New York City Councilwoman Julie Won never disclosed that she and her family lived rent-free for months in a waterfront Queens condo worth $5,000 a month, an arrangement that government watchdogs say should have appeared on her annual conflict-of-interest forms and now threatens to shadow her congressional campaign days before a Democratic primary.
Won, a Democrat representing a Queens district, moved into the one-bedroom unit at Skyline Towers in Long Island City in November 2024 along with her husband, political strategist Eugene Noh, and their two children. The unit belongs to Justin Chae, a top Democratic consultant who told the New York Post he waived the $5,000-a-month rent as a bonus tied to Noh's agreement to serve as vice president of campaigns at Chae's firm, Legion Outreach Consultants.
Yet Won's 2024 annual disclosure forms, filed with the city's Conflicts of Interest Board, contain no mention of the arrangement. The forms specifically ask elected officials whether they received "any gift or gifts valued at $1,000" or more. Even counting only the final two months of 2024, Won's share of the waived rent would have been roughly $5,000, five times the disclosure threshold.
Two of New York's most prominent good-government groups said Won should have reported the perk. Ben Weinberg, director of public policy at Citizens Union, told the Post:
"Receiving free housing from someone with political interests that could interact with your official duties is the kind of arrangement [that] raises conflict of interest concerns. Elected officials in that situation should get formal guidance from COIB and disclose it as a gift."
Rachael Fauss, senior policy advisor at Reinvent Albany, agreed. She said she believes Won should have disclosed the arrangement.
"It could potentially be seen as a gift, so it belongs on the forms somewhere."
The Conflicts of Interest Board itself stopped short of declaring a violation but left little room for comfort. Executive director Carolyn Miller said she could not "provide a definitive answer" without speaking to Won and obtaining "all the relevant facts." She did, however, lay out the legal landscape in terms that apply squarely to the situation Won now faces.
"Receiving something of value could be considered a gift under the annual disclosure law, and it also could be compensation in connection with one's employment. Also, for a married couple, there is often a question about who received the thing of value for reporting purposes, the filer or their spouse."
That last point matters. Won could argue the rent waiver was compensation to her husband, not to her. But the COIB's own framing suggests the question is far from settled, and that an elected official receiving free housing from a political consultant ought to have sought guidance before filing bare disclosure forms.
The living arrangement itself has already generated its own tangled dispute. Chae shared a copy of the lease agreement with the Post. He said Noh's employment at Legion Outreach Consultants ended in June of last year, yet the family stayed in the $1 million condo without paying rent.
Won has pushed back hard, calling the matter a "clearly political smear job." She and Noh have insisted they never signed any lease on the unit and accused Chae of forging her name on a bogus lease agreement. The couple has refused to address allegations that they never paid rent and declined to say whether they claimed the free housing on their tax filings.
Court filings tell a blunt story of their own. Won and her family vacated the condo on June 1, three days after Chae served them with eviction papers. Chae dropped the eviction case on June 8 because the family had left. He told the Post he now plans to sue Won and Noh to recoup $25,000 in rent he says they owe for the first five months of 2025.
Won did not respond to the Post's requests for comment on the disclosure issue. That silence is notable for a sitting councilwoman who is simultaneously running in a contested Democratic primary, the June 23 race to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez in New York's 7th Congressional District, which covers parts of Queens and Brooklyn.
Beyond the city disclosure forms, the arrangement carries federal and state tax implications. Employer-provided housing is generally considered a taxable fringe benefit that must be reported as income. Recipients are typically required to pay both federal and state taxes on it. Won and Noh have declined to say whether they did so.
If the rent waiver was indeed compensation to Noh, as Chae has described it, then the family may have received roughly $60,000 in untaxed housing value over a twelve-month lease period. If it was a gift to Won, it should have appeared on her COIB forms. Either way, the paperwork trail appears to have a hole in it.
The COIB has not yet publicly released its 2025 filings, so it remains unclear whether Won corrected the omission for the current year. That gap leaves voters heading into a primary with an incomplete picture of a candidate's financial entanglements.
The Won saga fits a broader pattern of Democratic officeholders in New York facing questions about transparency and self-dealing. The city's own government has been dogged by accusations of blocking oversight of billions in public contracts, while other elected officials have found themselves tangled in contradictory statements about property disputes and official conduct.
Conflict-of-interest disclosure forms exist for a simple reason: voters deserve to know who is giving their representatives things of value. A $5,000-a-month apartment on the Long Island City waterfront is not a box of cookies left on a doorstep. It is a substantial financial benefit from a political operative whose business interests could easily intersect with a council member's official duties.
Weinberg's point from Citizens Union is worth repeating in plain terms. When a political consultant hands an elected official free housing, the official should disclose it. Won did not. Whether that failure amounts to a technical violation or a deliberate evasion is a question for the COIB, but voters can draw their own conclusions about judgment.
New York has seen other Democratic politicians face serious scrutiny over conduct that falls well short of the standards they publicly champion. Won's case may not involve a federal probe, but the underlying dynamic is familiar: an official who benefits privately from a political relationship while leaving the public record blank.
The forgery allegation adds another layer. If Won is telling the truth that Chae fabricated a lease bearing her name, that is a serious criminal matter she presumably would want investigated. If Chae is telling the truth, then Won and Noh lived in his property for months, stopped paying after Noh's employment ended, and left only when eviction papers arrived. Neither version reflects well on a candidate asking voters to send her to Congress.
Meanwhile, contradictory statements from New York's top Democratic officials have become almost routine. Won's refusal to address the rent allegations or the tax questions follows a well-worn playbook: say nothing, call it a smear, and hope the news cycle moves on before primary day.
The June 23 primary is now barely a week and a half away. Voters in the 7th Congressional District will decide whether to elevate Won from the City Council to the U.S. House. They will do so knowing that their candidate received what appears to be tens of thousands of dollars in free housing from a Democratic consultant, failed to disclose it on the forms designed to catch exactly this kind of arrangement, and has so far refused to explain the gap.
Disclosure laws are only as strong as the willingness of officeholders to follow them. When a councilwoman skips the paperwork on a luxury apartment and then asks for a promotion, voters are entitled to wonder what else never made it onto the forms.
