Super-connected Texas/Florida GOP operative James Dunn's criminal and grifter resume is incredible
A quick, digestible primer for curious Texans and others. It's hard to believe it when you see it all summarized. And yet, it's real.
This article is designed to be short and easy to summarize. You can skip the brief political connection preamble — if you already know it — and get right to the meat of Dunn’s criminal and grifting accomplishments. But if you don’t know how connected Dunn is to Texas voucher and state education leadership, take a moment to learn.
In Jan. 2022, voucher-pushing Texas state Sen. David “Mayes” Middleton, R-Galveston, gave James Dunn’s “Black Republicans of Brazoria County” (BRBC) $15,750 for “event expense.” To that point, Middleton’s contribution was the only publicly known source of revenue for BRBC that wasn’t the $62,500 PPP loan it got on April 30, 2021, to protect six supposed jobs.
In February 2022, roughly a month later Middleton’s BRBC contribution, right-wing personality Candace Owens publicly accused Dunn and BRBC of fraud in connection with an event.
In late June 2022, Dunn sent illegal, defamatory campaign texts during a Florida School Board race in which was campaign manager for two gross, book-banning GOP candidates, according to Polk County, Florida prosecutors. They have now charged Dunn with misdemeanor campaign violations.
A few months after that, on October 14-15, 2022, despite months of Florida-based notoriety, the convicted felon Dunn hosted a training for Texas school district officials in Southlake. The guest list was small, but impressive. Its VIPs included:
Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath, Texas’ top state education official. He gave the “keynote address.”
Texas Board of Education Member “J6” Julie Pickren, who was then a candidate for the Texas Board of Education. She took part as a speaker and/or facilitator. Pickren took part in the January 6th “Stop the Steal” rally and lost re-election to the Alvin Independent School District (ISD). She went on to run for and win her state BoE election in November.
Kendall Baker, a Dunn campaign client and Houston Independent School District (ISD) trustee, elected in December 2021. Baker was let go from his job with the City of Houston in 2014 after allegations that he lewdly solicited sex from a co-worker were found true by city investigators.
Two months after that Dunn-led Southlake training, on December 13, 2022 Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent out a press release proudly announcing the appointments of Morath and Dunn’s campaign client Kendall Baker to a multi-state education organization called Southern Regional Education Board (SREB.) There are roughly 7,000 Texas ISD trustees. Dunn’s client Baker was the only Texas trustee Abbott chose to join Morath. Their only obvious connection, beyond Abbott, is James Dunn.
The article below delves deeply into everything I’ve summarized here.
Now, just to put all of that political web stuff in context, here is James Dunn’s criminal and grifter resume. It is spectacular. Dunn is:
Twice convicted felon in Texas and accused campaign criminal in Florida
Convicted felon sentenced to 27 months and 33 months in federal prison in 2009 and 2010 on two different federal fraud cases, in which he cheated veterans, people with disabilities, and the federal government.
Forger of government documents in the veterans case.
Serial grifter of anybody — from churches to politicos to government
Cheater of veterans, people with developmental disabilities, and at least one Houston-based church. The church-cheating happened in 2019 and is ongoing.
Seven-time filer for bankruptcy between 2002 and 2008. Barred by the federal government from filing again without permission in 2008 for failing to disclose previous filings, according to court records.
Collector, through sole proprietorship or affiliated organizations, of at least six emergency COVID PPP loans totaling about $310,000 in free government money. See here and here. In chronological order, with dollar amount and number of jobs claimed to be protected, they are:
April 30, 2020: 2D Development LLC, $61,242, “vocational rehabilitation services,” 3 jobs, Bank of America
May 1, 2020: James Earl Dunn, Jr., $125,000, “N/A” - no industry cited, 6 jobs, JP MorganChase
May 1, 2020: Renfro Management, $23,716, - no industry cited, 9 jobs, Wells Fargo
Feb. 20, 2021: Gulf Coast Community Action Agency Inc., $37,500, “other individual and family services,” 4 jobs, Regions Bank
April 30, 2021: Brazoria County Alternative Academy, $62,500, “elementary and secondary schools,” 6 jobs, Regions Bank
April 30, 2021: Black Republicans of Brazoria County, $62,500, “elementary and secondary schools,” 6 jobs, Regions Bank.
Campaign consultant for gross, book-banning, LGBT-hating, fake Christian dictatorship candidates, including Kendall Baker of Houston ISD and David Hamilton of Fort Bend ISD.
Recruited by the so-called County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF) from Texas to Florida in summer 2022 to run a slate of gross, book-banning, LGBT-hating, fake Christian dictatorship of candidates in Florida, mostly in Polk County. Humiliated and smashed by Florida voters, along with his candidates.
Recipient of endless public and media scrutiny since June from me and others in Florida for his criminal background; his ongoing public behavior/grifting throughout the election cycle; and his abject defeats.
State-government approved Texas trainer for local district trustees.
So deranged and quick to lie that he told the Texas Tribune that he had never been to prison.
A shameless “conservative” race-baiter, who routinely hurls racism accusations at people who report on his past convictions and contemporary shenanigans. He recently compared himself to Emmett Till before insulting him. Really, he did. See here.
Why will no Texas media organization ask Morath, Pickren, Middleton, Baker, or Abbott about their relationships with James Dunn?
In December 2022, Dunn briefly became the subject of articles in the Texas Tribune and the Houston Chronicle’s “Courier of Montgomery County” — and an investigative report on Houston’s KPRC TV station.
But all those reports focused narrowly on Dunn as a registered TEA trainer. But that’s just one tiny spot on the vast, tangled map of the two-state Dunn scandal.
Indeed, James Dunn is not yet infamous in his home state of Texas like he is in my corner of Florida. Powerful Texans have eagerly stepped into his gross world of crime and grift, rather than avoiding it. He’s been an asset, not a liability, to the Julie Pickrens and Mike Moraths and Mayes Middeltons of the world.
And that’s just as amazing as his criminal and grifter resume.
To repeat, James Dunn is the most blatantly criminal and anti-social political character I have ever covered in almost 30 years of paid and unpaid reporting. I have written nearly 50 articles about Dunn and his gross Florida school board candidates since I became aware of him in late June. See an overarching summary of my work and Florida-based Dunn timeline here.
But I only recently came across a 2013 statement from Assistant U.S. Attorney Quincy L. Ollison, arguing against Dunn’s request for a reduced sentence for Texas-based federal crimes.
By this time, Dunn had been in federal prison for three-and-a-half years on two different Houston area fraud schemes involving people with disabilities and veterans, respectively.
… defendant claims that he has achieved “exemplary post sentencing rehabilitation.” However, it is clear to this AUSA that defendant has not been rehabilitated in the least; rather, he is up to his old behavior of devising every common scheme or device he can to minimize the punishment he was given based upon the seriously fraudulent conduct he committed against our country’s Veterans and the mentally challenged.
Somebody, anybody, ask Mayes Middleton and company about that.