Hallmark already indicted for insurance fraud, auto theft

Phillip Hallmark, the southeast Texas contractor who reportedly employed undocumented workers to work on an oil spill cleanup in Michigan, is already under indictment by a Chambers County jury for insurance fraud and theft in a previous, unrelated case.

On Wednesday, Chambers County deputies detained 59 men reportedly hired by Hallmark aboard a bus in Winnie that came from Battle Creek, Mich., waiting to meet Hallmark for payment. When the buses got to Winnie, Hallmark was not there, according to The Michigan Messenger. Hallmark has not been seen since.

Hallmark’s attorney Joseph C. “Lum” Hawthorn said Friday he had recently been in touch with his client and was aware of Hallmark’s whereabouts. When asked where Hallmark is, Hawthorn cited attorney-client privilege, saying, “That’s none of your business.”

Hawthorn said Hallmark was not currently in custody, that he was aware of.

Regarding the charge involving insurance fraud and theft, Hallmark has a court date set in Anahuac for Oct. 1. He was originally slated to appear in court Friday, Aug. 27.

Allegedly, in July 2006, Hallmark’s accomplice Joe Collins claimed to State Farm Insurance Company that Collins’ 2003 Ford F-150 was stolen from a parking lot, when Hallmark and Collins were hiding the truck, according to grand jury indictments from December 2009.

Hallmark’s wife Holly is an insurance agent in Port Arthur for Farmers Insurance Group. She is not named in court documents.

In 2004, Hallmark was fined $1,000 after pleading no contest to election code violations involving campaigns for Port of Port Arthur commissioner. Hallmark was charged with failing to report newspaper advertisements that he paid for to the candidates he supported or to authorities. Hawthorn also represented Hallmark during the 2004 case.

Hallmark is the son of former Jefferson County Commissioner Waymon Hallmark, who retired in 2009.

On Monday an investigation by Michigan Messenger revealed that Hallmark Industrial was employing undocumented workers to clean up the Kalamazoo River. The workers were being paid $800 a week to work 12 to 14 hour days in conditions that have been identified as unsafe. On Tuesday morning, Hallmark Industrial’s contract was severed with Texas-based company Garner Environmental, and Hallmark’s workers were put on charter buses back to Texas. (Garner is a subcontractor on the Michigan spill cleanup effort under Enbridge Energy.)

On Wednesday, 42 undocumented immigrants were transferred to the custody of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in Houston after Chambers County deputies were notified that two charter buses were blocking a road behind a local bank. An estimated 40 other men eluded authorities. Bus drivers told Chambers County Sheriff Joe LaRive they were instructed to drive from the site of the Battle Creek, Mich., oil spill to Winnie to meet Hallmark, who would pay the workers.

LaRive said once the question of immigration status of the workers came up, ICE took over the investigation from the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office, and his deputies are not pursuing the case any further at this point.

Hallmark told a Michigan Messenger reporter that his Hallmark Industrial company also performed cleanup work in Florida following the BP Deep Horizon oil spill. However, a BP spokesperson told The Florida Independent that “we do not believe any employees of Hallmark assisted with the response.”

The subcontractor Garner Environmental has had a contract with Jefferson County to perform hurricane-related work since 2007, when county commissioners voted to approve an inter-local agreement among the county, Garner and the City of Beaumont, which already had a contract in place with Garner.

Garner also performed hazardous waste removal in Chambers County following Hurricane Ike in 2008. In January 2010, Houston’s ABC 13 investigated the $60 million cleanup effort and profits to county officials and their relatives.