Snohomish County deputy prosecutor resigns amid criminal investigation

EVERETT — A county deputy prosecutor resigned in May amid allegations he was dishonest in a police interview related to potential sex crimes.

Robin Tu, 28, handed his resignation to county Prosecutor Jason Cummings the day he was set for a disciplinary hearing with his boss to discuss the allegations, according to records obtained by The Daily Herald via public records request.

In a statement, Cummings said he took “immediate action” upon learning of the police investigation into Tu this spring.

The concerns that led to Tu’s resignation in May started a couple months prior, when he applied for a job as a federal air marshal, Cummings wrote in a memo to the deputy prosecutor. As part of that process, he had to fill out a questionnaire that included questions about past criminal behavior.

In late April, Tu reportedly failed a lie detector test as part of the job application process. He also acknowledged lying on the questionnaire, as well as “engaging in past criminal behavior and problematic fetishistic activity,” Cummings argued. Tu later argued he was “manipulated into doubting my own truth” on the lie detector test.

Specifically, the county’s top prosecutor noted examples that included Tu entering an ex-girlfriend’s home over a decade ago without her permission, bringing a gun into a federal building, having sexual intercourse with a woman without her permission and scouring the internet for pictures of children’s feet for sexual gratification.

“All of this conduct disqualifies you from working as a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney as it undermines the integrity of this office, where, among other critical and sensitive assignments, you could be put in a position to prosecute sex crimes against children and adults,” Cummings wrote to Tu in May.

In an interview in early May on the county campus in downtown Everett with Washington State Patrol investigators, Tu gave some answers that conflicted with what he said on the lie detector test, Cummings argued. For example, he gave different timelines for how long he used a computer application allowing users to avoid having their internet activity tracked.

“Such lack of truthfulness with federal and law enforcement is incompatible with your work as a criminal prosecutor, and damages the reputation and credibility of this office,” Cummings wrote to Tu.

Tu told troopers he didn’t think anything he did was illegal, except for going into the ex-girlfriend’s home.

Before coming to Snohomish County in February 2022, Tu worked as a city prosecutor in Kirkland, records show. He was admitted to the state bar in summer 2020. His license remained active this week.

In an emailed statement this week, Tu said his words were “misunderstood, taken out of context, exaggerated, and then used against me.”

“My complete transparency has also resulted in very ironic accusations of dishonesty,” he continued. “I was essentially accused of being ‘dishonest’ about deeply private details that only a foolishly and utterly honest person would have provided in the first place.”

And in a written response to Cummings, the former deputy prosecutor noted many people fail lie detector tests for reasons other than dishonesty.

Tu argued none of the allegations were related to his work and that he was never disciplined, since he resigned before Cummings had the opportunity to do so. In a letter, Cummings noted Tu was “potentially facing discipline up to termination.”

“I thank Snohomish County for the opportunity to work with them,” Tu told The Herald, “but believe that their knowledge of certain private details in my life would become too big of a distraction for my work product to be fairly assessed and would make me uncomfortable to continue working there.”

Tu also provided The Herald with a letter of support from a defense attorney, Saad Qadri.

“I could always count on him to review my clients’ cases with compassion, sympathy and honor, and I never once doubted his moral character and/or convictions,” Qadri wrote of Tu.

The state patrol has since closed its investigation into Tu, with no criminal charges recommended against him.

Jake Goldstein-Street: 425-339-3439; jake.goldstein-street@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @GoldsteinStreet.