Court penalizes Tim Eyman and associates as state wins two successive default judgments

Dis­graced ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman and his long­time asso­ciates have been found liable for vio­lat­ing Wash­ing­ton State’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws and must pay hefty fines to the peo­ple of the State of Wash­ing­ton, Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge James Dixon deter­mined in a pair of recent rulings.

In the first of the rul­ings, hand­ed down on Fri­day, April 12th, 2019, Judge Dixon entered a default judg­ment against Eyman and sev­er­al of his polit­i­cal com­mit­tees for fail­ing to respond to three relat­ed cam­paign finance enforce­ment law­suits filed by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son in Sep­tem­ber of 2016.

Judge Dixon indi­vid­u­al­ly penal­ized Tim Eyman $22,340, while four of his com­mit­tees were penal­ized $2,910, $7,700, $6,640, and $5,090, respec­tive­ly. Eyman was also ordered to pay $17,827.28 in rea­son­able attor­neys’ fees plus $366.25 in court costs. The total penal­ty against Eyman comes to $40,533.53.

In the sec­ond of the rul­ings, hand­ed down on Fri­day, May 17th, 2019, Judge Dixon entered a default judg­ment against Tim Eyman’s asso­ciates Roy Ruffi­no and William Agazarm (and their com­pa­ny, “Cit­i­zen Solu­tions”) in a fourth cam­paign finance enforce­ment case filed by Fer­gu­son in March of 2017.

Ruffi­no, Agazarm, and “Cit­i­zen Solu­tions” were held liable for vio­lat­ing Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws after they “will­ful­ly and delib­er­ate­ly” failed to fol­low Dixon’s orders and court dis­cov­ery rules. “Cit­i­zen Solu­tions” has now been in con­tempt of court for fif­teen months run­ning, accru­ing $175,000 in fines.

This fourth case is the one that’s drawn pret­ty much all of the media atten­tion, as Fer­gu­son is seek­ing a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar fine against Eyman and an injunc­tion bar­ring him from being the sole deci­sion­mak­er of a polit­i­cal committee.

The three cas­es filed in Sep­tem­ber of 2016 pre­date the fourth case in a sense, because they became law­suits first. How­ev­er, if you con­sid­er the inves­ti­ga­to­ry phase of the fourth case, it’s actu­al­ly the old­est by a long shot. 

The vio­la­tions the fourth case are all about were com­mit­ted in 2012, when Tim Eyman duped the donors to one of his ini­tia­tives by telling them he need­ed more mon­ey than he real­ly need­ed for a sig­na­ture dri­ve. Eyman pock­et­ed a big chunk of the mon­ey he did­n’t need through kick­backs from Cit­i­zen Solu­tions, and then illic­it­ly financed a dif­fer­ent ini­tia­tive that his donors did­n’t know about.

Eyman is still defend­ing him­self in this fourth case; a tri­al is sup­posed to be held next sum­mer. While Eyman has used stonewalling in the extreme as his strat­e­gy for defend­ing him­self in the fourth case, Eyman did not both­er to defend him­self at all in the oth­er three cas­es that Fer­gu­son filed in Sep­tem­ber of 2016.

These cas­es — which were sub­se­quent­ly con­sol­i­dat­ed — were all prompt­ed by com­plaints filed by Wash­ing­to­ni­ans For Eth­i­cal Gov­ern­ment (WFEG) and Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling (KWR), the coali­tion that works to pro­tect Wash­ing­ton’s bipar­ti­san trans­porta­tion invest­ments. NPI works with both WFEG and KWR to fight Eyman’s destruc­tive ini­tia­tives and hold him account­able for his lawbreaking.

One of the com­plaints stemmed from NPI’s dis­cov­ery that Eyman was run­ning an ille­gal inde­pen­dent expen­di­ture against Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors after they refused to capit­u­late to his demand that they sup­port a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment that would have sab­o­taged the major­i­ty vote thresh­old dat­ing back to statehood.

(After the fil­ing of that com­plaint, Eyman pulled the ads.)

The oth­er com­plaints alleged that Eyman failed to exe­cute writ­ten loan agree­ments for a set of loans that he arranged from him­self and sev­er­al of his wealthy bene­fac­tors to his polit­i­cal com­mit­tees, and that Eyman’s com­mit­tees failed to prop­er­ly account for and report inter­est pay­ments on those loans

On Sep­tem­ber 23rd, 2016, the com­plaints became the foun­da­tion of the three afore­men­tioned law­suits against Eyman and his asso­ciates. Fer­gu­son amend­ed one of the com­plaints a cou­ple months lat­er alleg­ing even more vio­la­tions uncov­ered by our team at NPI, which became the basis of anoth­er WFEG complaint.

On Novem­ber 3rd, 2017, the cas­es were consolidated.

Tim Eyman nev­er respond­ed to the three con­sol­i­dat­ed cas­es, hav­ing appar­ent­ly decid­ed the best course of action would be to do nothing.

That choice might have saved Eyman some mon­ey on legal defense bills, but he will not get to escape lia­bil­i­ty for his law­break­ing, as Judge Dixon has now grant­ed Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son’s motion for a default judgment.

The remain­ing defen­dants in the case (Eyman’s asso­ciates) will be dealt with sep­a­rate­ly, per Judge Dixon’s April 12th, 2019 ruling.

“The Court directs the entry of such judg­ment because there is no just rea­son for delay,” Dixon’s order declares. “The Court finds that the remain­ing issues that need to be decid­ed as to the remain­ing defen­dants can eas­i­ly be decid­ed sep­a­rate­ly, and there is noth­ing that would pre­vent the entry of sep­a­rate judg­ments as to those defen­dants. The Court finds that the inter­ests of judi­cial econ­o­my weigh towards enter­ing a final judg­ment as to these Defendants.”

It is extreme­ly sat­is­fy­ing to know that our work to uncov­er Eyman’s ille­gal activ­i­ties has result­ed in sig­nif­i­cant penal­ties being assessed against Eyman and his asso­ciates. Eyman’s con­tempt for Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure law is prac­ti­cal­ly beyond com­pare. Over and over again, Eyman has brazen­ly flout­ed the law as though it sim­ply did­n’t apply to him. Now he and his pals must pay.

Because Eyman is in Chap­ter 11 bank­rupt­cy, Fer­gu­son has applied to U.S. Bank­rupt­cy Court Judge Marc Bar­reca to col­lect the penal­ties Eyman has been ordered to pay to the peo­ple of the State of Washington.

On May 9th, 2019, Fer­gu­son filed a com­plaint to deter­mine the dis­charge­abil­i­ty of Eyman’s debt. The State says that Eyman’s bank­rupt­cy does not exempt him from hav­ing to pay the penal­ties assessed by Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court “because they are a lia­bil­i­ty for mon­ey or prop­er­ty obtained by false pre­tens­es, false rep­re­sen­ta­tion, or actu­al fraud” and because they are “a lia­bil­i­ty for mon­ey or prop­er­ty obtained by fraud or defal­ca­tion while act­ing in a fidu­cia­ry capacity.”

Fer­gu­son is ask­ing that Eyman’s debt to the State for civ­il penal­ties, attor­ney fees, and costs in the amount of $40,533.53 be adjudged non-dischargeable.

The State will also no doubt be seek­ing to col­lect from “Cit­i­zen Solu­tions” as a result of the default judg­ment that was entered against the firm this month.