BEAUMONT, Texas — The probable cause affidavit used to obtain a search warrant for the office of a Beaumont developer earlier this week lays out why police suspect he may have had one of his own downtown buildings set on fire earlier this year.
Tom Flanagan, who owns several buildings in downtown Beaumont, denies any involvement in a June 2024 fire that destroyed the Gilbert Building, which he has owned since 2013.
“Let me be unequivocal – I was not involved, nor am I aware of any other person or people who may have been involved in the fire”, Flanagan said in a statement released to 12News Wednesday afternoon.
The statement was released hours after Beaumont Police and Fire Department investigators, with the help of federal agents from the ATF and Homeland Security Investigations, served a search warrant Wednesday morning.
Investigators and federal agents executed the search warrant on Flanagan’s offices encompassing the entire 15th floor of the San Jacinto Building at 595 Orleans St., according to a probable cause affidavit used to obtain the search warrant.
The affidavit and its accompanying search warrant were signed on Tuesday morning by Jefferson County’s 252nd District Court Judge Raquel West.
The “affidavit for search warrant” paints a picture of a businessman who police say was in financial trouble and allegedly conspired with someone to set fire to the Gilbert Building.
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Investigators say in the affidavit that Flanagan has not been shy about his desire to develop downtown Beaumont. They say he has “called it his legacy and referenced his dream at numerous city council meetings.”
They allege that with the announcement, in late 2023, of the City of Beaumont’s plans for a multi-million-dollar downtown development and demands from the city in the spring of 2024 to fix up the Gilbert, that Flanagan was under pressure.
Police further allege “…the convenience of a fire would remediate his out-of-pocket expenses,” according to the affidavit.
Flanagan in his Wednesday afternoon statement, denies these accusations saying he is “…actively trying to save the original structure of the Gilbert building at a cost of more than half a million dollars which comes out of my pocket.”
The city’s robust redevelopment plans include a $114 million waterway and $22.4 million for various other projects police say.
There’s also a new home proposed for Beaumont’s City Hall for $20.78 million.
Police note in the affidavit that several of Flanagan’s properties fall within the area marked for redevelopment by the city.
A Flanagan-owned parking lot across the street from the Gilbert Building is the proposed site for the new city hall, according to the affidavit.
Employees describe questionable business practices
Investigators interviewed some of Flanagan’s employees, mentioning them at length in the affidavit.
Several of them told police that Flanagan did not like paying bills or taxes. They also talked about financial problems describing everything from not paying vendors to bouncing paychecks.
One woman, described by police as one of Flanagan’s “trusted advisors,” admitted to them that she had stolen millions from him. However, she told police, instead of turning her in and filing charges, he made her keep working for no pay.
She claimed to police that he was not “paying 941 tax payments to the IRS,” the affidavit said.
Employers use IRS Form 941 to report and pay income tax, Social Security tax and Medicare tax for employees, according to the IRS website.
A former secretary described to police how Flanagan would regularly keep paying repeated late fees and not pay bills until service interruption was imminent.
She also told investigators that sometimes he would refuse to pay bills and other times there would just be no money to pay them.
The former secretary said she watched him “just strike through” payroll checks she had brought him to sign.
Another employee told police there was a “huge cashflow problem” with Flanagan’s businesses, according to the affidavit.
He described being paid with checks drawn on different banks and from different companies owned by Flanagan.
He also told police his paychecks would “routinely bounce,” the affidavit said.
A former property manager for Flanagan also mentioned to police his disdain for paying his bills and said he would promise vendors full payment of an invoice and then only make a partial payment.
The former property manager told police Flanagan had a reputation, claiming that if he called every contractor, locksmith, or electrician in Beaumont and offered work from Flanagan, they would tell him they were not interested.
He also told police of routinely mixed funds from one Flanagan company to another to pay the other’s bills and called it a “bookkeeping nightmare,” according to the affidavit
Liens, fines and back taxes
Police claim in the affidavit that as well as “appearing to be in a financial downward spiral with contractors and employees” Flanagan also owed money to the city and the county.
They say he has been in violation of City of Beaumont codes and has “numerous liens and fines” levied against him by the city.
The affidavit also notes that he owes back taxes on multiple properties, including his residence, over multiple years, totaling nearly $430,000.
Problems with the Gilbert Building
Flanagan told police in interviews with investigators that he had plans to renovate his buildings, yet police note no work has been done on many of them, according to the affidavit.
In his Wednesday statement, Flanagan spoke of “fighting to preserve” the Gilbert Building.
Police in the probable cause affidavit tell a different story. They say Flanagan told them in an interview that he had recently dropped the insurance on several of his "lower value" buildings.
"They've been so damaged, so much,” he told police in an interview, “Their market value is nil."
Flanagan’s former secretary contradicted this account telling police in her interview that several of his buildings had been uninsured for years.
The former secretary also told police she had seen emails from insurance companies that refused to insure the Gilbert Building because of its unsafe condition.
Police contend that, without the ability to insure the Gilbert Building, Flanagan was unable to renovate it, leaving him with no other choice than to demolish it.
"The cheapest thing for me is to tear it down,” Flanagan said of the Gilbert Building during a recent interview with police, according to the affidavit.
Flanagan also told police that he knew when he bought the building that it had asbestos in it, saying he had a City of Beaumont report noting that.
Asbestos has been classified as a cancer-causing substance by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services according to the National Cancer Institute.
Police allege in their affidavit that the cost of asbestos abatement for the Gilbert Building would be very high unless the building was destroyed by fire.
They say abatement standards put forth by the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants “do not apply to subsequent activities” in the case of destruction by fire.
If the building was only partially destroyed, the remaining structure would still be subject to expensive abatement standards.
Fire destroys most of the Gilbert Building
In April 2024 the City of Beaumont mailed a certified letter to Flanagan citing the Gilbert Building as an imminent danger, according to city ordinance and the International Property Maintenance code.
Nearly two months later, on June 6, 2024, the Gilbert Building burned, taking most of the city’s firefighters 24 hours and nearly two million gallons of water to put out.
Police say the fire and two other fires less than three miles away were part of a plan to ensure the complete destruction of the Gilbert to avoid the extra cost of asbestos abatement, according to the affidavit.
When firefighters arrived at the Gilbert Building after a 7:09 p.m. 911 call, they encountered an “active” fire that engulfed the four-story, 122-year-old building, according to the affidavit.
Fire investigators deemed the fire to be intentionally set, saying a person lit the fire, possibly with “ignitable fluids.”
There were no gas or electric utilities connected to the building or any weather conditions at the time that could have caused the fire, they determined, according to the affidavit.
The cause of the fire was arson.
One hour and 11 minutes after the Gilbert fire was reported, another fire, later also determined to be arson, was reported at 9:20 p.m., just over a mile away at 1814 Park St, according to the affidavit.
That fire, at the Gilbert Hinchee House, a historic home being renovated by volunteers, is a three-minute drive away from the Gilbert Building.
Five hours and 22 minutes later, at 2 42 a.m., yet another fire was reported nearly a mile and a half from the Gilbert Hinchee House, according to the affidavit. This fire, at 3275 S. MLK Pkwy, a 44,000 square foot commercial, metal building was also later determined to be arson.
Firefighters at the Gilbert fire continued to battle the flames through the night at the same time as the two other arson fires.
In the affidavit police say that arson investigators told them that three arson fires in one night is a “statistical anomaly” and leads them to believe the fires at the Gilbert Building, the Gilbert Hinchee House and the commercial building were all set by the same person.
Police believe that the three arson fires, all set within the same fire district, were intended to draw resources from the Gilbert fire. They say this was to ensure total destruction of the asbestos-laden building, according to the affidavit.
Detectives say they learned that a couple days after the fire, as firefighters were on a platform atop a ladder truck checking for hotspots in the rubble, Flanagan appeared at the site with a man he said was his engineer, according to the affidavit.
He asked that his engineer be allowed up on the platform with firefighters.
Firefighters reported that the engineer was actually from an asbestos abatement company and was checking to see how much asbestos was left in the building after the fire, the affidavit said.
Police say Flanagan lied in interviews following the fire
During their investigation police spotted a 34-year-old man, on a surveillance video, walking in the vicinity of the Gilbert Building immediately after the fire was reported to 911.
They later learned the 34-year-old man in the video had met with a 59-year-old man who is one of Flanagan’s maintenance workers, the affidavit said.
When police spoke to the maintenance worker, he told them the 34-year-old man in the surveillance video was a former employee of Flanagan’s who had been fired.
Flanagan never mentioned the 34-year-old man and later denied knowing him or ever paying him, according to the affidavit.
Flanagan’s former secretary had already told police that she had written out checks to the 34-year-old man for Flanagan to sign the affidavit said.
Detectives say they later learned that Flanagan had met with the 34-year-old man and discussed “evidence of the fire.”
When confronted by investigators about that meeting, Flanagan “…sheepishly stated that he should have told us” about meeting the 34-year-old man and his “potential knowledge of the fire,” according to the affidavit.
Investigators showed Flanagan the 34-year-old man’s photo and they say he “recognized” him but denied hiring or paying him.
Flanagan was given a polygraph test in which he was questioned about the fire, but police say the results “indicated that he was being deceptive,” the affidavit said.
Polygraph results are generally not admissible in criminal court in Texas.
Flanagan maintains continues to maintain his innocence in his Wednesday statement responding to the search warrant.
“There is no logical reason I would have ever done what is being alleged, nor am I the type of person who would ever engage in such activities,” he said in the statement.
This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.