Black Fire Fighters Seek Property Title Return Amidst Conflict and Chaos

Attorney Yohannes Sium at a press conference earlier this year outside the SBFFA House. (Photo: Susan Fried)

By Mead Gill

Members of the Seattle Black Fire Fighters Association (SBFFA) await the ruling of a King County Superior Court judge over the property title of the association’s historic house. In the three weeks since the court found the defendants in contempt for illegally selling the property, the SBFFA has faced significant internal obstacles leading up to another ruling next week. 

After a three-year legal battle, Judge Josephine Wiggs ordered the defendants on January 31 to provide all correspondents and documents related to the illegal sale, including financial information, to the plaintiffs’ attorney Yohannes Sium. After the plaintiffs requested this information from the defendants on February 1, defendant Hilton Jones responded by resigning from his position as Treasurer and terminating his membership of the SBFFA. 

Jones provided no details about the funds from the sale or any financial information upon his abrupt resignation. Additionally, the defendant Douglas Johnson resigned from his position as President of the SBFFA without formal announcement.  

On February 11, eleven days after the court order, the defendants’ attorney was compelled to provide the first financial information reporting, revealing that just over $210,000 of the $675,000 sale price was paid in commission to the defendant’s lawyer Matthew Macklin. In an email to Sium, Macklin wrote, “The fees paid to me from the sale will not be returned.”

The defendants threatened to spend the remaining $429,000 remaining in the SBFFA account, according to the motion filed by Sium for constructive trust, and second motion for contempt and to compel on February 12. Sium cited the same email exchange, where Macklin wrote, “As a matter of clarification, SBFFA may spend the money however it sees fit to further its mission.”

Additionally, Sium filed an emergency motion asking the court to shorten the time to hear the matter. He requested that the funds from the sale of the house be safeguarded in a constructive trust until the judge’s official ruling on the property title considering Macklin’s statements.

“They’re just trying to sell the house, screw the organization, blow the cash, straight up gangster,” Sium said, explaining that if Wiggs reinstates the title of the house to the SBFFA next week, the buyer will need the money back regardless of what the defendants do or do not spend. 

In his motion, Sium urged Judge Wiggs to order a new election allowing all members of the SBFFA, including retired members, to attend and to fill the positions of President and Treasurer. Since the property’s sale on October 31,  2024, there have been no SBFFA meetings despite the association’s bylaws requiring members to meet monthly.

Without an official election, Defendant Jameel Andrews declared himself president after Johnson resigned. Andrews is partially responsible for the illegal sale of the house, having signed an application to the title company, fraudulently declaring that there were no lawsuits attached to the property, according to Sium. 

Regardless of Andrew’s actions, the title company was made aware of the lawsuit but chose to bypass it. The lawsuit was previously a dealbreaker for multiple title companies that had examined transactions since it was originally listed in 2022, Sium said.

Multiple potential buyers similarly withdrew their offers when informed about the ongoing lawsuit and cloud on the title, according to Sium’s legal brief to rescind the sale filed on February 21. But the house’s buyer, Camila Borges, was also made aware of the lawsuit by the seller’s real estate agent, Carmen Gayton, before the October 31, 2024 sale. After receiving notice of the plaintiffs’ pending motions to request the rescission of the sale within a week, Borges moved forward with expensive renovations that will prove futile if Judge Wiggs rescinds the sale.

The court hearing is currently scheduled for February 25 at 1:00 p.m., where Judge Wiggs will rule on the plaintiffs’ request to rescind the sale to buyer Camila Borges and return the property title to the SBFFA.