Dori: More questions than answers about Mayor Murray’s assets

It was really unusual to hear Murray’s cries of poverty in an interview last week with Brandi Kruse at Q13. During the interview, Murray said there is no reason for the men accusing him of child rape to go after him in civil court, because he has nothing to go after.

RELATED: Attorney seeks answers to mystery at Murray’s home

When asked what was at stake with the sex-abuse allegations, Murray said that his husband Michael Shiosaki owns their Capitol Hill home.

“And so, in that sense, [Michael] won’t lose his house,” Murray said. “I have no assets, I have no investments and if I lose, everything I have done, everything I have worked for, the most important thing to me — my integrity — it’ll be gone. My life as I know it will be over at 62. I’ll be labeled an unemployable pedophile.”

He has nothing? No assets, no investments?

After a tip from one of our listeners, we went to the King County Assessor’s Office, and we discovered that the house was purchased by Shiosaki and Murray in 1996. I had sources in the real-estate industry do a title check on that property to see if the ownership has been altered to remove Murray from the title.

It has not. Ed Murray is a part-owner, and presumably, a half-owner of that Capitol Hill house.

Given that Washington is a community property state, it would follow that this house is owned by both Murray and his husband.

We reached out to Murray’s personal public relations representative Jeff Reading and this is what we were told:

Mayor Murray owns very little of the equity in the home, which was purchased largely using proceeds from the sale of Michael’s previous home and financial contribution from Michael’s parents. This can all be documented.

When we asked for documents to back this up, this is the response we received:

It can all be documented if necessary at the conclusion of the legal matter, not now upon request from a reporter. But the house will remain with Michael. The larger point, however, is that Mayor Murray has no major assets and is incurring significant legal fess. There will be little left after this lawsuit in either case.

So are there possible explanations to all this?

Well, Murray could have done a quitclaim on his half of the property, but if he did, that never got filed because he is still listed on the title of the house. So if he intended to give up his share of his residence to his husband, he never filed it. And, again, do you want a mayor who can’t file a document giving up a house?

RELATED: Mayor acknowledges connection to accuser

There’s something very odd going on with the mayor right now.

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