A former law office chairman is being investigated on theft and money laundering allegations, accused of misappropriating funds of at least two of his law firm’s clients.
Authorities seized 127 boxes of files, six computers, and disk drives from the Houston high-rise office, according to the returned search warrant filed in a district court.
In his affidavit for the search warrant, which also targeted computer logins, passwords, memory devices, and telephones owned by the law firm, a fraud examiner indicated authorities were seeking evidence used to commit felony offenses of misapplication of fiduciary property, theft and money laundering.
The search warrant indicates the district attorney’s investigation began in February 2017, after the law firm’s former client alleged that the firm misused funds from her divorce case. she filed for divorce from her husband and hired the law firm in December 2013.
She later had the divorce case moved to bankruptcy court in Texas’ Southern District in part, he claimed, because of excessive legal fees. The law firm filed a motion accusing the former client of filing his bankruptcy case to skirt payments to his estranged wife.
At one point, the former client’s trust account had less than $650 in it, according to a fact-finding ruling in 2016, in which U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge outlined a year’s worth of transactions and “discrepancies” between bank statements and ledgers for the trust.
Based on those records, the judge concluded that the law firm had “taken funds from the (trust) account that has not yet been earned and, thus, several thousands of dollars have been unaccounted for.
He put the number of unaccounted funds or over-payments to the law firm at more than $140,000.
The law firm disputed the findings and planned to appeal the judge’s finding.
No charges have been filed against anyone in connection with the ongoing investigation. Investigators seized financial records, legal files, documents and correspondence related to two divorce cases handled by the firm, according to the search warrant documents.
As a defense, the former law firm chairman said he had no advance notice of the search and had no details about the allegations beyond the content of the search warrant. He also believed there’s an accusation of misappropriation of client funds.
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