Former Washington state Rep. Susan Fagan has agreed to reimburse taxpayers after filing false expense reports.
The Pullman Republican will pay $5,600 for expenses she couldn’t justify and half the costs incurred to investigate her case. She signed the agreement earlier this month, but it wasn’t released until Thursday.
This concludes an ethics complaint filed against Fagan in January. It alleged Fagan sought taxpayer reimbursement for trips she didn’t take, trips to events that didn’t exist, and even a trip to pick up a campaign check.
The Legislative Ethics Board hired an outside investigator to dig into the matter. He uncovered 18 instances of “general untruthfulness” and more than $1,700 in inappropriate reimbursements.
Fagan quickly repaid some of the money when questions were first raised. She resigned from the legislature under pressure on May 1.
In a statement she said “at no point did I try to derive personal gain from expense reimbursements.” She chalked up the discrepancies to treating her expense reports too “casually.”
Copyright 2015 Northwest News Network