Eyman pleads not guilty in Lacey office chair theft case

Anti-tax initiative promoter Tim Eyman has pleaded not guilty to stealing a $70 office chair from an Office Depot store.

KOMO reports that during a brief hearing Thursday in Thurston County District Court, Eyman mostly stayed silent as his lawyer entered the not guilty plea to the misdemeanor theft charge. The judge set a trial date of April 16 and ordered Eyman not to have any contact with the Office Depot store in Lacey where the incident took place last month.

Surveillance video showed Eyman sitting in the chair in the store’s entryway, spinning it around a few times, and then walking it out to the parking lot. Police say he then returned, exchanged one printer and bought new ones.

Eyman said he intended to pay for the chair, but received a call on his cell phone, and became distracted. In an email, lawyers at Puget Law Group hired by Eyman say they contacted Office Depot “in an effort to return the chair and/or pay for it, as its removal without payment was accidental.”

“I did not ... walk into an Office Depot in Lacey wearing a bright red ‘Let The Voters Decide’ T-shirt, smile for the cameras, and steal a $70 chair just moments before spending $300 on two printers and after getting some life-changing good news. The reason that doesn’t make any sense is because it doesn’t make any sense. It’s ridiculous, it’s insane, it’s completely unbelievable,” Eyman wrote in an email to media after the incident.

This story was originally published March 7, 2019 at 3:06 PM.