Republican Jack Dovey confirmed on Wednesday all but two of the allegations scattered throughout a recent Democratic campaign flyer.

Those claims ranged from lawsuits filed against businesses he was shareholder of, state and federal tax liens against those businesses and that Dovey made late property tax payments on two of his homes.

But Dovey said there’s a reason for it all.

A string of bad business partners and other “bumps” left multiple businesses that he was shareholder of under financial stress. And it was his duty to pick up the pieces.

“I’ve made my life, for the last 30 years anyway, working in small businesses, helping people get over the hump, investing in some,” Dovey said. “I risk my money to make sure that we get there and sometimes you run into bumps.”

He stressed that the eight lawsuits outlined in the mailer were not personally against him and “they all came out fine.”

Nevertheless, Tim Burns, chair of the 30th District Democrats, said, “I think it lends credence to his fiscal management ability that he got into trouble in the first place.”

Dovey is running against Rep. Roger Freeman, D-Federal Way, for Position 2 in the 30th Legislative District. Last week, Washington Democrats filled constituents’ mailboxes with a campaign flyer alleging several illegal and financial burdens Dovey is facing or has faced in past years.

Despite claiming that he paid them last week, Dovey admitted he was delinquent on unpaid property taxes.

He acknowledged the five federal tax liens and seven state tax liens against BlueWater Wireless that he was part owner of, one of which totaled approximately $103,700. He’s confirmed the five liens for unpaid worker’s compensation taxes and one lien for unpaid unemployment insurance contributions with the same business.

The nearly $46,915 tax lien for back taxes against Wilkinson Enterprises Inc. AKA Wireless Advisors that he is shareholder of is true, Dovey said, as well as the shareholder’s failure to pay industrial insurance taxes, and a lien on unpaid worker and community right to know fees.

Democrats allege two of his businesses he was part owner of, Triple Jag and Tropical Touch, were also issued warrants for unpaid taxes, although Dovey could only confirm the warrant for Tropical Touch.

And he states that his former companies BlueWater Wireless and Wilkinson Enterprises he partly owned have faced a total of seven lawsuits. He could not corroborate the allegation that claims he owed $2,857 for not paying radio advertising on Wilkinson Enterprises.

Property taxes

King County and Pierce County Department of Assessment documents show Dovey was four months delinquent on property taxes for his homes in Federal Way and Tacoma.

A September report indicates Dovey owed $3,538 on his Federal Way home and $2,169 on his Tacoma home.

Records also show Dovey has a recent history of paying taxes late. In 2013, he had a negative balance of approximately $1,162 that carried over to 2014.

But he said those have been taken care of.

“My wife’s a real estate agent, she manages our properties,” Dovey said. “I called her, yeah, she missed making a payment on the last quarter of our [Federal Way] house. It got paid last week.”

He said he also paid the property taxes for his Tacoma home, including the 2013 balance.

“So if you go back and look at the different properties, you know, I don’t manage the real estate; my wife does. She manages a few houses and she didn’t pay it. She paid now,” he said. “Have you ever missed a payment on anything? Everybody has.”

However, Burns said Dovey’s late payments also point to fiscal responsibility.

“I would guess, and I don’t know the figure exactly, that there are a significant number of people who pay their property taxes either through escrow or themselves and do so on time,” Burns said, noting that Dovey didn’t handle his property taxes responsibly “and he’s in the midst of an election cycle. It doesn’t bode well for the responsibility we’re looking for in the Legislature.”

State, federal tax liens

The mailer outlined, and the Mirror confirmed through records, that at least five federal and 12 state liens have been placed against three businesses that Dovey was a shareholder of.

Dovey listed himself as a 33.33 percent owner and a sales manager of BlueWater Wireless in 2011 and years beyond.

BlueWater Wireless was located in Federal Way on Pacific Highway South.

The IRS filed five tax liens, four of which Dovey is listed as a party on, against the business in 2011 with a Washington state warrant for unpaid taxes against the business for $68,889 from 2005-08. Include penalties and interest, and the total comes to approximately $103,700.

In 2012, two state Department of Labor and Industries tax liens were issued against the business, totaling $2,163, according to documents from the department. That same year, the business received a warrant from the state of Washington Employment Security Department for approximately $4,686 in unpaid unemployment insurance contributions.

In 2013, the business got another three Department of Labor and Industries tax liens totaling $1,717.

Dovey was also a 50 percent owner in Wilkinson Enterprises, DBA Consolidated Cellular, according to 1999 financial disclosure documents, but was the only governing person and president of the business when it closed in 2005.

The next year, the state issued the company Wilkinson Enterprises Inc. AKA Wireless Advisors a $46,915 tax warrant, with $1,369 owed in industrial insurance taxes, according to the documents.

However, King County Superior Court and Department of Labor and Industries documents show the warrants were paid in 2001 and 2002. Opened in 1996 in Federal Way, the owners of Triple Jag were issued their first tax warrant a year later for $2,005. Dovey owned the business with two other associates, however could not confirm that warrant allegation. Regarding the state liens, Dovey said one of the shareholders decided to leave the business.

“Our account we had already set up before. The B&O tax comes in, we pay ours; he pays his,” Dovey said.

However, when the company was audited, “they found that because we paid our B&O tax and he paid his, I had to pay his B&O tax also. So we got double taxed.”

He said as a result of the audit, he also had to pay approximately $17,000 for some sales tax issues, even though he had already paid the sales tax.

He said BlueWater Wireless shareholders also missed filing some quarterly federal taxes.

“There were some 941 taxes that were due,” he said. “We worked out with the federal government a payment program and they’re almost paid off. It’s the company [BlueWater Wireless], but I took it on personally to get it paid off.”

Lawsuits

Dovey’s business, BlueWater Wireless, that he was a shareholder of was sued for approximately $253,755 in 2008 for failure to pay bills in Whatcom County Superior Court.

Dovey said his business partner in that case left the business and was elected as a commissioner in Whatcom County.

“He wanted to get out of the business, there was a whole bunch of reasons, so my other shareholder and I offered him his money back,” Dovey recalled, noting they wrote him a check for approximately $76,000. However, the partner said they owed him $253,755.

Through arbitration, a stipulation and forbearance agreement was finally reached on Oct. 11, 2013. Dovey and his other partner paid the exiting shareholder approximately $100,000.

A year after the aforementioned lawsuit was filed, a landlord filed another suit against BlueWater. The plaintiff and landlord Triad Center claimed BlueWater owed $9,232 for skipping out on two months rent. But the case was dismissed after no action was taken.

However, a different landlord company, Bonney Lake Plaza, LLC, came after the business in 2010 for $94,640 for, again, not paying rent.

Dovey said the company was expanding stores and he found a good location in Puyallup to build a cellular store and coffee shop. However, he said the landlord of that property did not disclose that the business was not hooked up to the sewer. They would need to drill through cement and 20 feet of sand to hook it up — a costly endeavor.

King County Superior Court judges dismissed the case on Sept. 14, 2012 because the plaintiff didn’t comply with the case scheduling order and “failed to advance for trial on Aug. 27, 2012,” according to court documents.

Later that year, BlueWater was sued by Sterling Savings Bank for $570,662. BlueWater took out a $150,860 loan on top of others and failed to repay the loans, a promise the multiple owners of the business had signed with the bank. The two parties later settled out of court for an undisclosed amount on July 13, 2011. Dovey said that amount was $429,000.

“Well, the rest of the story is, during the banking crisis Sterling Bank called our loans,” Dovey said. “We went to the Multi-Service Center so they could do 70 low-income veteran houses. The Multi-Service Center is buying the building, the bank’s going through their gyrations of the feds saying, ‘hey, you don’t have enough collateral, your loans have to be paid,’ and all of a sudden they file suit.”

He said in the end, the bank signed off on everything.

“They got their money and everybody was happy,” he said. “And at the end of the day, Federal Way is getting a great new facility for 70 veterans who need a place to live.”

He also noted that if anyone thinks that’s a problem, “they should really look at it and say, ‘That guy really knows how to do things and knows how to manage a crisis. Because that’s a crisis. You wake up one day, your business has no credit lines and your bank wants you to pay them everything in one day.”

The Democrats also list a lawsuit from KWJJ-FM/KOTK-AM from September 2000 against Wilkinson Enterprises, Inc. DBA Consolidated Cell. Dovey could not recall that allegation, which states $2,857 was owed for radio advertising.

Dovey’s company Wireless Advisors was sued by Pearl Northwest, Inc. in January 2001 for $3,6416 for not paying for purchased goods and his company Tan Tech was sued in 1985 for $35,250 for the same reason – failure to pay for purchased goods, which he satisfied a year later in Clark County Superior Court.

Another lawsuit went after Tan Tech shareholders, and Democrats say the judge found “gross negligence and misrepresentation.”

The Mirror is obtaining court documents for that case, in Oregon, and will update voters when that information becomes available.

Dovey said his time as a Tan Tech shareholder cost him several financial difficulties, thanks to his business partner Larry Beaman, who was convicted of embezzlement in one of Washington state’s largest stock swindles.

“Here you have a situation where I invested in a fellow named Larry Beaman to build tanning salons,” Dovey said of the first case against Tan Tech. “He built the tanning salons and it turns out he was embezzling money. So we had to take action and he stepped out. I had co-signed some tanning bed leases with a leasing company in Olympia and they wanted their money immediately. So we had to sit down and figure it out. We went through the process, we unloaded the tanning beds, they got their money, Larry disappeared and everybody was happy.”

Burns said Dovey’s business mishaps show a pattern “that he gets in this area, and that area, and another area because of someone else.

“Certainly, it’s possible that the black cloud hangs over Jack Dovey,” Burns said. “But perhaps there’s some decisions prior to that where he should have researched it a little better. If we’re dealing with three state budgets, we need people who will do the research they need to do to make sure the budgets are handled properly.”

Dovey said the mailer was the Democrats’ “desperate” attempt to win Freeman more votes in the final days of the campaign.

“You’ve got desperate people doing desperate things,” he said. “The election is 30 days away from being voted. I’ve been out every day knocking on doors. I’ve been out every day waving signs and do you see that from the other side? Probably not.”

Burns countered that Freeman is currently “ill and undergoing cancer treatment. So, yeah, he is not door knocking. But [Dovey is] just diverting attention.”

Freeman did not respond to the Mirror’s request for comment.

Dovey said if Democrats are going to judge him on “innuendos, half truths and falsehoods,” then they should also weigh the good he has done for District 30, including helping to get Celebration Park and the Community Center built.

But Burns said the facts speak for themselves.

“These are the facts,” he said,”and the facts don’t add up for someone who is responsible enough to handle the legislative position for the 30 District.”

Reporter Raechel Dawson contributed to this report.