Brandon Walters

A gay man gets custody of his kids, but a court-appointed receiver’s homophobia draggedhis divorce on for years

DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com

Not so long ago, if an opposite-sex couple with children was divorcing after one spouse came out, the children would end up with the straight parent, no matter what the particulars of the case were. Often the LGBT parent would have trouble even getting visitation rights. That’s not the case anymore.

And yet, homophobia in the courtroom can still cause plenty of problems.

When Brandon Walters and his wife divorced, she was charged with assaulting him at parents night event, at school, in front of their children. She pleaded no contest.

In turn, she accused him of molesting the children, a charge the children refuted and that never stuck. Walters now has custody of the children and is “establishing [their] legal residency.”

Sexual orientation simply didn’t enter into the court’s decision.

But that doesn’t mean the divorce was simple or without a large dose of homophobia.

The children spend half their time with their father now, and half their time with their mother, although Walters retains primary custody.

Since Texas is a community property state, the couple’s assets were divided evenly. That includes the large insurance agency that Walters owns. With five offices, he’s the largest Allstate broker in North Texas. Walters said he didn’t dispute that his ex-wife was entitled to half the value of the company.

But in court, they couldn’t agree what the company was worth. So Judge Dennise Garcia appointed Charles Walker to be the company’s receiver, to value the company and sell it. Walker had no experience in the insurance industry, but, Garcia said, she didn’t have a receiver available with experience specific to the industry.
Walters offered to buy the company himself for three times annual sales, with proceeds going to his wife, less court costs. The receiver rejected the offer.

Now, two years and five offers later, with no other offers on the table, Walters is offering less than he originally offered because the company is worth less — and they’re still negotiating.

Meanwhile, the receiver was supposed to be paying the bills and making sure Walters wasn’t running up expenses, hiding money or doing anything else that would affect the sale price and his ex-wife’s share. It hasn’t been that cut-and-dried.

Walters doesn’t sit in his office waiting for business to walk through the door; he takes potential clients out, and he sponsors events, such as last year’s Black Tie Dinner B4 Black Auction Preview Party. When Walker questioned the expense, Walters began to notice a pattern: Walker questioned all efforts marketing to the LGBT community.

In an email, Walker questioned billing for the company’s IT guy and wrote, “Also, they are supposedly going to gay bars together.”

Walker regularly rejected charges from Walters when he took gay potential clients to the Round-Up Saloon. Where else, Walters demanded, would he take gay clients who like to dance?

So Walters set up an experiment: He took a straight client to a straight strip club on Stemmons Freeway that has such a bad reputation, off-duty Dallas police aren’t even allowed to work security there. Unlike expenses at LGBT events or businesses, Walker didn’t question that charge.

As per Judge Garcia’s orders, Walker, as receiver, was supposed to protect the estate. Instead, Walters said, “He’s devalued the estate and has run up about $600,000 in receivership fee.”

Walters explained that not only have sales decreased because he hasn’t been allowed to spend money marketing the business, they’ve lost bonuses due to the drop in sales, and those bonuses were intended to account for a large chunk of the agency’s revenues.

Walters also suggested that even though Walker has no experience in the insurance industry, anyone should understand that no business can function without its phones and internet service, and that paying the bills is necessary to keep phones and internet working. And yet Walters received a notice threatening to cut them off for nonpayment.

Recently, a line of credit was turned into a loan that has to be paid off, because Walker had failed to make the proper payments. Walters’ attorneys argued that doesn’t just show a lack of understanding of the insurance industry, it shows recklessness or lack of understanding of business in general.

Allstate must approve any sale of the business. It rejected a recent potential out-of-state purchaser. Walters knows the local market, and Allstate officials saw no reason to transfer the business to someone else when they had one of their top owners bidding to retain his agency.

For a court date earlier this month, Allstate wrote a letter offering to refinance if an agreement was made that day and said no one else would be approved for the sale.

Yet, Walker refused the offer.

In proposals to other potential buyers, Walker included Walters’ name in the sale. So if he lost the company, he wouldn’t be able to sell insurance — the only means of support he has for his children — in his own name.

Walker also proposed a non-compete clause in any sale. “I can’t order a non-compete,” Garcia explained from the bench, because courts regularly throw them out.

Denise Martinez is general manager of the agency. She said since Walker was appointed receiver, the staff has dwindled from 20 agents to five.

“He plays games with existing staff,” Martinez said, referring to Walker. She said he has offered employees raises and then taken those raises away.

Despite the uncertainty with the company, Martinez said she’s stuck it out because “I’ve been with Brandon for so long [16 years]. … It’s not only his business, it’s mine. It’s worth hanging in there with him.”

September marks two years since Walker was appointed receiver and charged with selling the company, and Walters, the agency’s employees and its overall future remain stuck in limbo while Walker appears to play a homophobic game of chicken.

Walters has submitted five bids in the last two years, and Walker has rejected them all. If Walker turns down Walters’ latest bid, Walters said, he hopes the judge will force the sale.

Until then, the future of the agency continues to hang in the balance.