State collects $20,000 in attorney’s fees and court costs from Tim Eyman and his PACs

Scan­dal-plagued ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman and the polit­i­cal com­mit­tees he con­trols have agreed to reim­burse Wash­ing­ton State tax­pay­ers to recoup the costs incurred to com­pel his coop­er­a­tion into its inves­ti­ga­tion into his con­ceal­ment of cam­paign funds, Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son’s office has announced.

“I refused to allow Tim Eyman and Cit­i­zen Solu­tions to impede our inves­ti­ga­tion,” Fer­gu­son said in a press release announc­ing the news. “The court has appro­pri­ate­ly ordered Eyman to allow us direct access to the infor­ma­tion we request­ed and to pay tax­pay­ers back for wast­ing my office’s time.”

Now that is has access to the records it wants, Fer­gu­son’s office is no longer seek­ing to have Eyman held in con­tempt of court — at least not for the time being. Judge Ellen Fair has signed off on the agree­ment between the state and Eyman, in which Eyman has agreed to pay up and the AG has agreed to drop its motion.

Eyman’s bud­dies at Cit­i­zen Solu­tions were pre­vi­ous­ly ordered to pay $12,969.50 in attor­ney’s fees and court costs by Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Mary Sue Wil­son, in a hear­ing we cov­ered last month.

That brings the cost of Eyman’s stonewalling to over $30,000 in penalties.

“Since the AG filed his con­tempt motion, Eyman and the com­mit­tees pro­duced addi­tion­al tax records and some bank­ing records, but still failed to pro­duce all the records as request­ed,” Fer­gu­son’s office not­ed in its press release.“Now that the court-ordered releas­es and costs and fees asso­ci­at­ed with the enforce­ment of the Attor­ney General’s sub­poe­nas have been received, the inves­ti­ga­tion continues.”

It has been almost exact­ly a year since the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to refer this mat­ter to Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son for pros­e­cu­tion, hav­ing found that Eyman com­mit­ted mul­ti­ple appar­ent vio­la­tions of RCW 42.17A when he qual­i­fied Ini­tia­tives 1185 and 517 to the bal­lot in 2012.

(I‑1185 appeared on the Novem­ber 2012 bal­lot; I‑517 appeared on the Novem­ber 2013 bal­lot as an ini­tia­tive to the Leg­is­la­ture that was not act­ed upon.)

Fer­gu­son’s office sum­ma­rized the vio­la­tions it is inves­ti­gat­ing as follows:

• $623,325 in pay­ments by Vot­ers Want More Choic­es to the sig­na­ture gath­er­ing firm Cit­i­zen Solu­tions “incurred in a man­ner to effect con­ceal­ment” because they were described in the committee’s reports as pay­ing for sig­na­ture gath­er­ing, when $308,185 was passed from Cit­i­zen Solu­tions to Eyman’s for-prof­it com­pa­ny, “Tim Eyman, Watch­dog for Tax­pay­ers” on July 11, 2012;
• Eyman’s use of approx­i­mate­ly $170,000 in con­tri­bu­tions from Vot­ers Want More Choic­es for per­son­al liv­ing expenses;
• The expen­di­ture of about $200,000 con­tributed to sup­port Ini­tia­tive 1185 to fund sig­na­ture gath­er­ing for a sep­a­rate ini­tia­tive, Ini­tia­tive 517;
• Con­ceal­ment of Eyman as the source of $182,000 of in-kind con­tri­bu­tions attrib­uted in reports to Cit­i­zens in Charge, a Vir­ginia-based com­pa­ny; and
• Fail­ure of Vot­ers Want More Choic­es and Pro­tect Your Right to Vote on Ini­tia­tives to file com­plete and accu­rate reports of con­tri­bu­tion and expen­di­ture activity.

All those vio­la­tions are part of the same case.

But that’s not the extent of the trou­ble Eyman is in.

In the months since Fer­gu­son’s office has tak­en over from the PDC, Eyman and his asso­ciates have con­tin­ued to flout RCW Chap­ter 42.17A, prompt­ing Wash­ing­to­ni­ans For Eth­i­cal Gov­ern­ment and Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling to each noti­fy Fer­gu­son of their intent to bring law­suits against Eyman in the name of the state to enforce Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws.

In May, Wash­ing­to­ni­ans For Eth­i­cal Gov­ern­ment alleged that Eyman broke the law when he launched a series of inde­pen­dent expen­di­tures against Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­isla­tive can­di­dates the pre­vi­ous month. The tar­get­ed can­di­dates had refused to capit­u­late to Eyman’s demand that the Leg­is­la­ture sab­o­tage the Con­sti­tu­tion’s major­i­ty vote clause dur­ing the 2016 session.

The fol­low­ing month, hav­ing been asked to look into the mat­ter by Fer­gu­son’s office, the PDC con­firmed the alle­ga­tions and rec­om­mend­ed Fer­gu­son prosecute.

That same month, Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling alleged in a set of forty-five day let­ters that Eyman had failed to prop­er­ly report loans made to his committees.

And last week, Wash­ing­to­ni­ans For Eth­i­cal Gov­ern­ment ini­ti­at­ed a new cit­i­zen’s action against Eyman for con­ceal­ing where his newest PAC’s seed mon­ey came from. (Eyman’s newest PAC, “We Love Our Cars”, was formed to pro­mote I‑869, an ini­tia­tive to the Leg­is­la­ture for 2017. It has report­ed rais­ing more than $150,000, but over $140,000 of that is unac­count­ed for in the com­mit­tee’s reports.)

The Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s office has not yet announced how it intends to pro­ceed with respect to pros­e­cut­ing these more recent vio­la­tions, but hope­ful­ly it will soon.