by Jason Cruz
Northwest Asia Weekly
Thi Pham (right) and her lawyer Jeff Campiche
A Vietnamese woman and her husband have settled a civil lawsuit against a white neighbor who spat out racial slurs and threatened her. Under the terms of the agreement announced April 11, Janet Myers, 72, agreed to sell her home and pay Thi Pham $45,000 from a portion of the proceeds.
Pham and her white husband and their young son moved near the coast four years ago. Miles lives next door. According to Pham, the Myers hate affair has been going on for years.
The civil suit stemmed from multiple incidents in which Pham’s next-door neighbor, Myers, harassed and threatened Pham. Myers was charged by King County prosecutors with a felony hate crime against Fan. In one incident, when Pham was planting flowers in her garden last year, Myers was found staring at her in the car.
Miles yelled: “Come out, you squinting” and “Hey Miss Vietnam, hey!” as Pham recorded the disturbing incident on her phone.
Miles can also be heard saying, “You won’t live much longer.” Pham deemed it a threat and called police. “I was scared, shaking and crying,” Fan said of the incident. Her husband described the incident as “devastating”.
“My wife is afraid to go out,” Pham’s husband said in a news conference last August announcing the lawsuit. “She was afraid to take our son into the backyard because she was afraid she would be beaten.”
Fan recorded Miles’ events on her cell phone to document the nature of the abuse she experienced.
Police arrested Miles on April 5, 2021, and charged her with a hate crime. She was released on personal bond without bail and ordered not to contact Pham. Miles has pleaded not guilty to hate crimes. However, the family believes she violated the no-contact order.
Two weeks before her arrest, Fan recorded Miles raising her middle finger to Fan and her 2-year-old son. At the time, Miles was naked from the waist down.
The civil suit was filed last summer. Civil lawsuits are not usually heard in court until a criminal trial. A civil trial has a lower threshold for proving a claim.
A criminal trial is scheduled for June.
In the lawsuit, Pham seeks $100,000 in moral damages. Her family wants a permanent protection order against Miles and is asking Miles to stay 300 feet away from her family. However, their homes are 60 feet apart.
In a news conference announcing the civil suit last summer, Pham tearfully said: “Every day in my life is not safe. I hope what happened to me doesn’t happen to other people. I want it to stop. This It’s what I want.”
Under the terms of the resolution, Miles agreed to sell her house and move within six months, paying Fan $45,000. If Miles can’t sell her house and move, the lawsuit will go ahead and possibly go to a jury verdict.
“We need to get those who harass people because of their race to pay and get them to pay the victims,” attorney Jeffrey Campiche said in announcing the preliminary settlement of the lawsuit. He called the civil settlement a victory for victims of racial harassment.
“We hope Jan Miles will follow suit. [sic] Pass the deal and act quickly,” Pham said of news of the resolution, knowing that the harassment and threats should stop soon.
While the incident settled lawsuits filed by victims, the criminal case reflects a steady rise in hate crimes reported by the King County Attorney’s Office.
Jason is available at info@nwasianweekly.com.
