Bill Walker of DMR fame is back in prison after he failed to make restitution payments as part of his sentence. The Sun Herald reported yesterday:
Bill Walker of Ocean Springs, the former Mississippi Department of Marine Resources director who defrauded the government, started collecting a substantial retirement check from the state before he and his son, Scott Walker, went to prison in 2014.
As part of his sentence, Walker was ordered to pay $572,689.14 in restitution and a $125,000 fine. U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett in February refused Walker’s request to reduce restitution payments of $5,000 per month.
The judge noted Walker didn’t pay a dime toward restitution while in prison, had an annual income with his wife of more than $190,000, and had done little if anything to curb expenses.
Starrett sent Walker to jail Wednesday for continued failure to make the payments or document his expenses.
The Sun Herald covered Wednesday’s hearing, but no media was at the February hearing. A recently released transcript from February’s hearing reveals new details about Walker and his finances:
▪ Bill Walker sold a second home in the Florida Keys in 2013 and cashed in life insurance to help pay for his criminal defense.
▪ Sharon Walker maxed out two credit cards while Bill Walker was in prison and was making minimum payments totaling $750 a month.
▪ Bill Walker’s accountant, Robert Culumber, acknowledged that he was taking the word of convicted felon Scott Walker to testify about Bill Walker’s expenses because there was no documentation to back them up.
▪ With expenses as high as they were, Culumber testified, it would be “mathematically impossible” for Walker to make full monthly restitution payments.
▪ Bill Walker claimed his memory is failing and his finances are managed by his son.
▪ He was still making monthly payments of around $863 on an IRS debt from 2010.
▪ He was paying $1,277 a month on Ocean Springs property that had belonged to his son and was fraudulently sold to the Land Trust of the Mississippi Coast Plain while he headed DMR. He still owed a total of $81,000 on the land.
▪ Scott Walker testified “ . . . despite my past, these numbers are very true and very correct.”
▪ Scott Walker told the Sun Herald after Wednesday’s hearing that he had not been asked for backup documentation on his father’s expenses until July, but he told Starrett in February: “I will provide (Probation Officer Justin) Crowe, or whoever you tell me to, judge, with the documents backing these numbers up. And $5,000 a month would financially ruin my mother and father.”
▪ At the end of the hearing, Starrett told Bill Walker: “When you have a substantial restitution, when you owe the public money, you can’t live large. There has been no reduction in the lifestyle of Dr. and Ms. Walker that I can tell.” Rest of article
16 comments:
$1900.00 in car payments?
Since Mr Walker’s memory is failing, I would think he should not be allowed to drive a car!
This is laughable. I can’t with this guy. As a taxpayer this is infuriating. Plenty of people in the world manage to live within their means. When your income and or expenses change, you have to adjust your lifestyle. Plain and simple. They can absolutely afford to make their restitution payments, they are just choosing not to. The court should make them sell their home(s), cars, jewelry, etc and then live and drive in more modest accommodations.
This whole thing is a middle finger to the justice system. The walkers don’t take their debt to the government seriously.
Maybe it’s just me but it seems strange that you can embezzle (steal) from the state be convicted and still draw a substantial retirement from the state. Am I missing something?
Another embezzlement demand case will be announced Monday by Shad White, State Auditor. He is holding a press conference Monday, September 24, at 1:45pm. Presser will at the Coahoma County Courthouse in Clarksdale. It is being reported that will be one of the largest individual embezzlement demand in over 20 years.
Clarksdale seems to be a hotspot for news these days. They are still dealing with an 8 week suspension with pay of 3 Clarksdale Public Utility employees. It has been somewhat contentious as these 3 are saying the board has been overeaching and meddling in day to day operations of CPU
If Shad White is personally announcing it, he should send a thank you note to Pickering for leaving all of this low hanging fruit for him. No way he had anything to do with any of these recent findings in such short time. Its just the establishment system trying to set him up for a win.
I'm sure he'll get several appearances on SuperTalk for this great work, and then his campaign managers will send SuperTalk a few hundred thousand dollars worth of public service announcements. That's how it works.
If Shad White wants my vote, go bust somebody's ass at Singing River hospital for all of the poor saps that lost their entire pension because the execs and the BOS just over looked several years of contributions that were supposed to be made.
Or how about bust the Innovate MS board for just not seeing a half million dollars disappearing.
Or.....
Scott is an even bigger bonehead than his Dad. How does he actually make a living when he isn't even qualified to toss cans on a garbage truck?
I don't know how daddy Walker is getting by on just 16,000 plus per month.
For my vote Shad White needs to audit all 82 MS counties supervisors and their spending for on going upkeep of county roads and bridges for the last 20 or so years.
In many cases are county barns serving as job centers as some taxpayers suggest?? And legislatures increased county road load limits with 100s of bridges being closed. Go figure!
My bridge got fixed and my road got paved and believe it or not, I live in southern Hinds county. Go figure.
Not sure why it took 30 years, but every road I ride on has been paved this year.
Yall a bunch of jealous haters!
Times are tough and money's tight.
The Walkers are nothing more than a modern cautionary tale.
▪ $400 a month for a housekeeper (1)
Besides, if you were THIS FAR UNDERWATER Wouldn't you be buying some high dollar Shuckers tickets too? Haters gonna hate anyway!:
So now the Walkers collectively owe hundreds of thousands of dollars to the government for their crimes. Scott has paid more than his father, Bill, but he owes much more.
His father hasn’t been holding up his end of the bargain. Of the $572,689 he was ordered to pay in restitution, he has paid about $10,000.
“This is real money,” the judge hold him. “This is real money the taxpayers are out and the court feels strongly it should be repaid.”
We, and the readers who have called asking why the money has not been repaid, agree. Bill Walker has not been making a good faith effort to repay and the judge saw through his excuses.
Bill Walker and his wife, Sharon, bring in more than $16,000 a month is pension and Social Security benefits. He argued that he can’t afford the minimum of $5,000 a month demanded by the court.
To see how ridiculous that argument is, the Walkers are making more than $198,000 a year. The median household income in Jackson County, where they live, is $49,158 and in Harrison County, where the headquarters of the Department of Marine Resources, the agency Bill Walker ran until he was fired, it is $43,095. (2)
(1) https://www.sunherald.com/news/local/crime/article218603340.html
(2) https://www.sunherald.com/opinion/editorials/article218722655.html
$16,000 a month pension & social security is unbelievable & unattainable by virturally anyone, esp retired govt workers. I'm mad hell hearing this!!
State Auditor Feel Bryant and the media were somewhere else chasing political rabbits for legislative friends while this guy and Epps were having a good ol’ time on the state’s dime back in the day.
Walker's agency was the only state agency outside of Jackson.
It was not audited for over 10 years.
Guess who was the State Auditor at the time?
For my vote White had better audit every university, community college, school district, and all the associated "regulatory" boards.....billions wasted. He said education was his biggest focus. We'll see....
Scott Walker was not helping Bill Walker with his finances,he was helping himself to his dad's finances. Scott was so broke when he was convicted/sentenced the judge did not fine him or make him pay interest on the stolen money that was to be repaid.Hotty Even then Scotty still managed to live in a million dollar beachfront home and buy brand new exotic imports for he and his wife to tool around in.Looks like he was using his dad's money all along.
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