Five defendants pleaded not guilty yesterday, in King County Superior Court on felony organized retail theft charges tied to some of Bellevue's busiest shopping corridors, including the Nordstrom at Bellevue Square, Safeway stores in Bellevue, and retailers at Factoria Square.
"These are different than regular shoplifting cases, because those are much more common," Casey McNerthney, spokesperson for the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, told KIRO Newsradio. "These are the ones where you have people over and over and over going to stores."
Under Washington law, organized retail theft involves repeated thefts from one or more businesses where the cumulative value reaches the felony threshold. Charges are often aggregated across multiple incidents.
Prosecutors also referenced alleged thefts at the Target and Ulta Beauty at Factoria Square during the same court session, meaning at least four Bellevue locations figure in the current wave of cases.
In one case, a suspect allegedly told police she stole from Ulta Beauty and resold the items at Third Avenue and Pike Street in downtown Seattle.
Staffing strain
The arraignments come as the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office faces a resource crunch. Felony retail crime referrals from police more than doubled between 2021 and 2024, growing from 52 to 121, according to KOMO News.
King County Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion said her office will keep pursuing these cases but acknowledged the limits. The office dedicated its first full-time retail crimes prosecutor in June 2021 and received a one-time state grant in January 2025 to fund a second position.
That grant expired in June 2025, and a budget request to sustain the role was denied. The office is now back to a single dedicated retail-crimes prosecutor.
Patrick Hinds, chief of the Economic Crimes and Wage Theft Division, said the office's ability to act depends on having enough prosecutors, paralegals, and law enforcement investigators to build cases. He noted that when businesses close due to theft losses, the impact often falls hardest on economically disadvantaged communities.
Senior Deputy Prosecutor Stephanie Sato, who handles organized retail theft cases daily, said detailed reporting from businesses, including dates, observations, loss estimates, and video, helps police and prosecutors build felony cases.
What's next
All five defendants are presumed innocent. The cases remain in King County Superior Court with no next dates publicly announced for the Bellevue-linked matters. Separately, an organized retail theft case involving a Kent Safeway was scheduled for arraignment July 16, at the Maleng Regional Justice Center.
State legislators have said they plan to revisit sentencing laws for organized retail theft. State Rep. Mari Leavitt, a University Place Democrat, has been working with a King County prosecutor on a bill seeking sentencing enhancements for coordinated theft rings, though no legislation has advanced.
