UNFULFILLED PROMISES
Several people say Quanell X took thousands for advocacy he never performed
When Mary Wiltz lost guardianship of her 5-year-old grandson, she called influential Houston activist Quanell X to help get him back home to Beaumont.
Cambron Wiltz had been placed in a foster home when he was born with cocaine in his system because his mother, Wiltz’s daughter, was using drugs, court documents show. He was then placed with Mary Wiltz when he was 6 months old. But Wiltz lost custody after the foster family petitioned to have Cambron returned in 2014.
Quanell told her that he would uncover what happened in the courtroom so Cambron could return home, court documents
show. He would do this using his signature fiery style of publicity at news conferences and protests.
All she had to do was pay up — three payments totaling $17,500.
More than five years later, Wiltz is still waiting for Quanell’s help.
“He did nothing to help me after I paid him all that money,” she said. “I still don’t have my child back.”
For decades, Quanell X Abdul Farrakhan, 51, has been considered by many as the standard-bearer of social con
sciousness in Houston. He cultivated a reputation that many consider well-earned. He fought for those who suffered police violence, unfair evictions and racial discrimination in the workplace.
But a Houston Chronicle investigation — which included a review of hundreds of court documents, copies of contracts and cashed checks, as well as interviews with dozens of individuals and former close allies of Quanell — found the activist repeatedly accepted cash in exchange for advocacy, then didn’t fulfill his promises.
Families said they sought his help after watching him on TV news, galvanizing crowds or as a guest on Fox 26 Houston Faceoff, a show that features local leaders debating news events of the day.
Once they contacted him, he would quickly earn their trust with vows to investigate and learn the truth about what happened. In some cases, the community leader also pledged to make sure authorities would be held accountable for wrongdoing.
But often just the opposite occurred, more than a dozen people said. When he did not deliver on his promises, they said he left them feeling duped.
In an examination of court records from 2012 to 2018, at least nine individuals and families sued Quanell for breach of contract and related issues.
Petitions filed in civil and justice of the peace courts in Harris County show that plaintiffs sought to recover money they had paid to Quanell. The Chronicle also spoke to others who told a similar story but said they didn’t have resources to file suit to recover money.
In recent months, Quanell has been at the center of a number of court actions.
In June, a Houston woman reached an undisclosed settlement against him after she filed a lawsuit in the 281st Civil District Court. Her 2018 suit stated Quanell did not deliver on services to assist in the release of her incarcerated brother.
A similar case — brought by another family in Houston — is set for trial in a Harris County civil court early next year.
And in July, Quanell failed to respond to a court order to appear at a deposition to assist in the debt collection of a six-figure judgment awarded to Wiltz.
Among the findings in the Chronicle investigation:
• From 2012 to 2018, in four of the nine lawsuits, individuals and families were awarded judgments that allowed them to pursue Quanell for repayment for services they say he never performed. The judgments, which are accumulating interest and court costs, now add up to more than $345,000, court records show.
• In each of the four judgments, families and individuals were not paid because Quanell did not respond to court orders to provide information about his assets and sources of income for collection purposes.
• Wiltz holds the largest award. In 2018, she was awarded $200,000 under a judgment issued by the Harris County Civil Court of Law No. 1. As of August, the judgment reached $330,000, according to a special court-appointed officer.
• To enforce the judgment awarded to Wiltz, the court ordered the special officer — called a turnover receiver — in July 2019 to collect the judgment. As one of the most aggressive debt collection practices in the nation, the appointment of the receiver enables the court officer to conduct bank searches to gain access to real property and assets that are owned by Quanell, court records show.
The Chronicle made several attempts to interview Quanell. In June, the activist said he had not seen the court order that appointed Houston attorney Robert Berleth as the special officer to recoup the judgment in the Wiltz case.
“If I’d seen it, I would have responded to it,” Quanell said in a June 22 phone call.
When he was told the initial judgment was for more than $200,000, he replied: “Jesus Christ, are you serious? Are you serious?”
He said he would review the court materials, which the Chronicle emailed to him on the same day.
“Send it to me,” he said. “I have no problem sitting down with you.”
He met with a Chronicle reporter for an interview on Aug. 16.
Berleth simply “is wrong,” Quanell said. “He’s totally confused in his opinion of me. That’s my only comment about that.”
Quanell said he had not been aware of some of the judgments against him and had not been aware until recently of the size of the award won by Wiltz.
“I don’t have the money to hire lawyers to fight these things,” he said.
Quanell said the nine lawsuits — and the four judgments tied to them — were unfounded and largely were spurred by a Black activist based in Beaumont who several years ago became displeased that Quanell had developed strong alliances outside of the Black community.
For his part, Quanell said he tried to help Wiltz and other individuals and families. He worked each case to draw attention to injustices, holding town hall meetings, distributing flyers and leading rallies.
But in many of the complaints of racism that have come to him, he concluded there was no tangible proof of wrongdoing. And that put him at odds with other Black leaders.
“I have nothing to apologize for,” Quanell said. “When you hire my consulting company, there are no promises made. When we sign a contract, it all states in the contract what we do and who I am.”
“All I can do is support the cases,” he said. “But I’m not a magician.”
Yet Wiltz, the Beaumont grandmother, now has been waiting four years to collect her original $200,000 judgment issued by Judge George Barnstone, who resigned over complaints of misconduct unrelated to the Wiltz case in July 2021.
So far, Quanell has not responded to requests for information for debt collection purposes, said Berleth, who has spent more than two years trying to trace bank accounts and income in Quanell’s name.
“Quanell X is a very skilled debtor,” Berleth said. “He’s been used to running from people trying to collect debts on him for many years.”
In one lawsuit, Quanell paid up, but it didn’t come easy, said Nate Lewis, the plaintiff who sued him in Harris County Justice of the Peace Court, Precinct 4, Place 2. In his petition to the court, Lewis said he paid the activist $2,000 to represent him in an employment discrimination case.
“He took the money, and he hasn’t answered the phone or called me,” Lewis’ handwritten July 2017 petition said. “Caused my family to miss Christmas because this was my Christmas money that he had to have immediately two weeks before Christmas. He needs to be stopped.”
The case had been set for trial on Oct. 31, 2017, court records show. On that day, both men appeared in the courtroom, and the judge ordered them to go into the hallway to settle their dispute. “‘Fix it or I will,’ ” Lewis said the judge told them.
They both stepped out into the hallway, and the discussion became heated, Lewis said. At one point, Quanell tried to persuade him to accept half the money and receive the other half in the mail. Lewis said he refused and demanded full payment.
Finally, Quanell pulled out a wad of cash to pay him back — $2,000 in crisp $100 bills. “Just laid down each bill, one at a time, like no big deal.”
Lewis had waited more than two years to get his money back.
Quanell said he paid Lewis because his wife had been sick. Quanell also said he documented the work that was completed in every case.
“I make sure we’re thorough,” he said.
But he did not provide documents when the Chronicle asked him for proof.
A chorus of local, state and national justice leaders said it was imperative for the community activist to be more transparent.
“He needs to come publicly and explain the process and what you do with this money,” said Bishop D.W. Thompson, a member of the Houston Ministers Against Violent Crime. “Do it publicly. Call a press conference.”
Also, because people “have been very public about how they’ve been harmed, it’s very important for (him) to address the people he’s harmed publicly, as well,” said Kortney Ziegler, a social activist for the black and queer community who specializes in financial hardship inequities.
“If he is digging his heels in about being honest about his work, and then on top of that (he’s facing) mounting debt, it’s not looking good,” said Ziegler, who serves as a race and technology fellow at Stanford University. “I would hope they (Quanell) would come to their senses and maybe try a different route — being honest.”
A social justice warrior
Quanell X was born Quanell Ralph Evans in California, the middle of three sons, and moved to Houston when he was 5 years old. In previous interviews with the Chronicle, he said he and his brothers were raised by his mother and grandmother.
He told a story about how he drank his first beer at age 5, stole school clothes by breaking into the homes of other families in the neighborhood and was soon recruited by pimps and prostitutes on the streets of Sunnyside in southeast Houston, where he grew up.
In his early 20s, he landed in Harris County Jail, convicted of cocaine possession.
But a turning point came in September 1990 when he heard
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan speak in Houston. He immediately decided to join the organization.
At that point, he completed his high school equivalency and changed his name to Quanell X Abdul Farrakhan, rejecting the last name given to his family generations earlier as slaves in East Texas.
“If it were not for the Nation of Islam, I’d be dead or in prison,” he said to the Chronicle in a story published in 2017.
After his youngest brother was killed in a drug dispute, he said he contemplated revenge but decided to seek another way.
“I knew at that moment what I had to do,” he said. “I had to make a difference in these streets and to do something to help stop the killing.”
Over the years, he has honed a set of strategies for achieving his goals, his supporters say. His performance in front of the camera is just one of them. Just prior to the pandemic, he would crisscross town holding daily news conferences to highlight cases, showing up frequently on TV news and in the pages of the Chronicle.
The community activist drew confessions from killers. He even earned the respect of prosecutors who called on him for tips.
Last year, at the height of the pandemic, he worked on behalf of the family of 20-year-old Shawtyeria Waites, who went missing for weeks after going home with a man she met with friends at a strip club. Quanell raised awareness about her disappearance, holding news conferences and speaking out on TV. (Waites’ remains ultimately were discovered in the trunk of a car belonging to the man who was accused of killing her.)
People followed him because he didn’t care where the spotlight needed to shine — he went after causes big and small, said Vincent Dickson, who joined forces with Quanell in 2001 to spur reforms in the criminal justice system.
“He wasn’t scared,” Dickson said. “And he was in the fight for justice, and he couldn’t be compromised, so to speak. So, I felt it was someone that I could support and get behind.”
Dickson said he traveled with Quanell as part of his security detail and group of investigators. Quanell’s organization tried to make a difference in the lives of everyday people who were facing some form of injustice — an abusive landlord, a hostile work environment, a corrupt judge.
“We did a lot of good things, and that’s one of the reasons why people sought him was because of the things that we were doing,” Dickson said.
But as time went on, Dickson said he and others learned some painful truths. Families would tell him that Quanell had charged them for his services.
“We didn’t know people were giving him that amount of money, and other members didn’t know that,” he said. “Ultimately, we realized, you know, what was going on.”
As a result, he began to distance himself from Quanell. By 2005, he was one of his fiercest critics.
The community tribunal
Questions have been raised about Quanell’s tactics for years, Dickson and other leaders said. As early as 2005, Black leaders held a special meeting known as a tribunal, which drew influential people throughout the region to develop a plan to address concerns, Dickson said.
“A tribunal happens in the African American community when we have someone that’s doing something they shouldn’t be doing in the community and influential people come together and say, ‘We got to do something about this guy,’ ” Dickson said. “Rather than going to the law, going to the courts, you know, let’s have a community hearing on this person.”
Dickson was at the event at the Shape Community Center on Live Oak Street in Houston, as was Deric Muhammad, a longtime Houston Black activist and criminal justice reformer.
Quanell was not present. After hours of discussion, the leaders decided the community should distance itself from Quanell, Dickson and Muhammad said.
In his interview with the Chronicle, Quanell did not specifically acknowledge that the tribunal had even taken place. But he said nothing had been made public about it.
When asked why such accusations could have been made, he said that around the same time some Black community leaders were not happy with his attempt to reach out to outsiders.
“A large segment of us (Black people) believe we should not work with white people at all,” he said.
Regardless, the actions on that day had little impact on Quanell, said Dickson and Yahcanon Ben Yah, national chairman of the People’s New Black Panther Party.
In 2010, the beating of Black teenager Chad Holley by several Houston Police Department officers was caught on surveillance video. The videotaped incident aired to the world a playbook example of police brutality.
Quanell X quickly emerged as the leader who captured people’s sense of outrage and led dozens in marches and protests all over the city.
Ben Yah watched in shock as critics who had condemned him just five years prior now looked up to him.
“How does this guy get away with all this?” Ben Yah said. “People were calling him out during a tribunal and then after the Chad Holley case, everything was forgiven.”
Still, in 2014, the two men would march side-by-side to protest the death of Alfred Wright, the 28-year-old Jasper man whose body was found weeks after he had disappeared in rural Sabine County.
At that point, Ben Yah wanted to confront Quanell about the allegations, but Dickson urged him not to. He said he should wait until the right moment.
That moment came in November 2017, when he received an email from a Waco woman who accused Quanell of taking $1,500 for services she said he never performed. She said she had been mistreated during an overseas trip by some Waco educators and had paid Quanell to expose the injustice.
“That’s when it all began, from that email,” said Ben Yah, who provided copies of emails to the Chronicle between the woman and Quanell that she shared with him.
He said he and Dickson, the former investigator and member of Quanell’s security detail, urged him to pay back the woman.
Quanell soon responded and mailed her a check, Dickson said. After she had deposited the check in her bank, he said she spread the word over social media.
Dickson said that prompted many other calls from people who were raising concerns about Quanell.
After the woman was paid, Dickson and members of the People’s New Black Panther Party began contacting other people who said he owed them money for services he allegedly didn’t perform.
Quanell had no comment on the matter.
In other cases, Quanell didn’t pay up even after courts ruled against him.
In 2014, a Harris County justice of the peace court awarded a judgment for $2,674 to Charles and Yvonne Stoneham. The Katy couple, who are in their mid-60s, had paid $2,500 to put a spotlight on the fatal crash of their 22-year-old son, who died while driving a vehicle that had been under a safety recall, said Charles. But as soon as they paid him, he disappeared.
“He took our money and didn’t do anything,” Charles said.
He said he hasn’t seen Quanell since the day he took his money, and he has given up trying to collect. Charles said he has since had a stroke and has a heart condition that requires his attention.
“I’m not going to worry about it,” he said.
Quanell told the Chronicle that Charles Stoneham had raised the possibility that police might have played a role in the fatal crash, but he did not find proof of that.
“I don’t want to make allegations against law enforcement that we have no evidence whatsoever to back that up,” he said.
Likewise, a court handed down an $8,000 judgment to Ethel Easter of Katy in a case she filed against Quanell in 2017. She had paid Quanell to find an attorney to file a lawsuit alleging that doctors she was seeing had made racial comments about her because she is Black. She said Quanell gave some media attention to her case, but he didn’t find her an attorney as promised.
After five years, Easter is still waiting for the money.
“Everybody is talking about it, but nobody is making us whole,” Easter said.
Easter’s case was among the judgments that Quanell said he knew about.
He said he had made every effort to find the woman an attorney to take on her case, but none would.
“The three lawyers I talked to said there was no point in taking her case,” he said.
Canceling at last minute
Rochelle Long, who lives in Pasadena, also has been waiting nearly five years to collect on a $5,000 award she received after she filed a lawsuit in November 2017.
She paid Quanell to investigate racism while trying to run a child day care business out of her home. Long lived in a neighborhood that for years had barred Black residents from buying, leasing or living in homes, records show. A 1953 deed to her home prohibited “any person of the negro race” from occupying the property.
After she bought the home in 2009, she said she would at times trip over bungee cords that had been left at her door.
“I was terrified,” she said. In his written response to the court, and in his interview with the Chronicle, Quanell said he did not find examples of racism. Also, Long’s allegations grew more outlandish as he began to discover nothing had happened.
Quanell said he had a similar experience with Wiltz, the Beaumont grandmother who hoped to regain guardianship of her grandson.
“I didn’t promise anything,” he said.
But, just as he agreed in his contract with Wiltz, he worked on the case, traveling to see Wiltz on numerous occasions, meeting with her lawyers, and concluding that her grandson was in a “good environment.” So, despite a court order that he pay up, he said he should owe her nothing.
Wiltz said she contacted Quanell in December 2015 on the advice of a girlfriend.
“The first thing he said he would need from me would be $7,500, and how soon could I get it?” Wiltz said.
In February 2016, she wrote a check for $7,500 to Quanell X. Farrakhan, court records show.
They then agreed to set a date to hold a rally at the Lake Charles courthouse, the site of the ruling that had removed her guardianship of Cambron. Wiltz invited numerous people to attend the event to show strength in numbers, but Quanell canceled at the last minute, citing bad weather.
“I didn’t understand why he did that,” Wiltz said. “And he said, ‘because the weather was bad.’ And I was like, ‘I already had all these people coming, you know, to hear you speak out on behalf of my child, Cambron Wiltz. How could you do this to me? So he just gave me some sob story. ‘Well, I have to look out for my people.’ So, of course not knowing any better, I accepted it.”
After that, Quanell met with her again and reassured her that she would be able to renew guardianship of her grandson, Wiltz said. A week after that, she said he asked for more money.
In March 2016, she authorized a bank transfer to a Comerica bank account for $2,500, court records show.
“I would try to call him on the phone,” she said. “Sometimes he would answer, and sometimes he wouldn’t. He always told me he was in court. I thought this man was about helping people.”
When she finally realized she was at a dead end, she continued to press for answers. She collected copies of her checks and wire transfer and found an attorney to seek a judgment on her behalf.
On May 29, 2018, the court ordered Wiltz to collect $200,000 from Quanell, with the judgment growing each year while it remained uncollected, as a result of accumulated interest and court costs, court documents show.
Quanell did not appear in court on that day, court records show. As of August, the amount owed Wiltz has grown to $330,000, according to the court-appointed receiver.
‘A great actor’
Other people who paid Quanell for services did not sue, often because they didn’t have the financial resources.
Jessica Garcia is the niece of David Lozano, a Houston father who was killed during a domestic disturbance in 2019. Garcia had believed Quanell was sincere in his fight for justice. Garcia wanted Quanell to bring attention to the case.
She said her family had been frustrated by delays in the justice system.
“We’re supposed to have, according to our Constitution, the right to a speedy trial, which it seems like every time we turn around the court system is, you know, kind of basically punching us again,” Garcia said.
In early 2021, Garcia reached out to Quanell on social media, and he responded within a day, she said. Several family members met him at a local Starbucks the next day.
“And let me tell you, he is a great actor, from the placement of the hands on the shoulders to the touch of the arms, you know, basically telling us that he was going to go out of his way to make this right,” she said.
“But he needed some money to fund his private investigators and for his camera crew.”
Garcia said she and her family believed Quanell’s promise to organize a news conference. She said they gladly paid him $2,000 to stage the event. The family provided documents related to the payment for services, but the Chronicle was unable to obtain comment from Quanell about a promise to hold a news conference.
But she said the news conference never occurred. She would call, and he would answer to say he was in court and could not speak.
“That was the answer for everything, so I just finally gave up,” she said.
The murder trial of Omar Hernandez, the Houston man who is accused of shooting Lozano, is scheduled for late September, court records show.
In 2018, members of the People’s New Black Panther Party decided to bring attention to Quanell X — only this time, the attention was to warn the public about him.
The organization created a video that shows three women, including Wiltz, telling their stories.
Ben Yah, with the People’s New Black Panther Party, also appeared on the video to make an impassioned plea to Quanell to admit his faults and pay back every individual and family.
Quanell had not been under such scrutiny since the tribunal in 2005.
The video drew some people to reach out to Ben Yah and the People’s New Black Panther Party. The organization recorded each allegation filed by families, then presented the information to the consumer fraud division of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, Ben Yah said.
But after a review, the DA’s office informed them that it would not be pursuing criminal charges, Ben Yah said. A spokesman for the DA’s office declined to comment about complaints filed with the office by the People’s New Black Panther Party.
“Out of fairness, we do not confirm or deny the existence of any investigation into any matter until, and if, a criminal charge is filed,” Dane Schiller, spokesperson for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, wrote in an email.
Waiting to be deposed
Quanell’s phone rang, but there was no answer.
Berleth, the officer attorney appointed by the court to force payment on Wiltz’s judgment, placed the call while he sat in his Houston law office in front of a camera that was ready to record a deposition that he had scheduled at 3 p.m. on that day for Quanell.
Wiltz sat next to Berleth. Quanell was not in the room.
Berleth ended the call, moved to the front of the camera and hit record.
“It’s July 14, 2022. It is 3:20 p.m.,” he said. “We have properly noticed Quanell X for his deposition. He has not appeared. I have called Mr. Farrakhan, and I’ve also emailed him today to confirm he was going to be here and advised him that he was late and he has not responded in any manner.
“This deposition is recessed until Mr. X appears.”
Quanell has not answered Berleth’s court-ordered requests for disclosure of his bank accounts, assets and sources of funds since 2019.
For years, Quanell has not publicly revealed his personal address and other details of his life. He has said in interviews that he wanted to protect his privacy.
Berleth said the behavior is all too familiar. Most evasive debtors like to play games, he said. They want their large assets, such as cars and homes, to remain undetected, so they don’t disclose information about where they live.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had a debtor that I walked up to and said, ‘I’m taking all your stuff and they say, ‘Oh this is all my stuff,’ ” Berleth said.
Berleth’s firm concentrates mostly on wealthy debtors, often pro athletes and celebrities.
State law authorizes courts to issue orders that force debtors to disclose their assets and sources of funds to satisfy a judgment. If the debtor won’t turn over bank records and similar information, the court has the power to impose jail time.
As an officer of the court known as a turnover receiver, Berleth often is granted the power to subpoena financial records, peer into a debtor’s creditor history and offshore investments — even swipe cellphones and private property without the debtor’s knowledge or authorization.
“We will keep going until we get him or the court orders something else to happen,” Berleth said.
At this point, the only way Berleth, acting on behalf of the court, can force Quanell to disclose the information is by catching him and serving him court papers in person.
After Quanell did not appear for the deposition, Wiltz thanked Berleth for his time as she rose from her seat to head home to Beaumont. Undeterred, she popped on her sunglasses and headed for the elevator.
“We’re going to get him,” she said. “It just takes time.”