a slam-dunk. This was even told me by Hannah Godwin (see Stage Crew above) when she assured me, as we entered into the trial phase in mid-December 2023, that a 2nd Degree assault was the appropriate charge, and that she would win hands-down.

Surely Detective Cruise would never have taken up the case, if he, too, did not believe that there was a good chance for conviction.

I invite you to examine the Prosecuting Attorney's Case Summary and Request for Bail and/or Conditions of Release in which no mention is made of the fact that my assailant had been charged with two counts of assault and harassment by the Municipal Court of Seattle only months before he assaulted me.

During the arraignment hearing there was also no mention of my assailant's “rap-sheet” — his very long public record with which I would eventually become well-acquainted, and that was clearly available to every member of the cast of this play including Judge Lee, Leesa Manion, Jeff Dernbach, the Judge's bailiff and the King County Superior Court's janitor, if only any of them had taken a moment to look.

Although I was near certain that I knew who my assailant was, I waited until Detective Cruise ascertained his identity before beginning a thorough research. Alas, by the time of my assailant's arraignment hearing I was only able to obtain the results of a preliminary online case search. This I presented to Judge Bender, but she discounted it, because the indicated felony charge had been dropped by the Municipal Court of Seattle.

Did she even know, as I would later discover through my many public records requests that the case had been abandoned, because my assailant failed to appear in court for his arraignment and sacrificed his bail in exchange for his continued freedom. And, so it was that six months later I, too, would be assaulted!

Judge Bender finished by lowering my assailant' bail — likely to placate his mother who testified on his behalf — and thereby permitted my assailant's release. Was his mother even aware of her son' extra-legal behavior? Did she even care? Where was his father anyway? My assailant was 32 years old at the time of the assault!

Clearly the goal of the Court is not to provide for the safety of our community. Common sense is not permitted. Do not dig any further than the law necessitates. There is neither time, nor money. Better that the city, county, and State expand the public domain with new, impressive, highly visible infrastructure projects than secure the public domain that already exists!

Is it that our public officials are incompetent or that they are making a political trade off? Crime reported in the local press is, but a story that comes and goes — well, at least, until you are directly affected with a lasting injury. Impressive infrastructure, on the other hand, endures in the mind of its users and allows you to escape what you most fear.

Meanwhile we are told that we should accept nothing less than zero carbon emissions in order to mitigate the threat of global warming based on mathematical experiments of highly complex real phenomenon that do not even include the most basic element of cloud cover — cover that is being manipulated, by the way, in the form of chem- and con-trails, as our atmosphere is increasingly polluted and endangered by accumulating jet-fuel exhaust.

I will leave the grievous issue of mask mandates and mandated experimental mRNA injections to your imagination.

The primary duty of American government is to defend the person and property of its citizens. It takes courage and stamina to stand up to criminal violence, but it takes very little effort to frighten an already impoverished taxpayer with government-approved science fiction, and to expand the public domain thereby increasing the chance that the taxpayer will be personally violated. The citizens of Seattle are afraid to walk the streets of downtown Seattle at night, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Councilman, Mr. Governor. Just ask them!

What I should have said was the Defense, because it was my assailant's “Public” Defender who prepared the document. This said, Commissioner Jennifer Atchison did receive it and provided testimony that the Defendant's signature was valid. What I have since learned is that the word Court is reserved for the conduct, speech, and actions of the presiding judge in his own courtroom.

During the sentencing hearing of a convicted criminal the victim of the crime has the right to make a statement. This is known as the Victim's Statement. The statement is optional and can be provided in the form of a written statement to the Judge, an oral presentation before the Court, or both. The statement appears to serve two purposes: on the one hand, it provides an interested Judge with the opportunity to better assess the true ramifications of the criminal act; on the other hand, it dupes the victim into thinking that “the system” serves his best interest when it surely does not.

In my case, it provided the Judge with the opportunity to lecture me on his world view, apologize for the system's egregious shortcomings, and attempt to disparage me for spending the Court's time and thereby denying a speedy trial and due process to alleged criminals who are currently sitting behind bars for much more serious offenses.

I truly hope that the additional time that I have devoted to the creation of this five-act reality play will demonstrate to “a candid world” that this two-and-one-half year investigative ordeal has not been for nought.

During the first scheduled sentencing hearing that I attended and was abandoned by the Prosecution on behalf of the Defense, I listened to a young woman read five pages of written text that she had submitted to the Court in advance of the hearing. As I was not a participant in the case and could barely hear what she read, I was determined not to do the same. I also did not wish to give the Defense an opportunity to fabricate a dishonest response to my statement before it was even presented. It was for these reasons that I provided only an outline. I would speak from the heart, so to speak.

Before the hearing in which the outline was first provided I showed it to the Victim Assistant and was told that the Judge would be interested in all that I had outlined. Unfortunately, things turned out differently.

Looking back through my email for the year 2022 I was able to determine that the arraignment hearing for Deangelo Majed Arnett took place on Wednesday, June 15, 2022. He posted bond on the following day and was released on the same evening. I was notified by the Prosecutor's Office on Friday, June 17, 2022 and had my first interview with Brynn Jacobson, the prosecuting attorney, on Friday, June 24, 2022.

On June 9, 2023, after repeated delays and much frustration with the Public Records Office, I requested an audience with the judge in charge of the case titled State of Washington vs Deangelo M. Arnett. As I was neither the defendant, nor the prosecution in the case, I was told by the court that my request must pass through the Prosecutor's Office. So, I informed the Office of my desire to speak to the judge and was granted instead a second meeting with Brynn Jacobson. This meeting was conducted over the telephone and did not take place until Wednesday, June 14, 2023 — one day shy of a full year since my assailant!s arraignment — at which time I was told that a plea agreement had been submitted to the defendant. I would like to share with you a portion of an email conversation that I had with the Victim Assistant employed by the Prosecutor's Office to buffer it from victims like myself who actually care about the way justice is meeted out in King County.

Victim Assistant >> “The prosecutor's office wants to be aware of your input prior to making their decision about a case resolution, but they are able to move forward over your objection. Brynn informed you of the plea prior to her office extending it to the defendant. As part of your Victim Impact Statement, you can share with the Sentencing judge that you were not in agreement with the resolution.”

Victim >> “I have now had two interviews with Brynn Jacobson: a recorded ZOOM call (6/24/22) and a telephone call (6/16/23). You were present at both conversations.

1. In the initial ZOOM call I was instructed and assured — more than once — that I would be consulted about any plea arrangement agreed by the Prosecutor's Office.
2. In the telephone call, I was told that a decision had been made. The call was not about consultation. In fact, I was not asked anything. Rather, I was instructed and asked numerous questions in an effort to understand how the decision had been reached. Whether the decision had already been submitted to the judge or not, is a moot point. The prosecution was not interested in my input for the purpose of amending an already agreed settlement. You were present, I do not know how you can have interpreted the meeting otherwise.”

My assailant was arrested on Thursday, May 26, 2022 — nearly five months after I was assaulted on Thursday, December 30, 2021. I received notification of the arrest on the same day of arrest from Detective Cruise. Memorial Day was Monday, May 30, 2022.

My medical records indicate that the indirect inquinal hernia likely brought about the wrenching fall that fractured my left fibula was not clearly identified until August 12, 2022.

The fatty deposit that eventually led to the examination was noted while I was on crutches already in March of the same year. At the time it was not thought to be a hernia, and no association was made between the “deposit” and the assault. As a result, the hernia never became a part of the court record, and was never a consideration in the plea agreement.

When I brought the matter to the attention of the trial attorney assigned to the case in December of 2023, many months later, I was told that it would not be needed for a conviction of 2nd Degree Assault. The fractured bone was deemed sufficient.

In the end a plea agreement is arranged behind closed doors. The victim is not allowed to participate in the negotiation, because he is also a potential witness in a trial should the defendant refuse the agreement. When the primary objective of the system is to secure a plea deal and thus avoid the time and cost of jury trial, denying the victim the opportunity to participate in the negotiation is a rather flimsy excuse for excluding him from the negotiation.

Both the prosecution and the defense know that the lowest conviction and least punishment possible is the surest way to obtain the defendant's plea of guilty. Both also understand that the injured party will likely resist a lowering of the conviction and punishment, if the injured party is willing to see the matter go to trial and participate as witness to his own victimization. This said, the victim has no input in the decision of whether or not the case goes to trial. The decision is left entirely to the alleged criminal: he can plead guilty to a lesser crime and punishment and accept the plea deal or choose trial.

In effect, the entire justice system is biased toward the system and the criminals, and victims merely serve as an excuse for keeping the system going. More bluntly put, the lawyers and criminals are in bed with one another.

Place yourself in the position of an alleged criminal who is not confined and free to roam the streets. As there is apparently no time limit on how long he can delay before making his decision to accept a plea of guilty with a reduced charge and punishment, there is also no incentive for him to make a decision. This means that he must be compelled from pressure by the prosecution.

It would appear to me that most victims want to forget their pain and put the matter aside as quickly as possible. Only people that are truly vengeful or on an investigative mission such as myself would be willing to hold a grudge for so long.

Fewer cases to prosecute means less work, or more time to prosecute those cases of greater interest and complexity.

As a result, the prosecution sits on its hands while the plaints of victims gradually fade, if they are even made public. Meanwhile the criminally-minded are allowed to roam free, advertise their exploits, and spread the word that violence works.

The State >> “Got an issue, use violence.”

Prosecutor's Office >> “There are fewer convictions. Crime is going down!”

The Woke >> “Just make sure that you target the proper group, and that you are not a member of the group targeted.”

The Plea Packet is a compilation of six documents including:

Pre-Arraignment

• Certificate for Determination of Probable Cause (May 18, 2022)

  Brief Description: Detective Cruise's analysis of what happened on December 30, 2021 as reported on January 3, 2022. I assume that this document was presented to the District Court shortly after my assailant was arrested and confined.

• Prosecuting Attorney Case Summary and Request for Bail and/or Conditions of Release (May 31, 2022)

  Brief Description: This document and Appendix B is what the Prosecution used to advocate for my assailant's continued confinement at the Superior Court arraignment hearing. To the best of my knowledge the prosecution had made no attempt to investigate my assailant's most recent police record. The criminal implications are profound.

• Appendix B (June 3, 2022)

Plea Agreement

• Non-Felony Plea Agreement and State's Recommendation (January 11, 2024)

  Brief Description: Important to notice are the dates of the agreement. It appears to have been prepared on January 11, 2024 and brought before the judge on March 27, 2024 — the same day that my assailant agreed to the terms of the agreement (see Statement of Defendant on Plea of Guilty below).

  In other words the agreement between the Prosecution and the Defense attorneys that I was told was reached in August 2023, and about which I was not consulted as promised in June 2022, was not created until two days after the case was initially scheduled for trial on January 9, 2024!

• Statement of Defendant on Plea of Guilty (March 27, 2024)

  Brief Description: March 27, 2024 was a Wednesday. It occurred during the Easter Holy Week of 2024. It was on this day in 33 A.D. that Judas is said to have betrayed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

• First Amendment Information (No Date)

  Brief Description: This document bears no date, but it can be assumed to have been created in preparation for my assailant's admission of guilt to a 4th degree, non-felony, charge of assault.

The documents in the plea packet presented to me, and I assume to the court, were not compiled in chronological order.

I misspoke when I said,

“First of all, I've already referred to the Federal Way Arrest. These are previous charges. On April 3, 2023, this was after the incident and before the arraignment he was arrested for an e-ticket. I have the case docket, and I have the case number. If you would like.”

In this titled note I will correct only the matter of the Federal Way case.

• Request for Court Records
• Court Dockets

What we learn from these dockets is that my assailant was arrested and issued an e-ticket in the city of Federal Way on September 15, 2022 — exactly three months after he was arraigned for 2nd Degree Criminal Assault in the King County Superior Court.

Federal Way is a municipality located in King County. During his arrest it was discovered that my assailant was driving with an expired license and charged with a criminal offense. A hearing was set for September 27, 2022 with Judge Dal. Although the hearing did not take place a meeting transpired at which my assailant presented himself. The criminal offense was reduced to an ordinary traffic violation; whereupon my assailant was assigned 10 hours of community service and fined $150.

By March 10, 2023 the Municipal Court of Federal Way apparently realized that Deangelo Majed Arnett was not responding to its demands. Neither record of his community service, nor record of payment of his required fine, were discovered. As a result, the community service requirement was simply dropped, and his total financial obligation rose to $975. By March 24, 2023 the City of Federal Way had notified the Department of Licensing of my assailant's delinquency.

I had now been off my crutches for nearly a year, and another year would pass before my assailant would even admit to having assaulted me (see Page 9). On May 10, 2024 my assailant was told that he would attend anger management training during his probation.

What are the chances of this occurring?

Exhibit 3 represents many tens of hours of work and several tens of dollars in processing fees paid to the Public Records Office. It is a detailed compilation of key facts regarding my assailant's police record from July 9, 2020 until April 20, 2022. It was submitted on August 13, 2022 in a letter to the Court via the Prosecutor's Office after my first of two online meetings with Brynn Jacobson on June 24, 2022. Two points should be made in this regard:

1. At the time of the arraignment I had not yet begun a thorough investigation of my assailant's public record following my initial request for the police report submitted by Officer Shields, the intake officer for the reported crime:

   “On 1/18/2022 11:01:01 AM, City of Seattle Public Records Request Center wrote:

   Subject: Public Records Center - Police :: P085852-011722
   Body: This communication is in response to your public disclosure request received on January 17, 2022 for any investigative follow-up to the initial report for incident number 22-2037.

   A search of the SPD Mark43 records management database under case number 22-2037 for any supplemental or follow-up reports related to the incident resulted in no responsive documents. There are no reports in file for the incident other than the initial report and the closed case does not have an assigned detective. We searched the CAD database for any related follow-up events and there were none located. Therefore the Seattle Police Department does not have responsive records to your request.

   This concludes the Seattle Police Department's response to your request.”

   Notice that according to the Public Records Office the case had already been closed.

2. At the time, my view of the judicial system was still undecided. My friends, acquaintances, and even complete strangers had all told me that I was wasting my time, and that I would finish with great disappointment.

   Knowing from my own experience that reputation can be illusive I tried to keep an open mind even up to the sentencing hearing and my second encounter with Judge Nelson Lee, born Lee Kuo Hua. The goal was to give the Washington State criminal justice system as practiced in King County and the City of Seattle a chance to disprove its now, in my opinion, clearly deserved bad reputation.

A careful examination of Exhibit 3 will show that for each reported incident I provided the incident number of the police report, as well as the date, day, and time of the incident — this is to say nothing of the sex, race, and name of the victim, reported party, reporting party or witness, and a brief description of the nature of the incident.

Now, I am not sure that Judge Lee could have been any clearer about what he meant when he called Exhibit 3 a hearsay document.

“I know nothing about its reliability. I know nothing about its veracity. I know nothing about its source.”

What is near certain is that neither the Court, nor the Prosecutor's Office, took any action to verify the “veracity” and “source” of the reported incidents in the exhibit.

It was now May 10, 2024. Exhibit 3 should have been filed with the Court via the Prosecutors' Office in my August 13, 2022 letter! Certainly, the Prosecutors' Office had far easier access to my assailant's police record than I did.

It is at this point where my relationship with Judge Lee become adversarial. Not only did I find his remarks poorly thought through, but I found them arrogant and shallow coming from an individual of his social rank. Let us spend a moment and examine each of his remarks:

• “I'm not going to give you the lesson in civics or our nation's history.”

  I have lived for long periods of time in eight countries on three continents including Japan (9 years), Hong Kong (7 years), Saudi Arabia (4 years), South Korea (1 year), Thailand (1 year), Germany (2 years), France (1 year), and the United States — my place of birth and where I was raised until I made my first overseas adventure between high school and college in the summer of 1967. In effect, I have lived a third of my life as a second class citizen (a sometimes desired and sometimes undesired guest in my various host nations, and everywhere as an unwilling target for English language practice).

  In each country of residence I made a concerted effort to make the language, culture, and history of my host country my own. Today I speak and write English, German, French, and Japanese with good working fluency. In addition, I know bits and pieces — some large and some small — of Arabic, Cantonese, Korean, Spanish, and Thai.

  My time overseas was not spent as a sheltered member of the armed services or US diplomatic corp. Neither was I a corporate executive or marketing agent for an American or other foreign firm. Rather, I lived abroad as an independent student and employee in various work capacities ranging from a carpenter's helper and industrial laborer in Germany to a senior instructor or lecturer at several prestigious academic institutions including the Chinese University of Hong Kong, King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Saitama (National) University in Saitama, Japan.

  Judge Lee's American name, Nelson K. H. Lee strongly suggests that he is the son of Chinese immigrants. A little research on the internet revealed that the initials K and H are short for Kuo and Hua. His Chinese name is therefore Lee Kuo Hua. That he received his Ph.D. in law from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California suggests strongly that he was one very privileged immigrant youth.

  As my father was also first generation American, I am the last person to hold Judge Lee's status as a foreign-born American against him. The following I can state with certainty, however. Had my father ever become a judge in an American court room, he would not have displayed German text as a backdrop to his court bench!

  During the hearing the angle and the distance were never conducive for me to read the Chinese on the wall in Judge Lee's courtroom.

  It was enough that my father retained his German name when he became a naturalized American citizen — a family tradition that I have maintained in every country that I have lived. (See the origin of my officially adopted Japanese name and Cantonese nicknames, of which one would surely have been made official, had my sojourn in Hong Kong ended successfully. The names were, and still are Hashimori Iwato, Hamo, and Kiusau.) No, my father did not adopt an American first name, as did Judge Nelson Lee, but he was assigned an American nickname that he did not resist.

  Then too, being proud of my German family heritage in America has not come without its costs. For, while teaching in American grade schools after my graduation from the University of Michigan in the early 70s, it was not entirely rare that I felt compelled to erase the image of a German swastika from a classroom blackboard in which I was about to teach or had just taught. Indeed, grade school teachers are viewed by students as figures of authority, and I tend to be more disciplined than most. I set a high standard and encouraged my students to live up to it.

  Furthermore, I spent much of my youth watching war movies while the American film industry covered for the Israeli take-over of Arab Palestine and the emergen No, America's dislike for NAZI Germany was not a mere accident of war. In effect, I have always worn an invisible swastika on my back.

  In the end, I do know a thing or two about racial, ethnic, and national discrimination and would gladly match my understanding of the history of America's “Black” population and American history, in general — both pre- and post-Lincoln — against Judge Lee's understanding any day of the week.

  Then too, it was neither his, nor my place to lecture either on the history of "Black" Americans. The issue should have been whether a well-demonstrated recent history of clear racial bigotry added to my assailant's danger to society. Unfortunately, this never came to pass, because Judge Lee wished not only to avoid the issue of race, but blame me for bringing it to his attention.

• “I understand 100% how you feel and why you feel the way you feel.”

  This is a refrain very similar to the one that I heard the week before when I sat through two, back-to-back sentencing hearings, before my own was allowed to be cancelled by the Prosecution and Judge at the Defense's request.

  It appears to be an oral routine developed by Judge Lee to indicate to the victim how much the judge truly cares as he presides over a system of justice that can only be described as self-serving.

• “But, even if Mr. Arnett lashed out at you because of your race or what he perceived to be your race, that does not equate to the sort of racial attack, the historical racial attack that people like Mr. Arnett have faced in our nation's history.”

  Let us be clear about what is implied by Judge Lee's statement.

  The racial bias of a “black” American is not equivalent to the racial bias of a “white” American. In other words in Judge Lee's courtroom two different standards are to be applied when it comes to contemporary racial bigotry and this double-standard is not to be discussed.

  There were several reasons why I left for Japan in 1991. Two of them were that I had tired of America's racial and religious tension. When I returned in 2007 I was pleasantly surprised by how much the racial tension had receded, but by this time I was professionally committed and returned overseas. Matters are now worse than they were in 1991.

  I voted for Obama by the way, just not a second term.

• “Now, I'm not making a political statement here, but I just want you to understand that while what happened to you was absolutely abhorrent, it should never have happened to you. I think when you make sort of extreme statements or absolute statements, you need to understand the context of what you're talking about.”

  What prompted him to bring up politics, if it were not the fact that Judge Lee is an elected public official? I was the victim of a crime that he, the Judge himself, would eventually concede was poorly negotiated by the state.

  His role is to serve the people of his community as an impartial arbiter — not render political judgment against a victim who had every reason to believe that he was the target of racial prejudice!

  Life his tough when you are treated as a second-class citizen. I have spent a third of my life being just that. It does not mean that you blame all of society and everyone you meet for your “perceived misfortune”, however. Rather, you deal with the matter as it occurs until you become so adept at righting the “perceived injustice” in your daily encounters, that it no longer gets in your way. On the contrary, you learn to take advantage of the “perceived injustice” and make it play in your favor. This is how people like Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, and Booker T. Washington advanced.

  What, was even “sort of extreme” or “absolute” about my having stated,

  “There appears to be a strong racial bias.”

  At this point the judge becomes personally offensive. Not only have I been deemed ignorant, but now I am being labeled extreme in my ignorance. One could almost hear the drums of “white supremacy” becoming louder and louder in the silence.

  I remained patient.

“I am not going to make that speculation .... I wouldn't make that inference either.”

Although I have read a substantial amount of legal literature, I have never attended law school. This said, it is difficult for me to believe that Judge Lee is not familiar with basic statistical inference. In my August 13, 2022 letter to the Court I wrote:

“According to the highlights of the Bureau of Justice Statistics's report entitled Race and Hispanic Origin of Victims and Offenders, 2012-15 published in October 2017 ...”

1. “During 2012-15, half (51%) of violent victimizations were intraracial, that is both victims and offenders were the same race or both were of Hispanic origin.
2. In the majority of violent victimizations, white victims' offenders were white (57%)and black victims' offenders were black (63%).
3. The rates of total violent crime, serious violent crime, and simple assault were higher for intraracial victimizations than for interracial victimizations.

In effect, not only does the defendant's involvement in behavior exhibiting physical violence or threats thereof show a distinct racial bias, but that bias is seriously at odds with expected behavior in American society at large as it is applied to race and crime.”

Judge Lee's conclusion:

NOTHING TO SEE HERE!

My goal in bringing up the issue of race was neither to further punish America's past, nor was it to punish my assailant for being “black”. Rather, it was to entertain the notion that racial prejudice is a problem and contributes to the likelihood of violence.

“According to the Department of Justice (see Weblinks below) a hate crime is defined as

'a crime motivated by bias against race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.'

In conclusion, there is strong evidence that my original take on the nature of my assailant's criminal attack is correct — namely, that the attack was racially motivated. Accordingly, I request that the court give serious consideration to the obvious racial bigotry of my assailant and treat his attack on my person as a hate crime.”

What bothers me most about Judge Lee's response was not his decision to ignore my request, but the way in which my request was denied.

Then too, the question remains: Did he even ever see my letter? After all, I have no idea what the Prosecutors' Office provided Judge Lee. All communication between the Court and me was channeled through the Prosecutors' Office as a matter of protocol.

What I found particularly disturbing was the way in which Judge Lee replied when asked,

“Have you read my letter to the court from August of 202[2]?”

It is in this moment that the dialogue becomes totally derailed, and the conversation moves from the issue of racial motivation to political correctness.

It was not the words, but their underlying motivation in the context of the behavior exhibited by my assailant.

I did not call him out for being a rude “Black” male. I called him out for being rude. It was my aggressor who turned the encounter into a racially imbued knock down.

It is true, I have no way of knowing how he treats those of his own race when he becomes angry with them. I am not a part of his inner circle, and I had no knowledge of him before the incident. He might call everyone a nigger in a moment of rage, but that is not where the matter stopped. The terms “white boy” and “white nigga” are what issued from his foul mouth. If he was not targeting my race, then he was justifying his rude and subsequent violent behavior toward me by the different colors of our skin.

Once again, it was not the words, but the clear exhibition of racial bias, and the two-year-running police record of violent speech and behavior toward others of a race different from his own, that were at issue. Does racial bigotry make one more dangerous, Judge Lee? That was the question that needed to be answered.

It was a matter that I clearly wanted to discuss, and that the Judge was clearly against — one could say adamantly against — discussing.

In the outline of my presentation I clearly indicated the points that I wished to raise. The Judge, Prosecution, and Defense were all provided with copies the week before. Under the heading My Assailant / Character / Rude and Dangerous I had listed racial bigotry (Item 1.3.3) as an important factor of my overall assessment.

Had Judge Lee wanted he could have alerted me, before I began, that my intention to discuss my assailant's character was inappropriate. He did not. Instead he interrupted me midway, and as a result I was dissuaded from even mentioning the fact that my assailant had once before been charged with two counts of assault and harassment only eight months before he assaulted me.

Why had the City of Seattle failed to act? Had they acted would my assailant have been so eager to take me down on December 30, 2021?

I asked the city, but was told that it was none of my business!

I had asked him at the beginning not to take personally my criticism of the “system”, but he was gradually making it clear that he is just another cog in the wheel of a failed system.

I was offering him a way out, but he rejected it and became even more erect in his saddle of judicial arrogance.

I was tempted to ask what I had said that offended him, but I thought better of it. The dialogue was already far too personal, and we both seemed to sense it.

In the end, the hypocrisy was overwhelming. Race would not be made an issue in the courtroom of a justice appointed by a Democrat governor in a local Democrat stronghold that takes pride in its identity politics.

In Judge Lee's courtroom on May 10, 2024, the principal actors were Lee Kuo Hua (Judge Nelson Lee), Deangelo Majed Arnett, and myself. Our racial backgrounds were Chinese, West African, and Dutch-German. The work of the Mr. Arnett's “public” defenders and the office of our publicly elected prosecutor, Leesa Manion, had been completed behind closed doors long before the sentencing hearing took place.

The public record clearly showed that, not only had a tirade of racial slurs been issued against my person before I was viciously attacked, but that my assailant's public record was strongly, if not entirely, biased against those of racial appearance different from his own.

Under any other circumstances one could applaud a judge for not wanting to make a racial issue of a crime that had nothing to do with race. Unfortunately, it was clearly not the case in the case of Deangelo Majed Arnett.

In 2021 the Attorney General's Office headed by Bob Ferguson of the State of Washington published in its annual report:

Anti-Racist Commitment

“The Office of the Attorney General is committed to recognizing, addressing, and eradicating all forms of racism within the scope of its work and operations. Conversations about race require courage, respect, and compassion. We recognize that when we enter into these conversations, we may not always be comfortable and may need to lean into the discomfort. As an agency that strives to be anti-racist, it is our goal to identify, discuss, and challenge racial inequity in the workplace and the impact it has on our employees, and, within our authority, combat racism that impacts the people of the State of Washington.”

And, in the same report in his own words to the citizens of the State of Washington, our State's Attorney General wrote

“This year, we updated our mission statement to include an anti-racist commitment and created a Racial Equity Unit within the office. This unit works with all AGO divisions to provide training on racial equity toolkits, and coach agency employees to utilize the toolkits as appropriate for that division's work. It will also establish metrics to measure our progress.”

Bob Ferguson, Attorney General, State of Washington. Letter from AG Ferguson. 2021.

As I am not an employee of the State of Washington I have thankfully never been exposed to the “racial equity toolkit”. If Judge Lee's statements are indicative of its contents, the toolkit likely teaches critical race theory (CRT) — the notion that the world is divided into a “White” oppressor class and everyone else who is, of course, oppressed by the “White” oppressor class.

That racial bigotry “ no matter who engages in it ” likely contributes to violent behavior does not appear to be a concern for Judge Lee.

It were not as if I were speaking from a void. Clearly I had provided the Court and Prosecutor's Office with what I thought was ample evidence of my assailant's racial bias. Was I wrong to assume that they were not aware of the science? Search the internet; there is so much more. Common sense would tell you that, when you divide the world into — “racial friends” and “racial foes” — and you encounter the racial foe, tension is heightened and the likelihood of violence increases.

Judge Lee's strategy appeared to have followed a rigorous strategy:

1. Insist on the victim' ignorance about racial matters and assert his “superior” knowledge.
2. Convince the victim of the racial privilege assigned by CRT to his assailant.
3. Sweep the issue under the rug when Items 1 and 2 fail.

If Judge Lee were not an elected public official one could excuse him, in part, because he was hired to perform a job by others who were likely trained in the same school of thought as he. This was clearly not the case, however. He was up for election, and the filing due date was rapidly approaching.

Had he sensed in me someone who was unwilling to buy into CRT?

What made things worse was the fact he was one very privileged “Chinese” judging over a likely descendant of enslaved West Africans, who had assaulted an older member of the “white” oppressor class. What a great opportunity for him to rally on the side of the “oppressed classes” and make his own race to appear noble! After all, were the Chinese in San Francisco not subject to similar racial bias in the early 20th century?

Granted the entire matter was disgusting, but it was not I who engaged in a racial tirade before assaulting my victim.

Nope, in Judge Lee's mind, not only was race not an issue, but the matter of my assailant's race had nothing even to do with slavery! This statement is iconic:

“Mr. Stegemann, this isn't about whether Mr. ... this is nothing to do with slavery or the impacts of slavery. Please move on.”

That only it were true!

No clearly, Judge Nelson K.H. Lee, born Lee Kuo Hua, is part of the problem — not the solution.

Nope. And, Lincoln's War of Consolidation had nothing to do with slavery.... Was Judge Lee letting on that he knew more about American history than what he was taught in school?

No, it is true Judge Lee is not Judge Bender. It was not Judge Lee who reduced my assailant's bail after my assailant's mother testified on her son's behalf at his arraignment hearing.

No, Judge Lee would add his own salt to the American wound.

To the best of my knowledge my grandmother never felt compelled to testify in a courtroom on behalf of any of her three children. Indeed, with each of her three marriages a new child was born, and all of her children enjoyed the presence of a father in the home. Never had my grandmother divorced. Each of her three husbands had perished due to natural causes, and my grandfather and -mother on my father's side died within a week of one another.

Her first husband died in Wegeleben, Germany, before it became East Germany. It was my father's birthplace, and I visited it before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

The arraignment hearing was instructive and had prepared me well for the sentencing hearing.

Up until this point my age had never been mentioned. In fact, however, I was attacked by someone half my age, for calling out his bad behavior.

I am a senior, not a “boy” — “white”, “yellow”, “red”, or “black”!

And yes, I believe in the adage that.

“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me.”

Then too, I am not a politician, but neither was my assailant.

I remained silent while I was verbally pilloried on December 30, 2021 and waited quietly for my assailant's tirade to subside and his fragile ego to recover.

Still, it was not enough.

He could not bare the fact that he was now standing in line behind me after he had sought through his vulgar tirade to reduce me to the nigger that he wanted me to be.

Yes, one could feel sorry for him, but at some point he has to grow up and assume responsibility for his own fate, speech, and behavior.

Obviously, his mother has been of no help in this regard, and the state just keeps pushing him further and further down a road of ever greater darkness.

In the end, I was clearly the oldest person in the room, but in America age counts for little, and my wisdom would never be given a chance to shine. The judge would insure that I would not be allowed to complete my Victim Statement as planned.

I was exhausted. I had given the system every possible chance. There was no end to the nonsense, however. Judge Lee was not the exception that I thought he could be.

I was giving it my all, but my defeat seemed imminent, and I dared not jeopardize the last arrow in my quiver.

In the end, I was a mere spectator. I could applaud and grieve, but my voice could be squelched at any moment. I could not even speak without being interrupted.

What this the judge thinking out loud, or was it part of a well-honed routine?

I had been repeatedly told by the Prosecutors' Office that a sentencing judge has no power to change the conviction, only the sentence to which the Prosecution and the Defense have agreed in their plea deal.

“The State of Washington and the defendant enter into this PLEA AGREEMENT which is accepted only by a guilty plea.”

The guilty plea was, of course, the undated amendment submitted by Hannah Godwin on behalf of Leesa Manion, King County's elected Prosecutor in which is stated:

“I, Leesa Manion, Prosecuting Atorney for King County in the name and by the authority of the State of Washington, do accuse DEANGELO M ARNETT of the following crime[s]: Assault in The Fourth Degree,...”

“The PLEA AGREEMENT is as follows: This is an agreed recommendation.”

In passing the undated amendment apparently written by Hannah Godwin provides us with insight into the mentality of the entire Prosecutor's Office. Please note the following:

• We are told that Leesa Manion, our elected official, prefers the pronouns she/her, and that apparently we are somehow morally, ethically, or legally obligated to use these pronouns when addressing her, him, or whatever. Truly I have no idea about the true gender of Leesa Manion; I have never met her, him, or whatever, and judging from the performance of her, his, whatever's office and what she, he, whatever apparently considers important, I have no desire to meet her, him, whatever.

• Notice, too, that my assailant is named in the amendment as “DEANGELO M ARNETT”, and I, the victim, am named “Rodney Alan Stegemann”.

  Under the assumption that the capitalization is standard protocol and meant to identify clearly the name of the Defendant, why is it that only his middle initial appears, but I am fully named?

  The answer to this question appears obvious. The name Majed is Arabic — no matter that it is likely the name that was assigned to my assailant at his birth.

  What does it tell us about my assailant's parents? What does it tell us about my assailant?

  The only place that I have ever used my middle name, but on government documents and formal contracts, is when I lived in France. It was because Rodney is an English name, and I am of German descent. I believed that it would make me less alien. One could think of me as an Alsacian Norman.

  Did the name, Majed, conjure up thoughts of Mohammed Ali, the Black Panthers, Islamic terrorists? Was my assailant's father a Muslim? Did my assailant even know his father? How was the name interpreted by my assailant? Did anyone ever bother to ask?

  More importantly, what bearing did any of this have on my assailant's clearly, racially biased, public record? And, how did my assailant's middle name square with the fact that his Plea Agreement was officially submitted on Wednesday of the Easter Holy Week?

  It was all so stupid, and somehow so important, but there was no room to decide which. My assailant's middle name did not appear, but my middle name did. No matter that I usually go by

  Roddy A. Stegemann

  The disparity in treatment of the Defendant's and Victim's names was no less egregious than the dating of the incident!

  In my correspondence with the Prosecutors' Office throughout the nearly two-year, post-arraignment, prosecutorial ordeal I repeatedly pointed out that the date of the incident was other than the date being officially reported. Still, it appeared in the final moment to be in error.

  In my August 13, 2022 letter to the Court I had included three exhibits: Exhibit 1 clearly states the date on which the offense took place. Officially it is known as the Offense Start Date.

  The crime took place on December 30, 2021, but it was not reported until January 3, 2022. There were two important reasons for this. Firstly I did not realize the true damage to my person until I awakened on the following day (12/31/21) and saw my swollen foot; and secondly, making contact with the police by any number other than 911 was clearly next to impossible on the final day of the year. Surely, I had tried. What is more, there was no way to report an assault crime on the internet. Violent crime must be reported over the telephone, if not in person.

  Because the crime was reported four days after it occurred, and the officer who reported it was not present at the scene, he largely misinterpreted what had happened.

  The very first document that I received from my many public records' request was Officer Shields's incident report (Exhibit 1). It was then that I discovered how poorly the incident had been reported and sought to correct the record with Exhibit 2 — essentially my own interpretation of what had happened written in third person.

  Notice that in Officer Shields's opinion the crime was listed as a 4th Degree Assault — the same offense to which the Prosecution and Defense agreed in their plea deal. At the time of my reporting (January 3, 2022) I did not know that my left fibula had suffered a complete fracture, and knowledge of the pending hernia repair was still a very distant, but consequential, substantive discovery.

  It was now May 10, 2024, but somehow the Prosecutors' Office had never made it past January 3, 2022 .... One has only to compare Officer Shields's report with the reported investigation of Detective Cruise's report to understand how pathetic the Prosecution had prosecuted the case of Deangelo Majed Arnett.

  For an entire year after the arraignment hearing I was told by the prosecution that the Defense needed time to research the case. In December of 2023 when it was announced that the case would go to trial, I contacted both the former owner of Plaza Select Food Grocery (witness to the assault) and his clerk, who was present in the store at the time of the assault, and asked them if they had ever been approached by an attorney — from either the prosecution or defense — about the case. Both replied that they had not.

  In other words, neither side had sought to discover anything more than what was not already available to them at the time of the arraignment — most of which was supplied by me via Detective Cruise.

  It was my goal, it was my civic duty, to insure that what happened to me when the City of Seattle failed to prosecute my assailant, would not happen to someone else, were King County to fail to prosecute him for a similar crime.

What is clearly left unexplained is how the State (Prosecutor's Office and “Public” Defender) could agree on a suspended one-year sentence, and the Judge claim a maximum of only three months — suspended or otherwise.

Clearly the maximum sentence for a gross misdemeanor is one year, but that is a maximum set without any qualifying conditions such as the just mentioned offender score.

In the Plea Agreement on Page One under the heading REAL FACTS it reads:

“Sentence may not exceed 364 days of confinement (for gross misdemeanor) or 24 months of probation on each count,...”

“The STATE RECOMMENDS, pursuant to RCW chapter 9.95: [a] Sentence of 364 days in the King County Jail on Count(s) 1 concurrent/consecutive, but execution SUSPENDED with a probation termination date of 24 months,...”

If Assault in the 2nd and 3rd Degrees are both considered felonies, and Assault in the 4th Degree is a Gross Misdemeanor (a lesser non-felony conviction), how is it that the Prosecution is recommending a one-year suspended sentence, while the Judge, Prosecution and “Public” Defender all agree that the Court cannot exact more than three months — suspended or otherwise — for a felony charge?

This is hocus-pocus!

By this time it was clear to me that Judge Lee had probably decided the sentence well before anyone had entered his courtroom. My presence was just a token awarded by the state to give the impression that the system cared.

All, I had done was expose to Judge Lee who had managed to bring such a “trivial” matter to his attention.

Indeed, it was probably not a coincidence that I was the only victim in the hearing room on the afternoon of May 10, 2024. Judge Lee's earlier observation that

“... there's no cameras here. There's no members of the public here other than someone who appears to be in support of Mr. Arnett. It's just you and me, the jail officers, and the attorneys, and a victim advocate.”

was by no means idle.

Simply, his courtroom experience was far superior to my own, and he had all of the power. I was an easy take-down.

I did not discover that Judge Lee was a publicly elected official until after the hearing. I only knew that he had been appointed by Governor Inslee, and that his various titles suggested substantial involvement in the local Asian community.

Had I known that he was a an elected official my statement would probably have been more akin to

“An apology and that sum of money, I think would clear so that we could meet again in the street, and maybe even politic together against those who have made the system so unjust.”

The Judge had labeled my many tens of hours of work as “hearsay”, and the Defense was now reminding the court that reality had no place in the theater of the Washington State King County criminal justice system. Eight times — between January 18, 2021 and April 20, 2022 — the Seattle Police Department responded to calls in which my assailant was accused of engaging in an act, or threat of an act, of violence. That the Defense was claiming that

“Mr. Arnett is a very different person now, and he's been showing that he is a very different person now than he was in his youth.”

was clearly farcical.

What the record showed was that my assailant was under serious threat of jail time, and he likely knew well enough to lay quiet until the threat had passed. Exhibit 1 accounted for only the two most recent years of my assailant's entire police record.

That the Prosecution and Defense attorneys had created a plea deal of essentially zero punishment was an abomination both to me and the citizenry of the community whom they are suppose to serve.

This, however, is not where the abomination would end.

Please find attached a list of the Court Records including Dockets and Hearings and note the number of times in which the Prosecution and Defense attorneys sat before a Judge and agreed with his assent that the case of the State of Washington vs Deangelo M. Arnett should be postponed.

Without my intervention on November 22, 2023 I am near certain that the postponements would have continued until both parties and the judge would have eventually agreed to drop the case for lack of interest.

I will leave it to your imagination to guess what “issues” were “at play”.

The assumption of the Court is that the word counseling written in the Law refers to “medical counseling”. Notice that neither the Judge, Defense, nor the Prosecution make any reference to a specific court case in which the word counseling has been debated in a court of law.

Before the sentencing hearing I was told by the Prosecutor's Office via its Victim Assistant, that it would be decided at the sentencing hearing whether a restitution hearing would take place. I entered the hearing with a statement of the law, a letter from my physician attesting to the medical benefits that I had received from my karate counseling, and a clear statement of costs from my karate mentor. Had the Prosecution even provided these to the Judge, as they were required to do?

If we compare Judge Lee's treatment of my diligently researched and carefully referenced Exhibit 3 — with the statements from both Judge Lee and the Prosecution regarding the criminal justice system's treatment of restitution, then I submit that I was surely far closer to reality when it comes to the matter of hearsay than either of these two public “servants” of the judicial system. Neither referenced even a single court case in defense of their claim that karate training could not be considered a form of counseling in the manner intended by the law. It was mere opinion on their part.

Now, I am not at all sure that a judge is required to defend his statements with legal citations, but it is certain the obligation of an attorney, and the Judge did not require it.

At a restitution hearing I could have invited my karate trainer, my physician, and even a third-party medical counselor to testify to the healing effects of my training. This opportunity was denied based on “hearsay” while the prosecution sat on its hands.

One must ask why the matter of restitution was “resolved” in this way. Once again, I will leave the answers to your own imagination. I can think of several and none of them are flattering to the Court or criminal justice system.

“Words are cheap.”

I agree. It was the product of a completely dysfunctional criminal justice system in which

• Unarmed assaults that do not result in death are written off by the Seattle Police Department as non-crimes unless the victim pressures the SPD to take action.
• Plea deals are preferred because they reduce the work of the court, glorify the legal community, and in so doing alienate the community from both the law and the courts and thereby nurture an overall feeling of social injustice.
• Impossible sentences are imposed and then suspended to make the court appear consequential on the one hand, and to entice assailants to appear in court and admit to lesser crimes, on the other hand.
• Endless procrastination renders the judicial system impotent and completely lacking of discipline and compassion.
• A complete unwillingness to explore the boundaries of the law and pierce the bubble of theater in which this tragical farce was played out.

No, Your Honor, I have no political skin in the game. I am just an ordinary citizen who has taken advantage of a fortunate opportunity provided me by my assailant's unfortunate attack on my person to see behind the curtain and expose the internal workings of the system and Your Court.

Judge Lee's refusal to entertain the obvious racial character of my assailant and his insistance that I focus only on my suffering dissuaded me from further assessment of my assailant's character as outlined in my Victim's Statement. This was unfortunate, because I well-anticipated what I was now hearing from the Judge,

“I think he understands, at least through counsel's briefing, that even if you had called him names and the most terrific names that you could call him, even if you had done that, which I'm not saying that you did ...”

In other words, I was being accused by my assailant of doing what it was that he clearly did to me. Firstly, I am certain that the audio footage of the incident would provide my assailant with no support for his claim. Secondly, the audio footage clearly demonstrated my assailant's use of foul and racially imbued language in my own regard. Thirdly, my assailant's public record and the Defense's statement at the arraignment hearing clearly showed that my assailant was a habitual liar. And, finally in the preparation of this five-act theatrical rendition of the case of the State of Washington vs Deangelo M. Arnett I stumbled on my assailant' testimony to the SPD when he was arrested. He stated

“Arnett denied any sort of confrontation in the store. He then said that he walked through the store and said excuse me to a man standing ni line, and the man said “fuck no, you can go around nigger”. Arnett said the man then elbowed him, dropped his groceries, then pushed Arnett. Arnett said they then got in a “two-second scuffle” and that was it. The detail of the altercation continued to increase as Arnett was describing it. Arnett said he hit the man twice and that was it. Arnett said he saw the man outside of the store when he left, and Arnett said he apologized to the man.”

There is so much wrong with this statement that I will not bother you with a rebuttal other than to say that anyone who knows me personally knows that the statement, “fuck no, you can go around nigger”, is a very unlikely utterance coming from my mouth. Indeed, one has only to compare the renderings of the incident provided by Detective Cruise, Brynn Jacobson, and myself to understand what I have already stated, — namely, that my assailant is a habitual liar. A thorough investigation of his police record as evidenced in Exhibit 3 provides ample additional evidence to my claim.

Keep in mind, my assailant had had nearly five months to create a well-honed narrative among his friends, family, and acquaintances about the incident. He even continued to appear in the store for several weeks after the incident.

Clearly I was not on trial, and I had nothing to fear from his false accusations. My interest in bringing attention to his dishonesty was my ability to secure an up-front payment of restitution.

I had been warned by the Prosecution that it was much easier to be awarded restitution than to actually obtain payment. As I could well-imagine a future litany of phony excuses each time a payment became due, my goal was to obtain an upfront payment. Such a payment could be encouraged as a trade-off to jail time, on the one hand, and by convincing the judge that incremental future payments would not make seeking restitution worthwhile given the dishonesty of my assailant.

In the end, what bothers me most about his dishonesty is that it was surely used by his “Public” Defender to extract a lower conviction and penalty from the Prosecuting Attorney in their proposed plea agreement.

As I was never permitted to see any evidence provided by the “Public” Defender to the Prosecutor's Office, I had no way to challenge my assailant's imput into the negotiation that led to the plea agreement. Surely, his statement made for a great excuse for both the Prosecution and Judge Lee to seek avoidance of an alleged racially motivated “hate” crime.

My assailant is obviously no dummy when it comes to playing the “race card”. Either this, or he reads race into every confrontation with someone who does not share his same racial features and projects his social malaise onto others, as a result.

Please recall the following statement from Judge Lee and compare it with the contents of the referenced document that follows.

“I don't know why the violation or date of the incident was in error, and counsel, I don't know if you want to go back and correct it. I suspect, based on reading the probable cause certification, it was based on the date of reporting as opposed to the date of the incident itself.

And, Mr. Stegemann, I can certainly agree with you that collectively, the entire system, the criminal justice system, has to do better, because I certainly can understand, coming from your perspective, how, when errors are made as to, say for example, a name, your name, or the date in which you were assaulted, those type of mistakes can tend to, again, send a message that the system doesn't care, the system is lazy, and the system is flawed.”

Now, I invite you to examine a document which was signed on May 10, 2024 by Nelson K.H. Lee and has since become a part of the King Count Superior Court's public record. The Judgment and Sentence is essentially the decision reached by the Judge at a sentencing hearing.

In the document the Date of Crime is indicated as January 3, 2022. In case you have forgotten, I was assaulted on December 30, 2021, four days before the crime was reported, and two years, four months, and 12 days before Judge Lee affixed his signature and Chinese stamp to the Judgment and Sentence of Deangelo Majed Arnett, my assailant.

I find it curious, if not disturbing, that a Chinese (or even Japanese stamp) would be affixed to a United States court document as proof of a US judge's identity. Such stamps are typically used in Japan in lieu of a signature. As my only Chinese residence has ever been Hong Kong, I am not familiar with the customs of the Mainland. For example, my official stamp, while resident in Japan for nine years, was placed on all of my official documents including business contracts, tax documents, immigration papers, and the like. My stamp corresponds to my adopted Japanese family name, Hashimori.

I find the statement

“And, I realize even if I pointed to a list of 100 explanations or reasons that doesn't mean anything to you...”

extremely disturbing. For the most part, I had overcome the difficulties in which my assailant had left me. I was not there because of me. Certainly I was not there out of any sense of revenge.

Yes, there were still some lingering issues in my left leg, but their discomfort was gradually subsiding. And, my inability to defend myself I had squarely addressed. Simply, I was there in performance of my civic duty and the faint hope of obtaining restitution for my effort.

Not only had Judge Lee misunderstood the primary reason for my presence in the courtroom that day, but he had repeatedly insulted my intelligence.

Yes, it is true. My initial impression of Judge Lee at the cancelled April 24, 2024 sentencing hearing was positive. No, I was not at all happy that the hearing was cancelled, but what was the Judge suppose to do when the Prosecution acquiesced? And, in the end, was it not par for the course?

While waiting for the courtroom door to open on May 10, 2024, I even expressed my cautious optimism to a stranger in the hallway. I sincerely believed that there would be a chance for me to obtain restitution and set new legal precedent for the treatment of martial arts as a source of legitimate counseling under RCW 9.94A.750 Restitution, § 3, Item a)

Though not rehearsed my Victim Statement was well-planned, and I truly believed that if given the chance to present my arguments in full that I could win over the Judge's approval for at least a restitution hearing, if not the up-front payment that I preferred.

No, Judge Lee was only there to follow procedure, apologize for the system, and insure that I would not take up any more of the Court's time and resources. The right to, and need for, self-defense was not an issue that he was even willing to consider.

His vehement position on racial asymmetry was not to be challenged, and his political correctness prevented him from taking into consideration the danger of racial bias in criminal activity.

His prima facie reading of the term counseling in RCW 9.94A.750 Restitution, § 3, Item a) was non-negotiable — no matter his ignorance of the martial arts or the opinion of a well-respected member of the local medical profession.

No, Judge Lee, was just another hired bureaucrat, an Inslee political appointee, a spokesperson for the unAmerican global swamp currently resident in the United States, and soon to become elected “public servant”

Where have we heard this before? Where is the individual responsibility? Blame the system and expand it! This is Judge Lee's solution.

Yes, the judicial system needs to be completely overhauled. And yes, it will likely require additional resources. But, the reform is not going to come about by hiring more apologists for the weaknesses of the current system, of which there are obviously many. Nor, should the additional resources be taken in such a manner that government becomes even more bloated than it already is. The primary duty of government is to defend the property and lives of its citizens. All else is secondary. No expansion without cuts.

Each of us must take responsibility for his own speech and action and must stop excusing the bad action or inaction of others on the truly pathetic state of “the system”.

Judge Lee occupies a position of significant authority. The impact of his decisions on the lives of others and the system as a whole is significant. Important in this context is that he can choose to perpetuate or impede the corrupt system in which he is an active and important agent. We should not be electing and hiring our public officials to make us feel good about our nation's sorry state of corruption.

Did he really believe that I would seek in civil litigation the $2,670 that he was denying me in criminal litigation. The reward for such litigation would not pay for the preliminary legal consultations, and my assailant was indigent! More important to me was the recognition of martial arts as appropriate counseling in legal cases involving criminal violence.

No, Lee Kuo Hua, Nelson Lee, Judge Lee, or whatever you go by according to your immediate social context, you were not the biggest mind in the room.

I had grossly overestimated the competence of Judge Lee at our first meeting. Perhaps he had impressed me with his mastery of the English language. Many immigrants never reach his level of phonetic, morphological, and grammatical mastery.

My contention in this matter was not with the “Public” Defender, but with my assailant. It was not his attorney who wrote in his own hand,

“And, the conduct was offensive to Mr. Stegemann.”

Had I not clearly indicated to the Court that admitting to a wrong was not the same as an apology for having committed the wrong?

How was I suppose to take my assailant's apology? He did not face me, when he made it. He faced the Judge — the individual who was about to pronounce his sentence.

Maybe he felt that he was apologizing to everyone present. Important is that he did not have to speak, and he did. Certainly, this is to his credit.

Simply, the motivation for his pronouncement was not so easily discernable as that which led up to the attack, and in the end it was this latter that was at issue.

The last time that we were face-to-face in the same room was at the Plaza Select Food Grocery just after he assaulted me. We stood opposite one another at the counter, as the owner processed his transaction ahead of me. I explained to the owner while looking in my assailant's face that my assailant was undeserving of his purchase.

Yes, I was afraid, but were he to attack me again, it would not be from behind, and I would be ready. Then too, I would not understand the full extent of my injuries until the following morning, and likely overestimated my ability to defend myself in that moment. Probably I was being a lot foolish, but I stand by my principles and was not about to back down to my assailant' thuggery.

Alleged criminals buy their way to freedom when they purchase a bond to pay for their bail. This is exactly what my assailant did, when Judge Johanna Bender reduced his bail by a full third, and my assailant was released from prison on the following day. Not everyone can afford the purchase of a bail-bond.

The only difference between an accused buying his freedom with the purchase of a bail-bond and a convicted criminal trading jail time for the advanced payment of restitution would be their legal status and the judge before whom he would stand. In the first instance my assailant was denying culpability; in the second instance he was admitting to it.

No judge must accede to such an arrangement, but a judge with good integrity would weigh the outcome of such accession in each individual case.

What is more, he did not have to leave it up to the Defendant to decide. He had merely to ask my assailant for his opinion on the issue and his willingness to pay, and then make his own decision based upon the response.

No, Judge Lee's concept of his judicial role is more like that of a police officer or a government legislator. The first decides whether a law appears to be broken and seeks to enforce it on the spot. The second creates laws for everyone and somehow thinks that they are thereby just, because they are applied to everyone equally no matter the sometimes sharp disparities between individual situations. Judge's are supposed to act — yes, within the law —, but with good common sense and discretion.

Judge Lee appears to have been hiding behind the law for his own convenience.

No, Judge Lee, was not my biggest obstacle in this farcical tragedy. He was merely my last hope, and our full encounter is part of the official record.

The most egregious party was the Prosecutor's Office headed by another elected official — the aforementioned Leesa Manion. (Just in case she takes down or alters her webpage before the November 2024 election I have secured the page in the crime.spiritof2021.online subdomain.)

Her story is one of victimization, social title, and public image.

She blames her grandmother on her father's side for being racist and xenophobic (English language deficiency), but says nothing about her father, if she ever even knew him. No explanation is given as to why her mother was living with her grandmother. We are not even told whether her father or mother was a civilian or a member of the military — only that she was born in an Army hospital in Seoul.

In 1991 I worked as an economics instructor for the University of Maryland on several US military bases in Japan. During that year I was resident at the US naval base in Yokosuka where I encountered both Japanese and American civilians employed at the base.

What we do know is that Leesa Manion was a graduate of Seattle University's School of Law, as was Hannah Godwin — the second of two prosecuting attorneys who handled my case up until the cancelled, first, sentencing hearing whereupon Jeff Dernbach took charge.

All of the above aside, Lessa Manion has manned her current position for fifteen years, and during this period assault crime in Seattle has increased nearly monotonically since she entered office.

It appears that she flew in on the back of President Obama and has somehow managed to remain on her perch ever since.

If we take Judge Lee at his word, a completely fractured fibula, badly swollen foot and jaw with lasting foot pain inflicted on an elderly victim (with neither gun, nor foul mouth, nor karate training) by his assailant are not worthy of more than a month's worth of county jail time. The reason provided for this conclusion is, of course, that others with public records far worse than my assailant' are not treated more harshly. In other words, Leesa Manion and her crew at the King Count Prosecutors Office have so lowered the bar of deterrence that our fellow citizens, pre-disposed to violent behavior, are being encouraged to commit such behavior.

My assailant was charged with 2nd Degree Assault, and I, the victim, at my assailant's sentencing hearing voluntarily made the case on behalf of the Defense that the lesser crime of 3rd Degree Assault would have been appropriate.

In contrast, many January 6, 2021 protestors, who were accused of trespassing — a non-felony misdemeanor — at our nation's Capitol after someone before them had forced opened a door, have spent several months, and some much longer, in a federal prison without trial and without the opportunity of bail.

My assailant spent less than a month in a county jail before purchasing his way to two years of freedom for $2,000 and a non-felony, suspended sentence.

Cries for social justice occur because individual justice is not rendered.

When the individual is not treated fairly by the state he turns to others who have been similarly mistreated by the state. These, in turn, organize politically against the state that has mistreated them. This is where we are today, and the governments of King County and the City of Seattle are spearheading this anti-state, often violent, asocial behavior.

If we do not respond by weeding out the bad state actors who are perpetuating the individual injustice, matters will only become worse. The cries for social justice have not arisen in a social and economic void (see Mount Cambitas, but they are being magnified by the poor behavior of our local administrators.

The problem may be systemic, but the solution is not civil war. Rather, we must root out the bad actors: the criminals and the state non-performers, alike.

For two years after he was arraigned the public record of my assailant remained nearly clean. His criminal traffic violation was reduced to an ordinary traffic infraction, and the Seattle Public Records Office reported no new police interventions.

This assumes, of course, that the Seattle Public Records Office has reported honestly. My experience has taught me that the Records Office is not reliable in the way it reports. So, I remain skeptical in this regard. I simply do not know.

More important is that, like the just-cited, reduced criminal traffic violation, the charge of 2nd Degree Assault was reduced from a felony conviction to that of a non-felony gross misdemeanor by the state in a plea deal with my assailant's “Public” Defender.

In short, the reality of a felony offense was turned into the legal fiction of a non-felony, gross misdemeanor that is now being wielded by the Court as reality!

I obtained the idea of anger-management training from my apparently divorced building manager with whom I share a common dislike for the state of our nation and local community. The first thing that I did when I returned to my residence after the hearing was to congratulate her for her suggestion.

Unfortunately, I fear that the problem with my assailant lies much deeper than uncontrolled anger.

In order to learn you must be open to the learning experience! Without the negative incentive of incarceration from where will the incentive come? My assailant has been threatened with confinement in the past, and the threat does not appear to have done any good.

Indeed, if the threat of violence to a fellow citizen is not treated, but on paper, as a crime by the state, why should the threat of incarceration be treated seriously by someone who regularly arrested for engaging in threats of violence?

Judge Lee left me with a token victory, but nothing that I can brag about and use to encourage others to do what I have done — stand up against the system on behalf of my community and win. No, much more is required.

Alone, the individual is not enough. Then too, without the individual what is needed will never occur.

It is up to us.

It is now up to you!

Judge Lee was comparing weekly karate training that transpires over several years and leaves an indelible mark of self-discipline and respect for authority and others with the good feeling associated with relocation.

Was anyone suppose to take him seriously? Could he really be so stupid? No, for him, my Victim Statement was, but a legal nuisance created by the Washington State Legislature, and I was a Court pest who had taken advantage of it, and whom he needed to eradicate.

By this time I was sitting alone in the gallery next to the Victim Assistant. I had lost my podium and could remain silent or protest. So, I did both.