MALTBY — One day after reporting that his father attacked him with a bulldozer at a Maltby nursery, a man was arrested for allegedly striking a nursery employee with an SUV.
While his father was awaiting his bail hearing Friday, Albert Postema reportedly came back to Flower World in a Jeep Cherokee, wearing sunglasses and a camouflage shirt over his face.
An employee said the younger Postema, 54, didn’t respond when asked what he was doing on the property, according to a Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy report. Instead, he allegedly accelerated and hit the employee, court papers say. The employee reportedly had a scrape on his leg.
Sheriff’s deputies arrived shortly after 9 a.m. and found Postema walking in some woods. He approached them, apparently confused, according to court papers.
“I don’t know why everyone is after me,” Postema reportedly said. “I was in fear for my life because that guy was pounding on my car.”
Deputies booked him into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of vehicular assault. He was released Sunday after posting $100,000 bond.
In a statement, his father John Postema, 78, disputed key details of the July 4 incident reported by deputies.
He wrote that he was acting in self defense when he saw a Jeep Cherokee approaching the property, believing that one of his employees might get hurt. He said that he didn’t push his son’s Jeep 80 feet, if at all, nor did the Jeep go down a 20-foot embankment.
At the bail hearing, public defender Tobin Klusty questioned whether John Postema’s actions amounted to first-degree assault. Klusty noted that no injuries or vehicle damage was reported by deputies.
Judge Anthony Howard found probable cause for the arrest, but, noting John Postema’s age and lack of criminal history, released him without bail.
According to a previous police report, Albert Postema may have used a Jeep Cherokee to ram a Flower World employee’s truck in December, pushing it about 50 feet and into a greenhouse. The employee, who was in the driver’s seat, suffered a leg injury.
Albert Postema was arrested for investigation of third-degree assault. A trial is scheduled for September.
The relationship between father and son has been strained since at least 2014, according to a civil lawsuit that the elder Postema and his wife filed against their son.
The lawsuit, filed in 2016, detailed various incidents of property damage. According to the complaint, Albert Postema dumped “thousands of yards” of debris on the Flower World property, dug holes in the roads, and damaged an irrigation line that provided water to the company’s fields and greenhouses.
One time, the Postema parents wrote, Albert Postema allegedly dug up their lawn in retribution for their use of Roundup to kill weeds.
Zachariah Bryan: 425-339-3431; zbryan@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @zachariahtb.
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