David Dewhurst, former lieutenant governor of Texas (2003-15) and also the state’s land commissioner (1999-2003), is being sued by his ex-wife, who alleges failure to pay $6.7 million as part of a 2016 divorce settlement.
It appears he could be in financial trouble as he is auctioning off personal possessions.
The figure owes his former wife a $2.9 million business loan that Tricia Bivins made to Dewhurst and $555,000 in overdue alimony payments.
Bivins, a former Houston attorney and energy industry lobbyist, married Dewhurst in 2012 and filed her lawsuit in Harris County, a report in the Texas Monitor said.
The former Republican lieutenant governor served under Gov. Rick Perry. In 2014 he lost his re-election bid to current Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Dewhurst also attempted to win a U.S. Senate seat but lost to Ted Cruz in the 2012 GOP primary.
Bivins alleges Dewhurst failed to pay her personal loans of $127,500 and $73,000 and also alimony payments of $1 million and $2 million. According to the report, the business loans show up on a personal financial statement listed in a trust fund by Dewhurst in 2014.
The allegations against Dewhurst contend that he fell behind and did not pay monthly alimony payments of $35,000 due from December 2018 and a payment chart listing monthly payments to be made showed the former lieutenant governor had paid $39,000 out of $595,000 owed.
Bivins was an attorney with the Fulbright and Jaworski law firm now called Norton Rose Fulbright and based in London. She represented the Exxon Pipeline Co. in an eminent domain case in Fort Bend County in the 1990s and served as a lobbyist for Reliant Energy of Houston.
Before Dewhurst, Bivins was married to Republican state Sen. Teel Bivins, who was later appointed ambassador to Sweden under then-President George W. Bush.
Dewhurst and Teel Bivins, who died in 2009, had worked together during the Texas legislative session of 2003, helping senators craft a state budget that managed to increase spending without increasing taxes, the report said.
Dewhurst has had his financial troubles before. He accused former campaign manager Kenneth Barfield of embezzling $600,000 from him out of a campaign fund in 2012. Barfield was found guilty and sentenced to 7 years in federal prison in 2015.
In 1982, Dewhurst’s oil-drilling firm, Trans-Gulf Supply Co. went belly-up, leaving creditors with $7 million owed. A self-funded political action committee Dewhurst set up the David Dewhurst Committee left an outstanding loan debt of approximately $5.5 million.
Earlier this year Minion Trail, a Houston corporation, filed suit in Harris County District Court against Dewhurst for a $6 million loan the company made to Falcon Seaboard Diversified, a corporation run by Dewhurst, alleging failure to repay a promissory note.
Dewhurst is possibly seeking to pay creditors by auctioning off his belongings. A website for the Austin Auction Gallery listed items from Dewhurst’s 1,800-acre Snaffle Bit Ranch near Fredericksburg, Texas. The items include furnishings, art, Native American jewelry, crystal, silver, European and Asian antiques.
Dewhurst currently serves on a secretary of the Energy Advisory Board headed by Perry, currently the U.S. energy secretary.
