Failed guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date and dis­hon­est ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman claimed today that his most recent pay­ment to his attor­ney Richard Sanders has left him almost entire­ly bereft with cash and plead­ed with his fans to send him more mon­ey as soon as pos­si­ble to help him with his debts.

To make his case, Eyman enclosed in his email pho­tographs of pay­ments to Good­stein Law Group PLLC for $25,000 and $10,000 (total­ing $35,000) fol­lowed by a screen­shot of bal­ances in two Bank of Amer­i­ca accounts pri­or to the trans­mis­sion of the pay­ments. Good­stein is the firm that employs Sanders, a for­mer Supreme Court jus­tice with a very lib­er­tar­i­an bent. While on the Court, Sanders wrote sev­er­al dis­sents argu­ing that Eyman’s ini­tia­tives should be upheld.

Since 2019, Sanders has been defend­ing the noto­ri­ous chair thief and ini­tia­tive pitch­man against a cam­paign finance account­abil­i­ty law­suit filed by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son, the state’s chief law enforce­ment officer.

“I paid $35K to Richard Sanders’ law firm today,” Eyman wrote. “$25K from my legal defense fund. $10K from my per­son­al account. It drained me dry.”

“I’ve put it all on the line. I owed Richard’s law firm $305K. Our agree­ment was that his firm would only han­dle the notice of appeal if I paid them at least $75K of that. I need to raise more. A lot more,” Eyman added.

(The bold­faced words above were cap­i­tal­ized in Eyman’s email for emphasis.)

Eyman’s finan­cial prob­lems extend far beyond his debt to Sanders and Good­stein Law Group. He owes mil­lions of dol­lars to the peo­ple of the State of Wash­ing­ton as a result of his seri­ous, repeat­ed vio­la­tions of Chap­ter 42.17A RCW, the state’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure law. The amount Eyman owes includes con­tempt penal­ties, a judg­ment against him by the courts, and attor­ney’s fees. That’s right: as the los­ing par­ty, Eyman is respon­si­ble for the costs of both sides of the litigation.

Eyman con­ve­nient­ly failed to men­tion that even more weighty oblig­a­tion to his fan club in his email today, prob­a­bly because he knows his Trump lov­ing friends aren’t going to be excit­ed about giv­ing him mon­ey so that he can turn around and send it to the state trea­sury. Regard­less, Eyman is on the hook, and the Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s office has been work­ing dili­gent­ly to col­lect from him in installments.

Eyman present­ly owes Wash­ing­to­ni­ans $5,413,169.83, plus accru­ing interest.

In antic­i­pa­tion of being in that hole, Eyman filed for bank­rupt­cy in the Unit­ed States Bank­rupt­cy Court for the West­ern Dis­trict of Wash­ing­ton in Novem­ber of 2018. The case was assigned to Judge Marc Barreca.

Declar­ing bank­rupt­cy was one part pub­lic­i­ty stunt and one part attempt to delay Fer­gu­son’s cam­paign finance enforce­ment case by way of the fed­er­al courts.

Fer­gu­son wast­ed lit­tle time in obtain­ing a com­fort order to allow his office to pro­ceed with the case in state court, thus evad­ing Eyman’s delay­ing maneuver.

Although Eyman was­n’t actu­al­ly bank­rupt at the time he filed for bank­rupt­cy, he is def­i­nite­ly bank­rupt now as a result of hav­ing lost his court case and hav­ing hired lawyers whose mount­ing bills he can­not afford to pay.

For once, Eyman isn’t exag­ger­at­ing when he says he’s put it “all on the line”.

His own attor­neys have placed liens against his home in Muk­il­teo, accord­ing  bank­rupt­cy court plead­ings filed by the State of Washington.

The state, rep­re­sent­ed by Fer­gu­son’s office, isn’t hap­py about those liens, and wants them void­ed. The State con­tend­ed in a fil­ing last week: “The actions tak­en by Debtor’s Coun­sel [Vort­man & Fein­stein, Good­stein Law Group] to encum­ber the Eyman Home erode the pro­tec­tion avail­able to the State and oth­er cred­i­tors of the Estate to recov­er from the non-exempt equi­ty in the home.”

The state is ask­ing that it “be allowed to record and per­fect its judg­ment lien in Sno­homish Coun­ty with respect to the judg­ment entered in Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court, Case no. 17–2‑01546–34,” and that, “except for the lien of the State of Wash­ing­ton and any statu­to­ry or prop­er­ty tax liens, any future liens that are placed upon the Eyman home pri­or to ter­mi­na­tion of the Chap­ter 11 plan will be void unless notice has been pro­vid­ed accord­ing to the terms of the plan and Bank­rupt­cy Court approval of record­ing has been granted.”

The state’s com­plaint and prayer for relief is below.

Eyman has pre­vi­ous­ly tak­en out mort­gages against his Muk­il­teo fam­i­ly home to finance ini­tia­tive cam­paigns. Now the home — Eyman’s most valu­able asset — is the cen­ter of a dis­pute between Eyman, his attor­neys, and the state.

Eyman’s appar­ent objec­tive is to trans­fer sole own­er­ship to Karen Eyman so that the home can be placed out of the reach of Eyman’s creditors.

As not­ed by Fer­gu­son’s office in a May 21st, 2021 legal filing:

“The State under­stands that Debtor Eyman is con­tin­u­ing to work on a pro­pos­al to sell the com­mu­ni­ty prop­er­ty por­tion of the Eyman home to Karen Eyman. Due to the cur­rent liens on the home, Debtor Eyman’s coun­sel would be paid from the pro­ceeds if these encum­brances were not removed.”

You can under­stand why Eyman is so des­per­ate for cash. He needs mil­lions of dol­lars to sat­is­fy all the debts that he’s racked up.

Eyman says his friends Dave McMullen (the Chair of the Pierce Coun­ty Repub­li­cans) and Chris Ley­ba will be host­ing a fundrais­er for him on Sun­day August 1st at the Puyallup Elks Club, ahead of the Pierce Coun­ty Repub­li­can Par­ty’s “All Amer­i­can Fam­i­ly Pic­nic” planned for 3 — 7 PM at the same venue.

“It’ll be my oppor­tu­ni­ty to thank folks in per­son for help­ing me and my fam­i­ly through the last eight and a half years — we nev­er woul­da made it with­out you. So put August 1st on your cal­en­dar. But please don’t wait until then to donate my legal defense fund. This insan­i­ty must be appealed,” Eyman wrote.

“I need your help now more than ever before.”

“My fight is your fight. My fight is our fight.”

“Please… I implore you… donate today.”

Left unsaid is the fact that Eyman is in the sit­u­a­tion he’s in because of choic­es that he made. It was Eyman who demand­ed kick­backs from his bud­dies. It was Eyman who steered funds meant for one ini­tia­tive to anoth­er. It was Eyman who chose to vio­late the Fair Cam­paign Prac­tices Act, repeat­ed­ly. And it was Eyman who chose to stonewall when inves­ti­ga­tions were opened into that lawbreaking.

Tim Eyman is no match in the court­room for Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son, a cham­pi­on chess play­er (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Fer­gu­son makes a great bogey­man and scape­goat because he is despised by the Trump-lov­ing Repub­li­can base for his hard work to uphold Wash­ing­ton’s pro­gres­sive laws and stop Trump’s min­ions from destroy­ing envi­ron­men­tal and work­er pro­tec­tions. But the truth is that Tim Eyman is his own per­se­cu­tor. He has no greater ene­my and no greater tor­men­tor than him­self.