Late Tuesday night, a fourth accuser came forward alleging mayor Ed Murray paid him for sex. In a signed court declaration, sworn under penalty of perjury, 44-year-old Maurice Lavon Jones alleged that he was introduced to Murray as a teenager through Delvonn Heckard, the 46-year-old man who sued the Seattle mayor on grounds of child rape. 

A photo attached to Jones's court declaration showed Heckard's attorney, Lincoln Beauregard, smiling with Jones at a jail and holding up the declaration. That photo prompted a second document supporting a motion to seek sanctions, which was filed April 25, against Heckard's counsel. It alleged misconduct, citing use of the court's filing system to inform the press and garner headlines before Murray's defense attorneys. 

"It is yet another improper filing by Mr. Beauregard only for the purpose of gaining the attention of the press that has nothing to do with Defendant's motion," Murray's attorneys wrote. "It is clear that Mr. Beauregard wants to try the case in the press rather than with due process in the courts, as our constitution and legal traditions require."

Some questioned whether the photo was included to get under Murray's skin—filed near the end of his 62nd birthday, the same date Beauregard proposed to depose him. Murray's spokesperson Jeff Reading had called the photo "extremely odd and unsettling" in a released statement to reporters. 

"If I had thought about that, I would've done it for those reasons too," Beauregard said in a PubliCola interview Wednesday. "Now that he's attacking me, I certainly don't mind that it's on his birthday." 

But Beauregard said it was a coincidence, and maintained his defense of the photo he filed in court—that the intent was to authenticate the making of the declaration. The pass-through window in jail explains why the declaration was written by hand, Beauregard said. His partner and Heckard's other attorney, Julie Kays, "told us to smile, and we did," Beauregard said. Murray's attorney, Bob Sulkin, didn't immediately respond to comment Wednesday. 

King County records showed Jones is currently at the King County Regional Justice Center in Kent, where he was booked on a drug charge March 25. In the declaration Tuesday, Jones alleged Murray was "known for patronizing child prostitutes at the time." Jones said he's also gay and wasn't part of "any right-wing conspiracy."

It's not uncommon for charges of sexual abuse to prompt others to come forward with similar allegations. Beauregard said he strongly suspects that there will be more, but when asked whether he knew of anyone, he responded, "That's all I can say." 

Updated May 4, 2017, at 5:52pm: This post clarifies that the document filed supported a motion for sanctions filed April 25.