New York City Councilwoman Julie Won, a progressive Democrat now running for Congress, vacated a luxury Long Island City condo this week, three days after her ex-landlord served eviction papers and accused her family of owing $25,000 in unpaid rent. The landlord calls it squatting. Won calls it a political hit job. A Queens Housing Court hearing is set for June 30.
The dispute, first reported by the New York Post, lands days before the June 23 Democratic primary in New York's 7th Congressional District, where Won is trying to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez. The timing alone makes the story significant. But the details, a nearly $1 million waterfront condo, a contested lease, an email trail, and a web of political consulting money, make it something more.
At the center of the dispute is Justin Chae, a prominent New York political consultant and longtime family friend of Won and her husband, Eugene Noh. Chae owns a one-bedroom unit in Skyline Towers, a 67-story skyscraper on the Long Island City waterfront. He told the Post he agreed to let Won, Noh, and their two young children move in rent-free in November 2024 under a one-year lease. The free rent, Chae said, was a bonus tied to Noh's agreement to work as vice president of campaigns at Chae's firm, Legion Outreach Consultants.
Chae shared a lease agreement with the Post and provided an October 17, 2024, email exchange in which Noh reportedly wrote that he had "signed" the lease. Chae told the Post the arrangement called for rent-free occupancy through the end of 2025, after which the family would pay $5,000 per month if they stayed.
Won flatly denies any of it. She insisted to the Post that she and Noh never signed a lease on the unit. She went further, claiming Chae forged her name onto a bogus lease agreement and accused him of "politically extorting her" while she campaigns for higher office.
Won called the situation a "clearly political smear job" and said she plans to countersue. In a statement to the Post, she framed herself as a victim of landlord abuse:
"This is a gross misrepresentation of reality but unfortunately thousands of families face the same kind of intimidation and abuse by landlords across the city. I look forward to setting the record straight in court especially since there's no executed lease, nor has there been a service of a predicate notice as required by law."
That framing, a sitting councilwoman casting herself as an ordinary tenant bullied by a landlord, is a familiar progressive reflex. Whether it holds up may depend on what Queens Housing Court makes of the lease, the email exchange, and the timeline.
The personal falling-out between Chae and Noh appears to run deeper than a lease disagreement. Noh's employment at Legion Outreach Consultants was terminated on June 26, the Post reported, citing Chae's Queens Housing Court petition. Chae claims the couple started "ghosting" him in April, ignoring calls and messages. Noh reportedly planned to buy out parts of Chae's consulting business last year, but Chae said no deal was ever reached.
Noh has since launched his own firm, Legion Consulting. Records show the company has pulled in $268,696 in city, state, and federal campaign work since August. His biggest client: former Mayor Eric Adams, for whom Noh served as contracted campaign manager during Adams' failed 2025 independent re-election bid. That work alone netted Noh $104,735.
The financial picture raises its own questions. Won earns $148,500 annually as a city councilwoman. Her husband's consulting firm has banked more than a quarter-million dollars in less than a year. Yet Chae alleges the family never paid a cent toward rent and plans to file additional court papers seeking the $25,000 he says they owe for the first five months of 2025.
The pattern of public officials in New York operating under questionable financial arrangements is not new. But it rarely comes with this much documentation heading into a primary.
One detail stands out. In a May 26 interview published by The New York Editorial Board, Won claimed she and her husband currently pay "over $4,000" monthly for rent. She said she moved to Long Island City because "Council security" suggested she enroll her children in a school "where there's more Asian children, so that they can blend in more." She described the area as "where it's extremely expensive."
Won did not mention her ongoing landlord-tenant dispute in that interview. If Chae's account is accurate, that the family lived rent-free and never paid, the $4,000-a-month claim to an editorial board raises obvious credibility problems. If Won's account is accurate, that no lease existed and Chae is fabricating the arrangement, then the question becomes why she and her family occupied a nearly $1 million waterfront condo for months under terms she now says were never formalized.
Either way, the gap between what Won told interviewers and what court filings allege deserves scrutiny from voters in the 7th District.
Won is a member of the City Council's Progressive Caucus and represents Long Island City, Sunnyside, and other parts of Western Queens. She endorsed now-Mayor Zohran Mamdani in last year's Democratic primary. Mamdani, for his part, is backing state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez, described as a fellow socialist, in the congressional race. Retiring Rep. Velázquez has endorsed Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.
The progressive lane in the 7th District is crowded, and Won's candidacy now carries the weight of an active housing court case. Chae's spokesman, longtime Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf, told the Post that "Chae can't believe his friends would take advantage of him this way."
In July, Won and Noh told QNS.com that they were unfairly targeted by "sexist" and "misogynistic" media scrutiny of their relationship because they backed different mayoral candidates. The deflection-by-identity-politics playbook is well-worn. It does not answer questions about unpaid rent or contested leases.
Democrats have a growing problem with candidates whose personal conduct undermines their public messaging. Whether it's a congressional candidate in Hawaii facing criminal charges or a Senate hopeful whose scandals overshadow his polling, the pattern keeps repeating: candidates who campaign on accountability for others while dodging it themselves.
The facts that can be verified at this stage are limited but telling. An email from October 2024 appears to show Noh acknowledging he signed a lease. Won says no executed lease exists. Chae has filed a petition in Queens Housing Court. Won's family occupied the condo for months and left three days after eviction papers arrived.
The June 30 hearing will begin to sort out who is telling the truth. But voters in the June 23 primary will cast ballots a full week before that hearing takes place.
Won wants to represent her district in Congress. She has positioned herself as a champion of tenants and working families. The question now is whether a councilwoman who earns nearly $150,000 a year, married to a consultant pulling in six figures in campaign work, can credibly claim she is the victim in a dispute over rent she may never have paid on a luxury condo she occupied for months.
The record of Democratic leaders declaring their own candidates unfit when scandals surface suggests the party knows the stakes. Whether anyone in New York's progressive establishment applies that standard to Won remains to be seen.
Voters deserve candidates who live by the rules they write for everyone else. That standard shouldn't be too much to ask, especially from someone who wants a promotion.