It’s been nearly two years since an alphabet soup of agents converged in downtown Beaumont, with more than two dozen local, state and federal investigators, for a morning raid at the office of Stevedore and downtown investor Tom Flanagan on Oct. 9, 2024. This week, according to sources close to the federal criminal investigation, the now former owner of the historic Gilbert Building, lost to suspected arson in June 2024, has been notified that he is the subject of multiple federal indictments.
Although the reported indictments remained under seal as of press time, The Examiner has learned that Flanagan was federally indicted for a series of alleged “finance crimes.” According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), the most common finance crimes are wire and mail fraud, money laundering and bank fraud, punishable by up to 20-30 years in prison for each count.
Eastern District of Texas DOJ agents would not comment on the indicted offenses and attempts to reach Flanagan were met with the assertion that he “is out of town.” Per typical protocol, indictments are kept under seal until the subject of the indictments can be served with the official charges in person.
Over the past 22 months since the raid on Flanagan’s downtown office, The Examiner has confirmed, current and former staffers with intimate knowledge of Flanagan’s financial dealings have been questioned by federal agents. In addition,The Examiner’s investigation discovered that Flanagan filed for, and received, more than $2 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) proceeds, claiming hundreds of employees at various Beaumont and Louisiana businesses. PPP was a U.S. federal emergency loan initiative launched in March 2020 via the CARES Act and managed by the Small Business Administration to provide forgivable loans up to $10 million “to help small businesses maintain payroll and cover basic overhead during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In more than one of the filings, Flanagan copied and pasted the same funding amounts for multiple functions of “where the money will go.” For example, in a forgiven PPP loan for $954,835, Flanagan reported that the utilities for the James J. Flanagan Shipping Corp. would total the exact amount as mortgage interest – specifically, each line item was $119,354. For his Lake Charles Stevedores LLC, Flanagan reported utilities cost at $7,123; for mortgage interest, he reported $7,123.
Flanagan, in addition to many more forgiven PPP loans, also received a forgiven PPP loan for reported payroll costs of $117,800 at Century Tower LTD, 550 Fannin in Beaumont, an office building that continues to house Eastern District of Texas U.S. Attorney’s Office suites.
Alleged arson of the Gilbert Building was the subject of state felony allegations; yet, no update has been released on any indictment regarding the local/state investigation or even if arson has been confirmed.
The application for a search warrant filed by BPD Detective Aaron Lewallen alleged that an arsonist not only burned down the Gilbert Building at Flanagan’s request, but also set other fires throughout the city in an attempt to dilute fire department response and ensure maximum damage to the Gilbert Building.
“I find it reasonable to believe each subsequent fire was set in an attempt to pull resources from the Gilbert Building,” Lewallen swore. “Which in fact did occur.”
Additional investigator commentary from the scene of the raid speculated as to additional pending charges from a litany of agencies. Further revealed in the search warrant affidavit were allegations of tax fraud, past-due taxes to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, bad debt and a propensity for patching problems and padding bank statements.
“Flanagan was administered a polygraph in which the relevant questions included: Did you order anyone to burn the building? Did you have anything to do with the building being burned?” Lewallen informed. “Flanagan’s results of the polygraph indicated that he was being deceptive.”
Following the execution of the search warrant, Flanagan reached out to the media by way of his attorney: “...They have seized a voluminous number of records and a number of electronic devices. While I am presently unaware of the full scope of the investigation, I know they suspect I was somehow involved in the fire which destroyed the Gilbert Building.
“Let me be unequivocable – I was not involved, nor am I aware of any other person or people who may have been involved in the fire. ... In short, this fire has only caused a huge headache for me...”
Flanagan