Tim Eyman’s pals Eddie Agazarm and Roy Ruffino ordered to cooperate with AG’s probe

The men Tim Eyman relies on to orga­nize paid sig­na­ture dri­ves to force pub­lic votes on his schemes to wreck gov­ern­ment have been ordered by a Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court judge to coop­er­ate with Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son’s inves­ti­ga­tion into their law­break­ing, just forty-eight hours after a Sno­homish Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court judge ordered Eyman him­self to do the same.

Eddie Agazarm and Roy Ruffi­no are the duo behind “Cit­i­zen Solu­tions”, which have been the mus­cle behind Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry for well over a decade.

A mul­ti­year inves­ti­ga­tion by the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion com­plet­ed last year and referred to Fer­gu­son uncov­ered an arrange­ment we had always sus­pect­ed exist­ed, but could not prove: Eyman has been get­ting lucra­tive kick­backs from Cit­i­zen Solu­tions in addi­tion to pay­ing him­self a “salary” out of cam­paign funds. A large chunk of the mon­ey Eyman’s PDC reports have said was used for sig­na­ture gath­er­ing actu­al­ly went back to Tim. He’s been lin­ing his own pock­ets… again.

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son, at the PDC’s request, is try­ing to deter­mine whether Eyman broke the law in time peri­ods oth­er than 2012, which was the focus of the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion’s investigation.

But Fer­gu­son’s fol­low-up inves­ti­ga­tion has been ham­pered by a lack of coop­er­a­tion. Eyman, Agazarm, and Ruffi­no have been with­hold­ing infor­ma­tion, no doubt in an attempt to post­pone their day of reck­on­ing. Ear­li­er this month, tired of their games and their intran­si­gence, Fer­gu­son filed peti­tions in Sno­homish and Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Courts to com­pel their cooperation.

On Thurs­day, Sno­homish Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Ellen Fair approved an order requir­ing Tim Eyman to turn over the doc­u­ment  Fer­gu­son wants by July 13th. Today, Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Mary Sue Wil­son signed off on a sim­i­lar order for Roy Ruffi­no and Eddie Agazarm.

Inter­est­ing­ly, Ruffi­no and Agazarm share coun­sel with Eyman — they’re all rep­re­sent­ed by attor­ney Mark Lamb of Both­ell — which sug­gests the trio have decid­ed to stick togeth­er, at least for the time being.

Lamb was in court on Wednes­day rep­re­sent­ing Eyman, but waived his appear­ance this morn­ing in Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court before Judge Wil­son, who grant­ed the relief sought by the state: an order to com­pel coop­er­a­tion and pay­ment of costs involved with enforc­ing the law­ful­ly issued subpoena.

“Cit­i­zen Solu­tions should have turned this infor­ma­tion over months ago,” Fer­gu­son said in a news release hail­ing the order.

“Two courts have now rec­og­nized what Tim Eyman and his asso­ciates refused to accept — when my office sub­poe­nas evi­dence, you can’t sim­ply choose to ignore it.”

Ruffi­no and Agazarm have until July 13th to pro­duce the bank state­ments, cor­re­spon­dence, and tax returns Fer­gu­son’s office wants.

If they do not, they could be held in con­tempt of court.