DEC. 5, 2008 8pger:NWLP
12/2/08
10:21 AM
Page 8
Bill Sizemore jailed on contempt of court charges
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
The law may be starting to catch up
with diehard union foe Bill Sizemore.
At a Dec. 1 court appearance, Mult-
nomah County Judge Janice Wilson or-
dered Sizemore jailed for contempt of
court.
It was his fourth contempt of court
charge relating to an eight-year-old
lawsuit by two teachers unions against
Sizemore’s ballot measure operation.
After a 2002 trial, a jury found that two
Sizemore-run groups were guilty of a
pattern of fraud and forgery in getting
anti-union measures on the 2000 bal-
lot. Sizemore was ordered to pay $2.5
millions in damages to the Oregon Ed-
ucation Association and the American
Federation of Teachers – Oregon,
which had spent money to fight the
measures. And the judge issued a de-
tailed injunction barring Sizemore per-
sonally from committing similar acts.
The most recent contempt charge
stems from Sizemore’s creation of
American Tax Research Foundation
(ATRF) in 2006. ATRF, a sham charity
incorporated in Nevada, was used to
launder contributions that supported
Sizemore and his family while he
worked to get five initiatives on this
year’s ballot.
“Mr. Sizemore is so blinded by his
hatred of unions, who are plaintiffs in
this case, that he seems to have con-
cluded that he is not required to follow
the law,” Judge Wilson wrote in her rul-
ing from the bench.
It took over two hours for Wilson to
read her judgment, after which sheriff’s
Bill Sizemore’s booking photo
deputies led Sizemore away in hand-
cuffs.
Wilson called Sizemore’s violations
of the injunction disturbing. “Together
with Mr. Sizemore’s willingness to lie
under oath, they reflect not merely con-
tempt of court in the legal sense, but
contempt for the court, the judicial
branch of government and its processes
and judgements — indeed for the rule
of law.”
Confronted with evidence that he
was using ATRF to circumvent the
court order, Sizemore promised Judge
Wilson in October that he would have
ATRF file tax and charitable forms it
was supposed to have filed in 2006 and
2007. Incredibly, he later withdrew
that promise on the grounds that he
might be incriminating himself because
the Oregon Department of Justice
might conclude the reports weren’t
truthful.
“The judge was mighty upset with
him,” said AFT-Oregon Executive Dir-
ector Dick Schwarz.
In her ruling, Wilson detailed how
Sizemore set up a complicated web of
organizations to allow donors to claim
deductions for the contributions, and to
shield their support from public
scrutiny.
Beginning in 2006, a little over $1.1
million passed through ATRF:
$913,000 from Nevada millionaire
Loren Parks and about $151,000 from
Hire Calling Public Affairs, which is
controlled by Klamath Falls millionaire
Dick Wendt, owner of Jeld-Wen, Inc.
As little as $14,000 of that amount
went to support ATRF’s stated mission
“to research and publish the fiscal im-
pact of real and proposed ballot meas-
ures.”
Most of the money — about
$856,000 — landed in Sizemore’s
pocket. Just under $700,000 was paid
to Bill Sizemore himself; $32,000 to
his wife Cindy; and $174,000 to CBS
Consulting, a for-profit corporation she
owned on paper. There was also
$15,000 for a down payment for land
in his wife’s name, $20,000 to buy her
a Pontiac GrandAm, and a $150,000
loan to get his $1.5 million home in
Beaver Creek ready for sale. ATRF
money paid an auctioneer to sell his
house, went to purchase a time share in
Mexico, paid the Sizemore family’s
grocery bills, restaurant tabs, and on
and on.
Sizemore tried to hide his control of
ATRF, listing his mother and a long-
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additional attorney fees and costs,
added the money raised through ATRF
to the earlier jury award owed, and an-
nounced that the union plaintiffs will
have broad power to subpoena records
from Sizemore’s
groups and two
of his close asso-
“Mr. Sizemore is so blinded by his
ciates.
hatred of unions, who are plaintiffs in
Wilson or-
dered
Sizemore
this case, that he seems to have
jailed until he
concluded that he is not required to
files the required
forms, or until
follow the law.”
June 1, 2009.
Judge Janice Wilson Sizemore was
still in jail as of
press time.
[Wilson’s 46-page legal opinion is
filing not-for-profit tax returns and
obeying the rules and regulations re- available at www.nwlaborpress.org. It
contains dozens of pages of lurid detail
garding the organizations.”
In the ruling, Judge Wilson extended about Sizemore’s operation, plus a
the earlier injunction five more years, four-page appendix listing “examples
ordered Sizemore to pay the unions’ of deceipt by Mr. Sizemore.”]
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“It’s sad that it had to come to this,”
said AFT-Oregon’s Schwarz. “These
were simple requirements, like unions
and other organizations have to follow,
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DECEMBER 5, 2008