Tax opponent Tim Iman forced to sell his house to pay millions in fines

Watch seller-turned-anti-tax initiative promoter Tim Eman, who was found responsible last year for “numerous and particularly egregious” violations of the campaign finance law, has been forced to sell his home to help pay millions of dollars in fines and debt.

A federal bankruptcy judge Thursday approved a decision requiring Iman to sell his share of the Mukilteo home to his ex-wife, the Seattle Times reported.

The proceeds of $900,000 will go towards paying more than $5.6 million in penalties and legal fees he owes to the state of Washington and other creditors.

Iman was fined more than $2.6 million in February 2021 after a Thurston County judge found he enriched himself by laundering political donations, accepting bribes from a signature-gathering company, secretly moving money between initiative campaigns and concealing the source of other political contributions.

Thurston County Supreme Court Justice James Dixon wrote in a history of Washington state campaign finance law, “It would be difficult for a court to conceive a case of more egregious or more comprehensive misconduct.”

Iman was ordered to pay more than $2.9 million in legal fees to cover the costs of the investigation and prosecution of Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

Iman described the penalties against him as “ridiculously unconstitutional and absurdly excessive” in an email to the newspaper.

Iman paid about $538,000 in fines and fees, but still owed more than $5.6 million, including accrued interest, according to Ferguson’s office.

Iman filed for bankruptcy just before his trial. A US bankruptcy judge found in December that Iman had defaulted and ordered that his Chapter 11 bankruptcy case be transferred from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7. Chapter 7 means that the court appoints a trustee who is responsible for selling Iman’s assets and distributing the proceeds to debtors.

Eman was also prohibited from directing the financial affairs of any kind of political committee. Iman has long argued that such a ruling would be a fatal blow to his career as a political activist. But he retracted after the ruling, saying he would change the papers in his political committee, but “the rest will remain the same.”

Iman has continued to craft and promote initiatives, but he cannot determine how political committees will spend money, accept a political committee check, have a bank account with political committee money, or negotiate with vendors.

The case goes back to a 2012 investigation by the government campaign finance watchdog, the Committee on Public Disclosure. He was referred to Ferguson in 2015, and filed a lawsuit in 2017.

Iman was held in contempt of court for two years for refusing to cooperate with the lawsuit, and paid more than $300,000 in resulting fines.

Several of the allegations in the lawsuit reflected a similar case for which Iman apologized in 2002, after it was revealed that he had lied about paying himself with donor money for the initiative. He was fined $55,000 and banned from serving as a political committee treasurer.

“I have said all there is to say about the outrageous and unlawful behavior of Tim Iman,” Ferguson said in a written statement. “Iman will never take responsibility for his actions, because any admission of wrongdoing would undermine his attempts to extract additional dollars from his supporters.”