AST, Leasing Firm Do Battle With Pickets, Suit

It all started out as a simple business deal four years ago.

But it has erupted into an unusually bitter landlord-tenant fight, with one side challenging the other in a courtroom and the other on a picket line.

The dispute centers on a warehouse that AST Research Inc., an Irvine personal computer company, leased from McGaw Property Management, a small warehouse leasing company, in 1986.

Kwang-Wei Han, owner of McGaw Property Management, contends that AST broke its contractual agreement when it moved out of the warehouse nine months before a two-year lease expired. Han said AST owes him money for the months of lost rent before he found a new tenant.

So, instead of taking AST to court, Han hired a small army at $10 an hour to picket outside AST’s headquarters, at various street corners and in front of the homes of AST co-founders Tom Yuen, Safi Qureshey and Albert Wong. To Han, it was the principle that counted, and he wanted to publicly air his dispute with AST.

“I’m stubborn,” he said. “If it takes 10 years to keep doing this, I will.”

AST, however, claims in a lawsuit filed in January that it was Han who broke the contract’s terms by failing to notify AST when additional space became available in the warehouse complex. The computer maker, which was growing rapidly at the time, said it needed the space.

Han claims that he has lost about $50,000 so far, including the lost rent from AST and the estimated $3,000 to $4,000 he has paid the pickets.

Han hired a neighbor, two of the neighbor’s friends and a fourth person who responded to an advertisement that Han placed in a local newspaper seeking a picket-for-hire. He had placards printed at $35 apiece that read: “AST: You’ve Moved Without Paying Rent,” “AST: Please Be Fair” and “AST: You Have Powerful Attorneys.” When the signs were finished, Han and his crew went to work.

When AST employees moved into spiffy new headquarters in the Irvine Spectrum on Dec. 18, they were greeted by Han’s hired hands.

“It’s easy money for me,” said one picket, who asked not to be identified. “It surprises me that it has gotten this far. This is a different kind of concept.”

For the first two weeks, from about 7 a.m. until noon daily, they marched back and forth holding the signs. Clad in coats, mittens and scarfs to ward off the cold, the pickets explained their purpose to anybody who stopped and asked. Han has since cut the picketing to three days a week.

Han said he is simply trying to get his message across in a peaceful fashion and exercising his constitutional rights. But Yuen and Qureshey are unconvinced. After filing a lawsuit against Han in Orange County Superior Court in January, the AST co-founders won a temporary restraining order to bar Han’s demonstrators from picketing near their homes.

Yuen and Qureshey’s suit also seeks damages for alleged emotional distress, nuisance, trespass, harassment and invasion of privacy. Last Thursday, a Superior Court judge granted Yuen and Qureshey a preliminary injunction against Han, which prohibits him from picketing their homes until the case is resolved.

Yuen, Qureshey and other AST officials declined through a company spokesman to discuss the matter.

Thomas A. Pistone, a Newport Beach attorney representing Yuen and Qureshey, said the suit was filed on behalf of the two AST co-founders and not the company.

But through the suit, Han said he plans to bring up the dispute and show the court his side of the story.

“What I want is for them to pay me. They’ve wronged me and have caused a lot of grievance. Picketing is not an easy thing. It takes a lot out of you,” said Han, who initially walked the picket line himself. “In the end, when the matter is settled, I will get all this money back. Next time, AST will think twice.”

As both parties continue to swap accusations, Han continues to dispatch his picketing crew and vows to continue his fight to the embarrassment of AST.

Meantime, Han’s pickets were back on the job on a chilly Monday morning. All was calm and quiet until a photographer arrived on the scene. As the photographer tried to take their picture, they put their signs away, packed into a car and drove away, presumably to return another day.