SEATTLE (AP) – Court documents show former initiative promoter Tim Eyman, who earlier this year was found responsible for years of violations of Washington’s campaign finance laws and was sentenced to fined $ 2.6 million, failed to make their last two monthly payments on that fine and is now in default.
The Seattle Times reports that Eyman is subject to a court-ordered plan that requires him to make monthly payments of $ 10,000 to repay the fine and other debts to the state.
He paid neither for September nor October, wrote Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office in documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Washington.
Eyman filed for bankruptcy three years ago, claiming at the time that Ferguson’s lawsuit against him, accusing him of campaign finance violations, had crippled his finances.
Ferguson requested that a Chapter 11 trustee be appointed who would have the authority to make payments from Eyman’s estate and be able to sell Eyman’s house and distribute the proceeds to his debtors, including the state.
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“Eyman’s refusal to be transparent in his financial transactions and his decision to simply stop making payments without explanation requires the appointment of a trustee,” Ferguson wrote in court documents.
Eyman, in an email, said he “spent the last of the money” by paying his lawyer to appeal the judgment against him.
“It has exhausted me,” he wrote in a fundraising appeal in July, calling the case “gross injustice and abuse of power.”
“The Attorney General’s scorched earth approach throughout these eight and a half years of ‘investigation’ and litigation against Mr. Eyman has ruined him financially,” wrote Eyman’s attorney, Richard Sanders. , in an appeal to the state’s Supreme Court in August. “Everything he earned in his life is gone.
Eyman, in total, owes the state nearly $ 5.4 million, a sum that includes the $ 2.9 million he was ordered to pay to cover the attorney’s fees and expenses for the ‘State during the trial of nearly four years.
Under the terms of his bankruptcy payment plan, if he defaults, all of Eyman’s debt immediately becomes due and begins to accrue interest at the rate of 12% per annum.
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