Lawyer charged with attempted murder

Bellevue police found a fake beard, pistol, bulletproof vest and other items in the trunk of a car owned by a Mill Creek lawyer who was arrested Wednesday in the shooting of another attorney in Bellevue, court papers said.

William Richard Joice, 50, was charged Monday in King County Superior Court with first-degree attempted murder in the shooting of Kevin Jung, 44, of Bellevue.

Joice is a former deputy Snohomish County prosecutor, and has served as a defense attorney for the last four years. He is scheduled to be arraigned Nov. 18.

Jung was shot once in the head, and remained in critical condition Monday night at Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue.

What documents termed a “murder kit” was in a soft-sided briefcase found in the trunk. Among other things, it contained neoprene police-style gloves, the fake beard and mustache, headphones to fit a police scanner, a homemade silencer and a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol.

In addition, there was a small pouch made partly out of a plastic sandwich bag that was stuck to the side of the silencer with duct tape, apparently to catch ejected shell casings, documents said.

Joice, who is being held on $5 million bail, was arrested by Everett police Sgt. Wayne Meyer after an eyewitness to the shooting jotted down the license number of a 1991 Pontiac Grand Prix that quickly left the parking lot near Jung’s office about 9:15 a.m. that day.

The car was rapidly traced to a south Everett rental agency, and the owner called police when Joice returned the car later that morning.

Joice walked away from the rental agency, and Meyer acted on a hunch and called Yellow Cab to see if someone had called for a pickup in the area. Someone called for a pickup at 63rd Street and Wetmore Avenue.

Meyer spotted Joice about 10 blocks from the rental agency and arrested him before the cab arrived.

The two attorneys had been in a contentious civil court battle on opposite sides of a case over the sale of a Korean grocery store in Lynnwood.

They had been scheduled to be in court Wednesday, where Jung was going to ask for sanctions and a $2,000 fine for Joice not providing information.

Joice previously had been fined about $6,000 for similar actions in the same case. Document said two liens had been filed previously on Joice’s Mill Creek home, one for more than $18,000 by the IRS and the second for $245 for failure to pay homeowner association dues.

Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.

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