Damn Lawyers: Probate Plot
NEW VIDEO! Our warnings about DAMN LAWYERS are triggering new complaints about the same trio of Houston attorneys. We’ve told you about the fights between clients and Jorge Borunda, Michael Trevino, and Nick Abaza. It’s time to expose THE PROBATE PLOT.
Damn Lawyers: Probate Plot
“One of the things that happens when we do an investigative media stories is more people come forward and they share stories that are often eerily similar. That’s what has happened in our damn lawyer investigation,” Wayne Dolcefino told the camera.
Lawyers can make you a ton of money.
“Lawyers are supposed to deliver you justice,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Saul Goodman knows that.
“I’ve watched Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul on AMC. Great shows. We all know Saul was really in it for the money. It’s all about greed,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“My name is Gail Echols, a former client of Jorge Borunda, Nicholas Abaza, and Michael Trevino,” Gail Echols said.
Thomas Roy Echols Senior died in 2012.
He left behind an estate that included Echo Towing Services, a 40-year-old family tugboat business.
Gail was his daughter.
“I hired lawyers to help me recover my inheritance. They told me they negotiated a million-dollar settlement for me. But here’s what actually happened,” Echols said.
“What really happened, the lawyers ended up with more of the inheritance than Gail did,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Borunda, Abaza, and Trevino cashed in.
“They charged a 40% contingency fee on the entire amount, even on assets that weren’t liquid and they hadn’t even investigated. Then they took their entire fee out of the cash portion of the settlement. So out of what was supposed to be $1 million, I walked away with about 328,” Echols said.
“You’re both victims?” Dolcefino asked.
“Yeah because we’re victims. The same pattern, the same setup, and the same actors,” Valeriya Ruzynska said.
We first met Valeriya Ruzynska in 2024.
The guy she was divorcing died before the divorce had been fully settled.
He had a 3.5 million-dollar estate, and Valeriya thought the lawyer handling the estate, Louis Ditta, was dragging it out to make more money. Another damn lawyer.
“You want to say anything to Wayne Dolcefino?”
“Looking forward to when this story comes out.”
“Guess who she hired to help her, the same damn lawyers we’ve been investigating for months,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Jorge Borunda, Michael Trevino, and Nick Abaza.
“We were getting gamed the whole time,” Rich Allison said.
Rich Allison and his sister Caroline are on a mission to expose these damn lawyers.
When their wealthy dad died in 2017, yet another nightmare began.
“I want for it to be common knowledge that attorneys prey on families,” Caroline Allison said.
“The lawyers talked the Allisons into a contingency agreement. The lawyers knew they stood to make millions that way,” Dolcefino told the camera.
The Allisons sued the trio of lawyers later for fraud, claiming the lawyers didn’t tell them they could have another lawyers look at the contract first.
“Contracts with lawyers are written so you will never be able to ask a jury for relief. You have to go to an arbitrator,” Dolcefino told the camera.
The Allisons lost.
Dallas arbitrator Ann Ashby made it a lot worse, giving the lawyers everything they wanted from the Allisons plus interest and penalty.
“Our investigation exposed deep conflicts that Ashby never fully disclosed. And in our view, she should have never been within 10 miles of this case,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Malpractice lawyers are now going to court to try and get the case reversed.
Using our investigation to prove it stinks.
“So we felt like, hey, these guys are doing us dirty,” Rich Allison said.
“Our attorneys were taking a fee off of benefit we already had,” Caroline Allison said.
The Allisons’ story hit home with Valeriya.
“I recognized a lot of patterns and the same scheme, scenario that they were applying into my case. And that’s when it started clicking because before that, I believed that that was delusional or maybe just like my imagination,” Ruzynska said.
“The case stretched for like about three years,” Ruzynska said.
“When we met Valeriya, we didn’t know the Allisons, but here was a woman already telling us about trouble with the lawyers, Abaza and Borunda,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“For some reason, Nick Abaza and Jorge Borunda were pressuring me into making some kind of deals,” Ruzynska said.
Valeriya showed us some text messages.
Here’s Abaza saying, “Accept our conclusions of the law and strategy. It’s not up for debate.”
Abaza pushed harder for a 50-50 estate settlement.
Telling Valeriya they have “a big trial in August over a dispute over 20 million-dollar trust.”
Guess they didn’t have time for her anymore.
“Valeriya now believes Abaza was actually talking about his work on the Allisons case. She came across a 2021 newspaper article that was a lightbulb moment, to say the least,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Here’s the headline – “Houston Attorneys Sued Over Altered Fee Agreement.”
“They quit from the case because I found out about Caroline’s case and I started questioning the issues,” Ruzynska said.
Valeriya said she was waking up to the alleged tactic.
“Nick Abaza brought an agreement. And he made a point stating that he does not work alone. He works with Jorge Borunda, and Jorge Borunda was part of the package,” Ruzynska said.
A big payday for Abaza, who appears to be the lawyer who sets you up with the other lawyers.
“I know that Nick Abaza kept $125,000 of my cash for a 30-minute meeting to refer me to Borunda,” Echols said.
Gail eventually hired another lawyer named Joe House, to try to undo the damage she says those damn lawyers did to her.
In a letter, House called it negligence, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty.
And he demanded the return of $119 thousand dollars he said was “inappropriately confiscated” from Gail’s inheritance.
Gail never got the money back.
And she says she’s worse off for ever having trusted those guys in the first place.
“They never told me where my money went, the distribution of it. They never told me,” Echols said.
“There were so many things that they withheld from us,” Caroline Allison said.
“And all the cases we know about right now involve women,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“Like almost five years later on. And I’m still left with this case in shambles,” Ruzynska said.
“As far as they’re concerned, an inheritance is like free money to the next generation. And they want their piece of it,” Caroline Allison said.
Keep up with us on social media:
