Judge ‘absolutely outraged’ after Scott Walker drives parents to withdraw $6K from bank
Ocean Springs couple Bill and Sharon Walker are under court order not to remove a cent from their bank accounts, but they managed to withdraw $6,000 at Merchants & Marine Bank on Tuesday.
Their son, Scott Walker, drove them to the bank in his Range Rover. They tried to withdraw the funds from the drive-thru line, but bank employees told them they would have to come inside. Surveillance tape recorded the withdrawal.
They didn’t keep the money long.
Instead, the Walkers found themselves in Jackson County Chancery Court that same afternoon, and Judge Neil Harris ordered guardians to find the money and deposit it in a trust account established for them.
Harris was still furious with the Walkers on Wednesday, when they were back in court for guardians to sort out their finances. They said they wanted money to buy Christmas presents for their three grandsons, the children of Scott and Trinity Walker.
Harris wants the children to have presents, too, but he was torn because the Walkers had tried to go around him and withdraw the money themselves. In the end, he wrote an order giving the couple $800 for Christmas gifts and meals to be spent at their “sole discretion.”
“If anybody goes to the bank and tries to get any money, I will bring the entire state of Mississippi down on their head,” Harris said from the bench as Bill and Sharon Walker sat in the front row of the courtroom.
“Pass that along to your son,” the judge said. “That was terrible.”
Harris and two guardians are managing the Walker’s money because they have memory problems, and he will go to jail unless he starts paying monthly restitution for defrauding the government.
He committed the crime while he served as executive director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. His son was convicted in the case, too.
Bill Walker still owes more than $300,000 in restitution but he stopped paying in the federal case in February.
Bill Walker deeply in debt
Under the guardianship, Walker is back on track with the $6,500 monthly payments. But his finances, previously managed by Scott Walker, are in complete disarray, court testimony this week shows.
Previous testimony has shown that some of the Walker’s income went to benefit their son, including payments for more than $1 million in life insurance policies and on a luxury BMW that Scott Walker drove.
The elderly Walkers are almost $1 million in debt, have mortgaged the home they built back in 1977 to the tune of more than $200,000, and have taken out loans with interest rates as high as 300%.
No payments are being made right now on the credit cards and high-interest loans.
Harris and the guardians are trying to figure out how to pay the mortgage, $43,000 in taxes owed to the IRS and other debts while leaving the Walkers enough money to live on and make court restitution.
Walkers beat guardian to the bank
Scott Walker will have to appear in Chancery Court in January on a contempt charge related to the bank trip.
Bill and Sharon Walker draw a combined $17,500 in monthly retirement from the state, but they also receive lump-sum retirement checks in December that total around $29,000 each. Co-guardian Josh Eldridge, also Jackson County’s Chancery Clerk, was waiting for the checks to hit the bank so he could move them to the Walkers’ trust account.
The Walkers were apparently waiting on the checks, too, and beat Eldridge to the bank. Eldridge discovered soon enough that $6,000 had been withdrawn and notified the court, resulting in the emergency hearing Tuesday afternoon. Scott Walker drove his parents to court in his mother’s Mercedes Benz.
The car has an expired tag and, under another order from Harris, the Mercedes was not supposed to be driven. It was supposed to be sold to buy a wheelchair-accessible van. That’s why Scott Walker is now facing a contempt of court charge.
After court Tuesday, Eldridge drove the Walkers home, and the Mercedes was left parked at the courthouse. The guardians recovered the $6,000 from a drawer at the house.
Scott Walker: Dad wants thousands for Christmas presents
In court Wednesday, the dealership agreed to take back the BMW Scott Walker was driving, sell it, and pay off the loan. The dealership expects to take a loss because more is owed on the car than it is worth.
Galleria BMW in D’Iberville sold Sharon Walker the BMW after a doctor had concluded she was suffering from dementia, previous court testimony has shown.
The guardians on Wednesday in court gave the keys to Sharon Walker’s Mercedes back to Keesler Federal Credit Union, which has the loan on that car.
Meanwhile, Harris said that Scott Walker has bombarded the court with emails requesting that thousands of dollars be released so his parents can buy Christmas presents. And Scott Walker wants reimbursement for things he has bought for his parents.
Harris was unsure how much money, if any, he will release for Christmas presents and said that he is not reimbursing Scott Walker for any expenses.
He commended Walkers’ guardians, Eldridge and attorney Matt Pavlov, on their work and reminded them that not a penny of the Walkers’ money is to be spent without his approval.
“I won’t stand for it,” the judge said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ll get to the bottom of it.
“I am absolutely outraged that he would load his mother up in a car and take her to the bank,” he said, mentioning her dementia.
Harris said he takes seriously his duty to protect the Walkers, who are his wards. He mentioned more than once U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett’s order for monthly restitution payments in the fraud case.
“If we don’t pay the restitution that Mr. Walker owes, Judge Starrett has already ordered him to go back to jail, and I don’t want Mr. Walker to go back to jail,” Harris said. “My job is to take care of my wards.”
And about those life insurance policies. Scott Walker was the beneficiary, but those designations have been changed so that the federal government will get its restitution if Bill Walker, 75, should not live long enough to pay it.
After the hearing, Scott Walker said he was simply driving his parents to the bank Tuesday at his mother’s request.
“I had no clue,” he said. “I don’t know why they went into the bank.”
He said it is unfair that his mother, who for years was administrator of a state aquarium and has a doctoral degree, has to give up her retirement income when she was not involved in his father’s crime.
This story was originally published December 16, 2020 at 3:15 PM.
