Court docs: Man beaten, threatened for being Mexican over $40, weed

SHORELINE, Wash. - A man is recovering after being beaten repeatedly, harassed for his ethnicity and threatened by his attacker. 

Cristhian Esponda, 33, owns CE Computer Repair, a small business he relocated from Lynnwood to Aurora Avenue in Shoreline over two years ago. 

His livelihood is now threatened after he says he needs surgery as a result of the blows. 

Still healing Esponda, recalls Dec. 30, when he says, Anar Sodnombayar, 29, approached him in the parking lot of Kush Klub on Aurora Avenue. 

He was on the phone with his sister making birthday plans for her that evening when Sodnombayar interrupted the conversation. 

"He's like 'Why can't you buy me marijuana?' And 'I'm like, I can't do that, you just got denied.' So then he starts assaulting me and he starts hitting me on the concrete," Esponda said. 

Esponda says he witnessed Sodnombayar pull into the cannabis store parking lot offer another person money and overheard them being denied products because they saw the transaction happening outside too. 

Sodnombayar got aggressive with Esponda. 

"He would pick me up from my head and every time he hit me my head was being assaulted to the ground," Esponda said. 

The Indigenous DACA recipient says people surrounded them recording the aggression but never stepped in.  

For a moment, Sodnombayar stops beating him, with his glasses shattered on the pavement he tries gathering his belongings including money he had just withdrawn from the ATM. 

Sodnombayar gets in his van and is nearly gone when Esponda calls 911 and rushes to the Kush Klub Wellness & Vape shop for help when his attacker returns. 

"The owner gets between both of us and he says ‘Hey, don't do that on my store’ and the guy says ‘but he's got my (expletive) money, he's got my 40 bucks’ and the owner says ‘I get that but take this outside of my store’," Esponda recalled. 

When Esponda responded he didn’t have his money, the situation escalated. 

"The individual leans around him and grabs me by my legs and just drags me, literally I make eye contact with the owner as I was being dragged out of the store," Esponda said. 

He says Sodnombayar kicked and punched him over and over again. 

Arrest documents say he told Esponda "I’m going to kill you. I’m going to (expletive) kill you, you (expletive) Mexican." 

"The way he said, "I'm going to (expletive) kill you (expletive) Mexican was like my life was worth less because I was Mexican," Esponda said. 

Shoreline police, who responded to the altercation took a statement from Sodnombayar who told them Esponda punched him six to seven times and was only defending himself. 

However, officers noted there no apparent injuries to his face consistent with getting punched. 

Officers said Sodnombayar is 5 feet, 7 inches tall and 160 pounds towering over Esponda who is 4 feet 10 inches tall and 120 pounds. 

Esponda said the only way to make Sodnombayar stop was by offering him money, seizing the opportunity to run into Stefo’s Barber Shop just a few steps away. 

"I can see immediately right from the door that his face was all swollen and he's bleeding his eye was already all black and blue in the sack," Stefanos Siderakis, owner of Stefos Barber Shop, said. 

The business owner stopped Sodnombayar from beating Esponda a third time, just as police and medics arrived. 

Both, Esponda and Siderakis say Kush Klub used to have an armed guard but were told it’s a quiet area and their services are not needed. 

"That's real foul of them to just let something like that pop off, especially to a fellow business owner in the same plaza on the same block, like we're all supposed to stick together and that's kind of unreal," Siderakis said. 

"There's nights where I wake up and in my dream, I'm running towards the barber shop trying to save my life," Esponda said. 

Not only is he coping with the trauma, but he was also hospitalized for three days with brain bleeding, suffers from seizures and now needs a surgery he can’t afford as he is still applying for citizenship. 

The impact seen on his business, he’s posted a sign saying ‘due to serious medical emergency shop will be closed until January 15’ which will now need to be closed for a longer period as he recovers. 

"You're one mistake of being at the wrong place at the wrong time from your business shutting down," Esponda said. 

Sodnombayar is being held for felony harassment and assault in the second degree on $50,000 bail as officials say he is likely to commit a violent offense again. 

While he has no known criminal convictions, documents do say Sodnombayar has a pending assault out of Lynnwood after he allegedly threatened to kill his ex-wife in front of their daughter. 

FOX13 reached out to Kush Klub and are waiting to hear back.