Tim Eyman caught on video stealing a chair from the Office Depot in Lacey, Washington

Dis­graced ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman is under inves­ti­ga­tion for pet­ty theft by the Lacey Police Depart­ment after steal­ing a Bren­ton Stu­dios May­hart chair that had been put in the vestibule of the Office Depot on Sleater Kin­ney Road Southeast.

The alleged crime was com­mit­ted on the morn­ing of Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 13th. Footage pro­vid­ed to the Lacey Police Depart­ment by Office Depot shows Eyman walk­ing around inside the store entrance, clad in his red “Let the Vot­ers Decide” t‑shirt. He can be seen check­ing out his sur­round­ings, then walk­ing inside the vestibule and sit­ting down in the dis­play chair the store man­ag­er had put there.

After reclin­ing in the chair and spin­ning around in it a few times, Eyman gets up and wheels the chair right out of the store into the park­ing lot — with­out pay­ing for it.

The sur­veil­lance video then shows him walk­ing back inside the store a few min­utes lat­er, this time with a black jack­et on cov­er­ing most of his red t‑shirt.

Eyman dis­ap­pears from the frame after walk­ing back inside, but soon reap­pears inside the left edge. He can be seen for sev­er­al min­utes at the counter before even­tu­al­ly leav­ing the store again, this time hold­ing a phone to his ear. The clerk can be seen walk­ing out behind him wheel­ing a dol­ly laden with two printers.

Here’s the clerk’s sworn writ­ten account of what happened:

Tim Eyman came into our store to get some doc­u­ments copied & also request­ed help with his print­er he had brought in. I helped him with his print­er issue and helped pick 2 new print­ers. He thanked me and shook my hand. While I was busy with anoth­er cus­tomer, Tim went into the foy­er and sat in our dis­play chair, then pro­ceed­ed to walk it out the front door with­out pay­ing for it. He then came back in and paid for his print job and his 2 print­ers as well as return­ing his old printer.

He act­ed wary when I told him I would help him take the print­ers out to the car. When we got to his vehi­cle (gray, mid to late 2000s SUV, pos­si­bly Ford Explorer/Expedition), he insist­ed I leave the print­ers on the ground next to his vehi­cle because he need­ed to rearrange a few things. I gave him my Office Depot busi­ness card and went back inside.

The police report states that after the store man­ag­er dis­cov­ered the chair miss­ing, he checked the sur­veil­lance footage to find out what happened.

(The sur­veil­lance footage the store pro­vid­ed to police is playable above unedit­ed, but the near­ly ten minute clip begins after Eyman has already entered the store for the first time. That’s why we don’t see him return­ing the printer.)

“Eyman was iden­ti­fied due to the phone num­ber, pay­ment method infor­ma­tion, and name ref­er­enced through the store com­put­er sys­tem that Eyman used to exchange the print­ers after walk­ing out of the door with the chair,” the inves­ti­gat­ing police offi­cer W.R. Smith stat­ed in his report. “I fur­ther iden­ti­fied Eyman through the store sur­veil­lance video pro­vid­ed, a DOL pic­ture returned through dis­patch, and a per­son­al pic­ture of Eyman tak­en from his Face­book account on 2/13/2019 that shows him wear­ing the same red shirt with the phrase “Let the voter[s] decide”.

After scan­ning receipts and state­ments from Office Depot into evi­dence, and adding the sur­veil­lance footage to its dig­i­tal lock­er, the Lacey Police Depart­ment con­clud­ed that Eyman was the like­ly per­pe­tra­tor and has referred the case (which car­ries a charge of mis­de­meanor theft) to the city pros­e­cu­tor. Offi­cer Smith’s report states that his ini­tial attempt to reach Tim Eyman was unsuccessful.

The Seat­tle Times’ David Gut­man also tried to reach Eyman upon learn­ing of the mat­ter, but could­n’t get a hold of him pri­or to pub­li­ca­tion.

After the sto­ry had been picked up by near­ly every major media out­let in the state, Eyman began email­ing a state­ment to reporters. “I just called the Lacey Office Depot who referred me to the Lacey Police Depart­ment,” said Eyman.

“I am expect­ing a call from the offi­cer in charge to explain what hap­pened. I will coop­er­ate ful­ly in this process and will do what­ev­er is required of me.”

He’ll “coop­er­ate ful­ly” and do “what­ev­er is required”? What does that mean… that he’ll return the chair that he stole from Office Depot? Or pay for it?

As we have doc­u­ment­ed here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate and at Per­ma­nent Defense (which hap­pens to be cel­e­brat­ing its sev­en­teenth anniver­sary today), there is no one in Wash­ing­ton State pol­i­tics who is more dis­hon­est than Tim Eyman.

Eyman has a long and dis­turb­ing record of lying to the press and the pub­lic, dup­ing his own donors, repeat­ed­ly vio­lat­ing our pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws, hyper­bol­i­cal­ly attack­ing our elect­ed offi­cials, and invit­ing peo­ple on his email list to harass his polit­i­cal oppo­nents. Now he’s been caught on tape com­mit­ting pet­ty theft.

We can only hope that this footage helps more Wash­ing­to­ni­ans under­stand who Tim Eyman tru­ly is: a greedy, self-obsessed indi­vid­ual with a patho­log­i­cal need for atten­tion who does not hes­i­tate to lie, cheat, and steal with impunity.

It would be nice if this footage result­ed in the end of Eyman’s career, but he has a gift for trick­ery and decep­tion and part­ing fools from their mon­ey, just like his idol, Don­ald Trump, also known nowa­days as Indi­vid­ual Num­ber One.

When I start­ed Per­ma­nent Defense sev­en­teen years ago, Eyman had just been caught with his hand in the prover­bial cook­ie jar, hav­ing admit­ted to tak­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars in cam­paign funds for his own per­son­al use.

He spilled his guts to The Asso­ci­at­ed Press in a phone call dur­ing the Super Bowl, which that year, like 2019, was a matchup between the Patri­ots and the Rams.

After the sto­ry broke, many peo­ple thought Eyman was done.

I knew better.

After a con­ver­sa­tion with two friends who pro­fessed them­selves dis­ap­point­ed because they sup­port­ed what Eyman was try­ing to do (kill Sound Tran­sit’s Link light rail), I decid­ed to take action. I drew up plans for Per­ma­nent Defense and it went live on the World Wide Web on Feb­ru­ary 15th, 2002… sev­en­teen years ago today.

It has been very sat­is­fy­ing over the years to watch a grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple of all polit­i­cal per­sua­sions real­ize what I’ve known ever since I caught my first glimpse of Eyman on local tele­vi­sion: he is not to be trust­ed. Con artists like Eyman and Trump thrive on the gulli­bil­i­ty of oth­er peo­ple. And once they’re estab­lished, it’s incred­i­bly hard to get rid of them. It’s like fight­ing a ter­mite infestation.

But if we don’t stop them, then the coun­try and state we love will be no more.

I’ve always believed Wash­ing­ton is worth sav­ing. Cas­ca­di­a’s future must be secured. That’s why my team and I have per­se­vered in our efforts to build a Per­ma­nent Defense against Eyman’s attacks on our Con­sti­tu­tion and com­mon wealth. Eyman prides him­self on his relent­less­ness; it’s arguably his favorite characteristic.

For­tu­nate­ly, we’re just as per­sis­tent and deter­mined as he is.

I could­n’t have imag­ined that on the very day that Per­ma­nent Defense turned sev­en­teen, the great State of Wash­ing­ton would be gift­ed with video reveal­ing Tim Eyman to be a pet­ty crim­i­nal. Now every­one can see an exam­ple of what Tim once infa­mous­ly called his “ugly, stinky, and dis­gust­ing” behavior.