State of Washington sues Tim Eyman over illegal kickbacks, misuse of campaign funds

Bring­ing to an end a mul­ti­year inves­ti­ga­tion into Tim Eyman’s ille­gal cam­paign finance prac­tices, Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son announced today that the State of Wash­ing­ton has filed a law­suit in Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court seek­ing $2.1 mil­lion in penal­ties against him, his asso­ciate William Agazarm of Cit­i­zen Solu­tions, and Cit­i­zen Solu­tions itself, as well as seek­ing an injunc­tion bar­ring Eyman from “man­ag­ing, con­trol­ling, nego­ti­at­ing, or direct­ing finan­cial trans­ac­tions of any kind for any polit­i­cal com­mit­tee” in the future.

“Tak­ing kick­backs from con­trac­tors, using cam­paign funds for per­son­al expens­es, redi­rect­ing dona­tions made for one ini­tia­tive to a dif­fer­ent ini­tia­tive — it’s hard to imag­ine what more Mr. Eyman could have done to show his con­tempt for our cam­paign finance dis­clo­sure laws,” Fer­gu­son said in a statement.

Tim Eyman, as reg­u­lar Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate read­ers know, is Washington’s most pro­lif­ic spon­sor of right wing bal­lot mea­sures. He uses the Ever­green State’s ini­tia­tive and ref­er­en­dum process to under­mine rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­ra­cy by forc­ing pub­lic votes on schemes pur­pose­ly intend­ed to wreck gov­ern­ment. NPI has been orga­niz­ing oppo­si­tion to Eyman and his schemes for over fif­teen years.

Fer­gu­son’s office was asked to inves­ti­gate Eyman’s wrong­do­ing in Sep­tem­ber of 2015 by a unan­i­mous Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion, whose staff spent two and a half years inves­ti­gat­ing alle­ga­tions that Eyman was ille­gal­ly using mon­ey from one ini­tia­tive (I‑1185) to qual­i­fy anoth­er (I‑517) while also fail­ing to meet required report­ing dead­lines that are in place to per­mit the pub­lic to fol­low the money.

PDC staff con­clud­ed Eyman broke the law and rec­om­mend­ed that the case be giv­en to Fer­gu­son’s office, as the PDC can­not impose fines of more than ten thou­sand dol­lars. Fer­gu­son’s inves­ti­ga­tion was delayed repeat­ed­ly by Eyman’s refusal to coop­er­ate. State attor­neys ulti­mate­ly had to go to court last sum­mer in an effort to get the state’s law­ful­ly-issued sub­poe­nas enforced.

Judges in two dif­fer­ent coun­ties ordered Eyman and his asso­ciates to pro­vide access to doc­u­ments request­ed by the AG’s inves­ti­ga­tors, which they grudg­ing­ly agreed to do after Fer­gu­son’s team asked that Eyman be held in con­tempt.

The inves­ti­ga­tion resumed and was recent­ly wrapped up after the state deposed Eyman. Now that charges have been filed in Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court, Eyman and his attor­ney Mark Lamb will have twen­ty days to respond.

Fer­gu­son’s law­suit makes the fol­low­ing allegations:

• Eyman con­cealed the $308,185 pay­ment from Cit­i­zen Solu­tions. If the judge finds this to be inten­tion­al, that penal­ty could total $924,555.
• Eyman con­cealed the true source of $182,000 in in-kind con­tri­bu­tions to Pro­tect Your Right to Vote on Ini­tia­tives [I‑517 cam­paign com­mit­tee]. If the judge finds this to be inten­tion­al, that penal­ty could total $546,000.
• Eyman spent cam­paign funds for per­son­al use through at least five pay­ments to Cit­i­zens in Charge, with a penal­ty up to $10,000 per pay­ment. If the judge finds this to be inten­tion­al, that penal­ty could total $150,000.
• Eyman caused VWMC [Vot­ers Want More Choic­es; what he calls his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry] to file three inac­cu­rate or mis­lead­ing reports relat­ed to its pay­ments to Cit­i­zen Solu­tions, with a penal­ty up to $10,000 per report. If the judge finds this to be inten­tion­al, that penal­ty could total $90,000.
• Eyman caused Pro­tect Your Right to Vote on Ini­tia­tives to file five inac­cu­rate and mis­lead­ing reports relat­ed to con­tri­bu­tions it attrib­uted to Cit­i­zens in Charge, with a penal­ty up to $10,000 per report. If the judge finds this to be inten­tion­al, that penal­ty could total $150,000.
• Cit­i­zen Solu­tions and one of its prin­ci­pal, William Agazarm, con­cealed the $308,185 pay­ment to Eyman. If the judge finds this to be inten­tion­al, that penal­ty could total $924,555.

Today’s law­suit is in addi­tion to three suits Fer­gu­son filed last year against Eyman, which were prompt­ed by cit­i­zen action notices filed by NPI part­ner Wash­ing­to­ni­ans For Eth­i­cal Gov­ern­ment and Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling.

There are now four active law­suits against Tim Eyman, his com­mit­tees, and his asso­ciates by the State of Washington.

We’ve pub­lished a state­ment thank­ing the Attor­ney Gen­er­al for tak­ing this action over at Per­ma­nent Defense. It has been a long time coming.

We have sus­pect­ed for over a decade that Tim Eyman was receiv­ing kick­backs from Cit­i­zen Solu­tions — and thus dou­ble dip­ping into his cam­paign funds for his per­son­al ben­e­fit, but could­n’t prove it. Now we have the proof, thanks to this inves­ti­ga­tion. (Eyman has open­ly paid him­self a salary out of his dona­tions since he was caught lying about pock­et­ing con­tri­bu­tions for him­self back in 2002.)

With the help of his lawyer Mark Lamb, Tim Eyman tried might­i­ly to post­pone this day of reck­on­ing and buy him­self more time to per­suade his wealthy bene­fac­tors to turn the mon­ey spig­ot to his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry turned back on.

But he could not fore­stall Fer­gu­son’s team for­ev­er. Now he has a fourth law­suit to defend him­self against. Mean­while, he has failed to get the bene­fac­tors to open their check­books. He failed to make the bal­lot at all last year, and it appears he’ll fail again to make the bal­lot this year, which would be unprece­dent­ed (Eyman has had some­thing on the bal­lot at least every oth­er year going back to 1999).

We will be track­ing this law­suit and the three pre­vi­ous­ly filed very close­ly, and will pro­vide updates on any devel­op­ments with each here on the Cas­ca­dia Advocate.