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Calvin Gary Walker
Calvin Gary Walker -
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One month before swearing an oath of indigence to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), former Beaumont Independent School District (BISD) contract electrician Calvin Gary Walker also swears that he accepted thousands of dollars in cash for work performed at the home of a Beaumont man who now claims he, too, was scammed by the man convicted of stealing more than $1 million from the school district.
Walker’s own words – underscored by signature affirmations – tell two different stories to two different courts about his fiscal assets at the end of 2022, both current and anticipated. Before the Supreme Court, Walker claimed he lives off of disability checks that amount to less than his average monthly bills. Before Justice of the Peace Naomi Doyle, Walker swore he’s a busy businessman that can secure upwards of $15,000 for home electrical work performed around town. Both courts took Walker at his word, granting a waiver of fees at the Supreme Court due to the felon’s alleged poverty and lack of work, granting thousands of dollars in a cash award at the local level due to the same felon’s alleged job performance and high rate of pay.
Good for the goose
As evidenced by Walker’s testimony produced in Judge Naomi Showers Doyle’s Jefferson County Pct. 1, Place 1 Justice of the Peace Court at the end of 2022, the former school district contracted electrician convicted of theft against the Beaumont school district was still able ply his trade on Saturdays at the time; but that would soon change. Already ordered by Criminal District Court Judge John Stevens to serve upfront jail time along with a lengthy term of probation and pay $1 million-plus in restitution when convicted of theft against the school district in 2019, on Nov. 10, 2022, Walker was ordered to begin serving those jail days on the weekends. Walker and his attorneys continued to fight the restitution order.
Oct. 21, 2022, Walker swore in testimony presented to Doyle’s court, he was ready to collect the balance of what he would accept for a job performed at the home of Charles and Tina Paul, a couple securing his services for electrical work that weekend. Walker said that he originally quoted a soft estimate of $7,500 for the labor and materials, but materials cost $1,000 more than anticipated, so the electrician added that cost on, as well. Walker said he was feeling generous, however, and would cover the added cost of materials if the couple would just pay the balance of the original $7,500. Walker said that he had already collected $2,500 in cash from the couple, which would leave the balance at $5,000 – but the couple cut a cashier’s check to Walker for $5,200.
“Mr. Paul showed up with a cashier’s check for $5,200 and asked me why did I charge so much,” Walker wrote to the court of a payment received Oct. 21, 2022. “I told him if I was doing that particular job for anyone else I would’ve charged $15,000 but I called myself looking out for them!”
In the nine-page document provided to the court, “with the utmost respect,” Walker hand wrote a description of the charity he tried to give his “friend.”
“I told him, ‘Don’t worry about it; just keep the $800 as well, and that way we can just cut ties all together,’” Walker wrote, adding in yet another alleged $1,500 owed that wasn’t received for the materials that were paid for in advance. In Walker math, the original $7,500 quote, plus $1,000 in added material cost, minus the total $7,700 paid, still left a balance of not only $800, but $2,300.
Once Paul tried to recoup $2,700 of the funds expended on Walker’s work from the court for what the plaintiff described as subpar installation at top-rate cost, Walker said he couldn’t allow that insult to stand over already imposed injury.
“Your honor, my prayer is that these people are held accountable for their frivolous actions,” Walker wrote, asking the court to award him another $5,000 on top of what the couple already paid: “the $2,300 they stole, (and) the $2,700 they are blatantly trying to steal and for filing this frivolous lawsuit.”
Meanwhile, Walker’s criminal case is still being ushered through the court system nine years after a 2014 grand jury indictment, the criminal defendant still trying to avoid paying restitution. Walker’s counter-suit in Doyle’s Justice of the Peace Court was settled within months.
March 22, the parties were before Doyle’s court for personal presentation, with the judge making a ruling ordering Paul to pay the total $5,000 requested in the countersuit. The plaintiff that thought he overpaid for Walker’s electrical work was forced to comply with paying thousands more for the product.
“It is therefore ordered that plaintiff take nothing from this suit,” Doyle signed in her judgment issued the same day, “and that defendant be awarded court costs and $2,300.00, $2,700.00.”
Paul was notified of a right to appeal, which he did. April 11, Doyle dismissed the motion for a new hearing without any notation as to why in the court filing. Six days later, Paul remitted yet another cashier’s check to Walker – this time for $5,000 as ordered by the court. As Walker described he had done with the first cashier’s check for $5,200, the courtroom winner took his $5,000 cashier’s check to the bank for cash negotiation.
Keeping thousands in cash would be no crime – unless you swore to the Supreme Court of the United States that at the same time you, in fact, had no money and needed the charity of the American taxpayer to fund your continued efforts to avoid paying $1 million in restitution owed to the stakeholders of Beaumont ISD.
No good for the gander
Nov. 15, 2022, Walker signed “under penalty of perjury that, because of poverty, I cannot prepay docket fees of my appeal or post a bond for them,” before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), asking the court to review the criminal proceedings and restitution order the local government first sought relief on in 2014.
According to the document, Walker was asked to detail his average monthly income for the preceding 12 months – to which he answered: $0. The request to make SCOTUS filings on the taxpayer dime goes into detailed questions on income, asking about employment, self employment, rental property, interest and dividends, gifts, alimony, child support… all of which Walker reported zero in funding. The income verification document specifically asked about any money owed to Walker or his spouse for the preceding 12 months; again, Walker responded with a zero amount owed or anticipated. Walker reported to the government that his sole income was disability payments in the amount of $1,894 monthly – not even enough to cover his monthly expenses that totaled over $2,000, Walker further reported.
“My personal monthly expenses exceed my monthly income,” Walker wrote, signed and dated Nov. 17, 2022.
Court filings Walker made in describing the cash collected for a job at Paul’s residence isn’t the only evidenced work that can be traced to the alleged out-of-work electrician during the time that Walker swore to the highest court in the land that he was making no money.
Pursuant to a Public Information Request fulfilled by the city of Beaumont, the permitting office revealed a total of 29 permits sought and secured by Walker in 2022. The permit pulled on Paul’s address, according to the city’s data, was requested on Nov. 3, 2022 – well after Walker reported that the project was complete and he cut ties with the friend-turned-plaintiff. Among the projects the indigent, disabled, convicted felon was working the year that he reported to SCOTUS he made no income, Beaumont permitting data reveals, the electrician replaced meters, rewired homes, wired a new home on Hardin Drive, installed a light pole on Brandon Street, serviced a red tag home on Hebert Street, reconnected service on Flamingo …
In the meantime, pursuant to requests for information from Jefferson County as to the status of Walker’s restitution payment detail, the offices show no record of a single penny being paid of the $1,172,656.61 in monies owed to Beaumont ISD that Walker reported to the Supreme Court from the 2019 criminal conviction. The added fine on top is likewise unpaid – at all.
Jefferson County – up until June 12 – was also looking to secure back tax money from Walker for his quarter-million-dollar home on Roland in Beaumont. Up for tax foreclosure at the end of 2022, Walker came up with a large lump sum of money this year to settle his debt. According to tax payment records from the Jefferson County Tax Assessor/Collector’s Office, Walker paid $34,411.28 just this week to keep his home. Walker also owns property throughout the city, which are also not current on tax payments, as well as property in Jasper County and in Port Arthur.
When Walker was ordered to pay back Beaumont ISD funds the jury found were stolen, defense attorney Dick DeGuerin argued that Beaumont ISD does not want the restitution.
“Whatever they decide to do with it is their business,” Stevens said in 2022 of money he added was owed to the children of BISD due to Walker’s criminality, not school district administration. “It’s been several years… and we’re going to move forward.”