Judge says AG can add allegations to suit against Eyman

OLYMPIA — A Thurston County judge cleared the way Friday for the state to add new campaign finance violations into its lawsuit against initiative promoter Tim Eyman, of Mukilteo.

Superior Court Judge James Dixon granted Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s motion to amend a complaint accusing Eyman of secretly moving campaign funds between two initiatives in 2012 and receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from one of the signature-gathering vendors.

The suit, filed in March 2017, seeks $2.1 million in penalties and to bar Eyman from managing, controlling, negotiating or directing financial transactions of any kind for any political committee in the future. The trial is set for early next year.

In the latest motion, state attorneys allege Eyman employed “a wide variety of schemes to solicit and collect funds that should have been reported as contributions” to his political committees since 2013.

They say Eyman offered supporters different ways to assist him financially including making direct gifts to him and donations to a nonprofit pro-initiative group that owed money to a consulting firm Eyman set up. The allegations are based on information in documents collected in the course of the case, according to the motion.

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