When Dallas County’s adult probation director cut a $32,800 check to a contractor in May, he said it was to replace checks issued two years earlier the consultant forgot to cash.
Director Arnold Patrick hired an Austin-area lobbyist in 2023 to screen and handle vendors doing business with the probation department.
But during the year Eric Knustrom was under contract with the Dallas County agency, he missed deadlines and did not perform core duties of the agreement — later acknowledging in an email he did not complete the work. His December 2023 termination letter said he failed to review vendor applications, provide status updates or share outcomes of client complaints.
While Knustrom was slipping on his probation department contract, emails obtained by The Dallas Morning News show the lobbyist was working pro bono on legislative issues with Patrick and a group the two men had launched to splinter from the state probation association.
Breaking News
After learning about the arrangement through an inquiry by The News, a division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice opened a conflict of interest investigation this week into the tens of thousands of dollars Patrick paid Knustrom.
The Community Justice Assistance Division, which funds and oversees probation departments across Texas, “takes a strong position against anything that would potentially be a conflict of interest,” communications director Amanda Hernandez said in confirming the investigation.
Records show the probation department issued Knustrom five checks totaling $45,100 in 2023, but he did not redeem most of them immediately. Five months after his contract ended, Knustrom acknowledged in an email to Patrick he did not perform all the work Dallas County probation paid him to do.
The uncashed checks expired, but Knustrom confirmed in an interview he asked the checks be reissued earlier this year because he needed a down payment for a car. He now stands by the work he performed.
The probation department reissuing the stale payment raises ethical questions about the use of public funds for work the director and his consultant already acknowledged was not done.
“Accountability is accountability,” said Bart Bevers, a public integrity expert and former inspector general for the city of Dallas. “If I was running the probation department and I had received a message from the person that they didn’t do the work, then I’m going to call the county auditor (and say) ‘I don’t think we should pay him a penny from this point on.’”
Patrick said the probation contract was not tied to the help Knustrom simultaneously provided the pair’s East Texas Community Supervision Alliance. He reissued the checks this year because Knustrom was entitled to payment for work he performed, Patrick said.
“One is not related to the other,” Patrick said, “but I acknowledge that it does look funny.”
The arrangement came as state officials steer increasing scrutiny to lobbyists paid with public money. Some state lawmakers tried to bar cities and counties from using local funds to pay lobbyists this year, but the bill died in the legislative session. Even if it became law, it did not encompass the judiciary, which includes probation departments.
By early 2024, Knustrom had cashed only $12,300 of the $45,100 worth of checks the probation department issued in 2023. In an interview, Knustrom said he had not received all remaining payments of $32,800 even though the payment register shows the checks were issued.
In May 2024, five months after his contract ended, Patrick asked Knustrom if he was going to redeem the outstanding checks, emails show. Knustrom responded by acknowledging he did not perform all the work he was contracted to do and needed to make up for it.
“I’d like to cash the checks (bc I’m poor) but I want to come up with a statement of work that will allow me to provide actual services of actual value equal to that compensation for Dallas County. Sound fair?” Knustrom wrote.
Patrick encouraged him to cash the checks, even if the work performed wasn’t up to standards. He said the outstanding checks were causing an issue for the county.
“Cash them and then issue the statement before you spend it if that will work,” Patrick wrote. “If not, I need to cancel them.”
In an interview, Knustrom said the work he performed was not “my A-game,” but he still fulfilled his duties by reviewing the department’s procurement process and creating a system to receive complaints about vendors.
“I definitely gave value for every dollar I was paid,” Knustrom said.
He said his delay in cashing the outstanding checks was an oversight. Knustrom said he received one payment of $4,100 in October 2023 via electronic deposit and deposited two checks totaling $8,200 in April 2024 into his personal bank account.
In summer 2024 Knustrom said he tried to make a large deposit but had problems setting up a business account at a bank. Then he forgot about the money until earlier this year when he needed a down payment for a car, Knustrom said. By then the payment was stale, so the probation department voided it and issued a new check for $32,800 in May, Kevin Camacho, a county auditor supervisor, confirmed.
***
Patrick and Knustrom’s work together goes back at least to 2021, when Knustrom was a lobbyist for the Texas Probation Association, which represents many of the 123 probation departments in the state.
Probation departments in Texas, called community supervision and corrections departments, oversee people serving probation in the community outside of custody and in residential treatment facilities.
They are part of the judiciary branch of government, so department directors are hired by criminal district and county court judges while their departments are overseen and funded by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Community Justice Assistance Division.
Patrick said he began talking to lawmakers in 2021 about changing the rule requiring probation departments to return unspent funding to the state every two years.
During that session Knustrom pitched language to lawmakers to amend the refund requirement, according to a letter he drafted to his lobbying group, Texas Star Alliance.
This was counter to the position of the Texas Probation Association, according to Karma Chambless, the association’s former president.
Chambless said this activity prompted the association to assign another lobbyist to its account because of what she called Knustrom’s conflicting activity with Patrick.
The association’s board also removed Patrick from its legislative committee.
“They weren’t on the same page with us,” Chambless said of Patrick and Knustrom.
Knustrom said prior to this, he had received no direction to avoid lobbying for this change and “I never brought it up with anybody that session ever again.”
A year later, corporate records show Patrick and two other probation directors created their own group: East Texas Community Supervision Alliance with Knustrom as its registered agent.
Then Patrick hired Knustrom in January 2023 as the contractor to screen vendors and provide legal services for the department, according to the contract.
Patrick said he wanted a consultant with an independent lens to review vendors on the department’s approved provider list and handle complaints that arise.
Probation contracts under $50,000 do not require a competitive bid, according to the TDCJ contract handbook. Knustrom’s contract totaled $45,100.
“I just wanted an outside non-Dallas person that vetted these vendors,” Patrick said.
One vendor application Knustrom was asked to review was LifeSaver, an ignition interlock provider. State records show Knustrom was also registered to lobby for LifeSaver at this time, but his Dallas County termination letter said he ultimately failed to review the application at all.
While Knustrom was working for Dallas County in 2023, emails illuminate the pro bono help he gave to the East Texas alliance during that legislative session.
Emails show Knustrom conducted analysis of a bill supported by the alliance that would have required probation departments to return less money to the state every two years. Knustrom also emailed a staffer of state Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, and unsuccessfully encouraged his office to back the bill. The bill later died in committee.
Knustrom said he did not register with the Texas Ethics Commission in 2023 to lobby for the alliance because he said the group did not pay him for his efforts, he did not meet with lawmakers on the alliance’s behalf and he was acting as an engaged member of the group rather than its lobbyist.
***
Dallas County presiding District Court Judge Audra Riley declined to comment on Patrick’s contract with Knustrom, stating the judiciary’s role over probation departments is limited by statute and “we do not manage or authorize contracts or payments for the department.”
By the 2025 legislative session, Knustrom was registered to officially lobby on behalf of the East Texas alliance but said the group still did not pay him.
At a legislative committee hearing on May 5, Knustrom registered on behalf of the alliance against a bill that passed and changed the approval process for probation departments’ budgets. Patrick was there and testified against the bill.
The probation department issued Knustrom a replacement check for the stale 2023 payments the next week, the payment register shows.
“I can see the coincidences but there’s absolutely nothing inappropriate about my contract or anything that (Patrick) paid me,” Knustrom said.
Knustrom said while he was working with Patrick on the alliance’s issues, he also was trying to buy a new car and needed a down payment. That’s when he said he remembered his uncashed check from Dallas County’s probation department and asked Patrick to reissue the stale $32,800 payments from 2023.
Knustrom’s contract with Dallas County probation called for him to submit monthly invoices detailing the number of hours worked and a list of assignments completed that month.
None of the 11 monthly invoices for $4,100 that Knustrom submitted include any detail about the work he performed each month.
Patrick said despite the irregularities, Knustrom still completed work for the department — just not to either of their standards.
“I know there was work done,” Patrick said.