Doug Little makes desperate attempt to explain away decades of personal financial problems

After the release of Politico Mafioso’s Monday afternoon story about Doug Little’s financial problems, Little went into overdrive and penned a four page essay explaining “the latest drama” (his words) and posted it on his campaign website. 

Lynne Breyer also helped out her running mate and emailed Little’s diatribe to her list of Arizona Freedom Alliance supporters. 

On Tuesday, Little chose to devote his attention to creative writing instead of appearing at a scheduled campaign stop with Robert Graham in Sierra Vista.  Little missed the opportunity to meet with the GOP State Committeemen in the all important border counties while he fabricated excuses for his personal financial problems.

Little gets points for using 1600 words to say the PM story was true, after all.  Too bad he lied to his constituents about the reasons for all of his personal financial failures.  

In his essay of excuses, Little makes a number of comments regarding his multiple IRS tax liens.  In his condensed version of excuses, Little says:

• IRS liens 100% pre-negotiated and above board. Resulted from dot-com layoffs in 2001. All released as all payments were made on time.

His extended explanation says:

Regarding the IRS tax liens: In November 2001, five days before my wife and I were to be married, I received notification that the company I was working for was closing its Arizona operation. Some of you might recall that there was a massive downturn in the Computer Software industry in 2001, and subsequent to the events of 9/11 many businesses took a major revenue hit during that period of uncertainty. I had a tax obligation that related to my having earned a mid six-figure income in 2001. A spike in income carries implications for the current year and quarterly "estimated" payments for the following year. 

So Doug Little is playing the war on terror card? 

As the PM story said and the linked documents show, Little’s IRS liens cover multiple years of past-due tax obligations.  The IRS liens filed at the Maricopa CountyRecorder are for:

            -Tax year ending 1993, $7307.37 past due, assessment filed February 2002

            -Tax year ending 1994, $277.30 past due, assessment filed February 2002

            -Tax year ending 1995, $4480.46 past due, assessment filed February 2002

            -Tax year ending 2000, $7612.38 past due, assessment filed February 2002

            -Tax year ending 2001, $7884.51 past due, assessment filed October 2003

We even discovered several IRS liens (covering multiple years) filed in two counties in California, Marin & Orange, in the 1990’s when Little lived in Sausalito and Newport Beach. 

The IRS had been hounding Little for years, a decade before September 11, 2001 and for years following the tragedy.  Shameless invocation of the 9-11 free pass, Doug.

Little goes on to pat himself on the back for buying and improving a large property he obviously cannot afford.  He uses phrases like good financial management and fiscal conservatism to describe his irresponsible choices and reasons for continuing to borrow against his home when the prospect of repayment (to himself, the mortgage owner or the taxpayers) was dismal.  

The excuse Little offers for the near foreclosure of his home in January 2011 is golden.  He blames the conservatives in the Arizona Legislature for passing SB1108, 2010 legislation that eliminated the need for a concealed carry permit - thus eliminating his CCW marketplace.  

Little implores his supporters to believe that a guy who made “mid six-figures” for years, had $400,000 in liquid cash and is married to the VP of Sales for Clear Channel Communications was financially blindsided and crippled by the effect of SB1108 in a just a few short months and nearly lost his home.

Aggressive foreclosures during the economic downturn were almost unheard of.  Little’s excuse that he missed three months worth of payments in 2010 and magically received a Notice of Trustee’s Sale in January 2011 is simply not believable.

Sources within the mortgage industry have told PM that many foreclosures from 2008 – 2012 were not initiated until the homeowner had missed over 12 months of payments, often nearly 24 months.

Little closes his confessional by saying everyone should rent out a guest house if they could!  His realtor made him do it.

Despite Little’s enthusiastic logic, renting out a pool casita in a secluded, gated compound of $1 million homes bordering a mountain preserve does not appear rational.

It appears desperate.

Almost as desperate as his attempts to cover his dirty finances and his dirty political associations. 

Mr. Clean® has tried to use his Magic Eraser® for the last time.