BEAUMONT, Texas — The Ninth Court of Appeals upheld the guilty verdict of a former Beaumont Independent School District contractor who was found guilty of overcharging the district.
Calvin Gary Walker was found guilty of felony fraud in September of 2019. Prosecutors claimed that Walker used fraudulent billing practices and submitted fake invoices to defraud the district of more than $1.2 million in a 2014 indictment.
Walker's Electric Company was contracted for electrician services for Beaumont ISD. He was indicted in 2014 for fraudulent billing practices and money laundering.
District Attorney Bob Wortham provided 12News with court documents from Walker's appeal.
“One of the things he did is he used fictitious documents,” Wortham said.
Walker challenged the constitutionality of the verdict claiming that he was denied his motion to reject the indictment and that the evidence used against him lacked legal sufficiency.
In November of 2019, Walker filed a Sentencing Memoranda, arguing that the trial court should not order restitution. Walker claimed that double jeopardy was intact, the court did not order restitution in its oral pronouncements and written judgment, and that the trial court lacked the power to order restitution.
The court found all these claims lacked merit. According to appellant court documents, Walker is still required to pay more than $1.1 million in restitution to the school district and serve the rest of his sentence.
“It kept them from being able to use this money for other issues, to repair buildings that needed to be repaired. Our taxes had to go up because of this,” Wortham said.
The case delayed work at South Park Middle School and Regina Howell Elementary.
Wortham said cases like this involving white-collar crimes are becoming more common.
“And that's why we had to make a special division of our office to process and handle and try white-collar cases,” Wortham said.
Wortham said Walker can still appeal to the Supreme Court of the state of Texas.
12News reached out to Walker's attorney on record, but have not heard back from him yet.
In early October of 2019, Walker was sentenced to 10 years probation and was required to pay a $10,000 fine. He has since paid this fine off.
In early November of 2019, Judge John Stevens ordered Walker to serve 180 days in the county jail as part of his 10 years on probation.
This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.
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