My Story

I am a woman living in one of the many small towns in Central Texas near both Austin and San Antonio. For 20 years, I was married to a professional man from a prominent local family who was born and raised here. (I was born elsewhere and have lived all over the U.S.) Even before we were married, my husband was extremely interested in a cousin of mine who is a well-known equestrian; I believed this was because he envied my cousin’s jet-set lifestyle. During my marriage, I remember my husband making odd statements about my father being “abusive” that he refused to explain, and I also remember being upset when I heard my father refer to my marriage as a “business deal” several times.
Although I believed my marriage was a happy one overall, there were some events of concern. Once while I was pregnant, my oldest child and I nearly died of carbon monoxide poisoning on a night when my husband was gone. A few months later, my husband came home from work one night, and as I walked past him, he suddenly punched me in the back so hard that I fell into the wall—without him saying a word. There’d been absolutely no warning, he’d never done anything remotely like this before, and I was stunned, confused, and upset. I immediately made him leave the house, and later I made it clear to him that he was never going to hit me again. He didn’t, but shortly after my second child was born, I learned my husband was having an affair with a co-worker. We sought counseling, and I consulted a lawyer-friend the counselor recommended I see “for protection”, which I believed to be financial. My husband eventually decided to end the affair, the other woman left town, and we had 2 more children (one of which was stillborn). My husband did work very long and irregular hours and received calls from many different people at all hours, but this seemed related to his job.
In 1990, a lifelong close friend of my husband’s was fired from an undercover job with the DEA. He came back and rejoined the local police force. In 1991, my husband’s father and brother (both attorneys) introduced me to a mysterious and wealthy couple from CA who had come to town to buy and develop property but carried multiple cell phones and had a constant stream of bikers coming and going from their property. At some point during the 1990s, a local man whose family owned a house that adjoined our property was found dead under a tractor out on a ranch, his mother went into a nursing home, and my husband insisted on buying the house to expand our place and rent it out.
In 1999 and without warning, my husband suddenly moved out and filed for divorce. I soon learned he’d been having another affair with a co-worker, so I consulted the same divorce lawyer I’d seen before. About a week later, a woman came to my door with Al-Anon literature and implied my husband had a problem. Then, as I began packing up his things, I began discovering drug-related items: syringes, hospital medications in vials, i.v. parts, a scale, stolen Rx pads, etc. hidden in unusual places. (I also found the cremains of my stillborn child hidden on a shelf in the garage behind boxes of bullets.) I contacted an interventionist for advice; 2 weeks later he called back to say that he and a colleague had been threatened, my husband was addicted to narcotics, and too many people were covering for him to do an intervention.
Meanwhile, we had begun being the victims of constant harassing and often frightening incidents involving both associates of my husband and total strangers. My husband’s friend was made police chief, and I quickly discovered that I got no help when I called law enforcement; in fact, it soon became clear that police and city and county employees were actively participating in the harassment. Around this same time, my children and I began to see signs that my husband was involved in drug trafficking, and a close friend confided in me that my husband’s family had been engaging in real estate and bank fraud for years. I was stunned by all this and extremely frightened, so I contacted the FBI in San Antonio to complain about the harassment and make it clear that my children and I were not involved in any illegal activities. They responded with a letter asking for copies of any financial documents I might have and information about the couple from CA. I told them my husband kept most of his financial documents at his office.
During my divorce there were many signs of fraud, but my lawyer said I couldn’t prove anything and I was too naïve to realize he wasn’t representing me properly. About a month after the divorce was finalized in 2001, my lawyer sent me a packet of quitclaim deeds and asked me repeatedly to sign them, but he wouldn’t explain them, so I refused. My now ex-husband, his associates, and large numbers of total strangers continued to constantly harass us and trespass on my property, and the local police were actively participating in this. I complained again to the FBI, but even after their dad took my children on what sounded like a trafficking trip to Mexico, they wouldn’t do anything. Tax documents for three Met-Life policies I knew nothing about turned up in my mail.
Early in 2002, a close friend of my ex-'s who owned considerable property close to ours was found shot to death. A few weeks later, the local tax office questioned the agricultural (ag.) exemption on my property. Between 1/03 and 4/03, three more of my neighbors suddenly died under suspicious circumstances, including the woman next door, who was also found shot to death. Early in 2003, my ex- began emailing me requests to subdivide my land and refusing to provide me with the ag. documents I needed. At the same time, the tax office revoked my ag. exemption and the city attorney also began writing me letters pressuring me to sign a subdivision document; I refused. At the same time, my dog scared off a man prowling near our phone lines. An acquaintance at church suggested I hire his boss, a private investigator (p.i.), to obtain proof of the harassment and additional documentation of conspiracy between my ex-, the tax office, and the city. The p.i. advertised that his firm was large and international, and he emailed me a plan that sounded reasonable, so I hired him.
The p.i. immediately arranged an ag. lease for my property, and my ag. exemption was restored. He also asked me to turn over all my logbooks of incidents, the drug-related items I’d found, and our computer hard drive for him to inspect. About 2 weeks later, both he and an atty. he worked with called and said they had evidence that my ex- had extensive development plans for my property and was desperate to obtain it. Worse, they said that a number of my neighbors had been murdered for their property and I was in great danger. I did know of a number of recent very suspicious deaths of people owning property near ours and had been hearing rumors about this; also, I knew my ex-husband’s sister had died violently, so I became very frightened. The p.i. and the atty. began charging me for investigative work they said I needed done to protect myself, and they also began pressuring me to set up some sort of trust that the Texas Rangers were asking for transferring ownership of my property temporarily to the p.i. so they could document threats and prosecute. I refused to sign anything like this, especially after they provided me with a sample document that gave total control of my property to the p.i. and the atty. and did not exclude my ex- and his family. The p.i. made all the changes I insisted on and sent me 4 copies of the new document for my signature. At the same time, several extremely frightening/threatening incidents happened (including a van trying to run me off the road), and the city atty. also began pressuring me heavily again to sign the subdivision document. Early one morning, my ex- and others were seen destroying a section of my fence, removing livestock, and killing them; the city atty. and the p.i. both insisted they couldn’t prosecute this until I signed the documents, so I reluctantly did. The p.i. insisted I mail all 4 copies of the trust document back to him for filing, and he later sent one back to me that I put away without examining.
The p.i. then asked for a check for the current property taxes and another to set up an escrow account so the trust would look legitimate, which I gave him. Over the next few months, a series of legal notices with vague descriptions and locations began being published in the local newspaper, but the p.i. said not to worry about them. (Some of them were for property near ours related to one of the sudden deaths that was now owned by the county judge, who’d grown up with my ex-. Others were in regard to a planned development by a company called “Toskana”; people began emailing me a photo from the Internet related to this.) Over the next year, it gradually became apparent that the p.i. was charging me for work not done and was not informing me about the progress on the investigation. Further, he tried to get me to accept a low cash offer for my house and property. When an associate of his tried to get me to go on a free cruise with her, I confronted him; he and the man who’d recommended him quit and threatened me.
I was extremely scared and confused. I talked to a former DEA agent from a nearby county who worked as a p.i. and was told to check the DPS’s p.i. licensing website where I discovered that the p.i., his company, and his associates weren’t properly licensed when I’d hired them. I met with this p.i., an associate who was ex-FBI, and an atty. they took me to see. They examined the trust document returned to me and said it gave total control of my property to the p.i. and his lawyer-friend. I looked at it closely and discovered it was not the document I’d signed and was identical to the first document submitted to me. I now realized I’d been defrauded, so I hired the new investigators and atty. to help me handle this.
The new investigators insisted I begin a series of long (and expensive) meetings with them to gather copies of all evidence and put together a detailed statement for law enforcement. The atty. insisted on my getting the fraudulent trustees to resign immediately so they couldn’t sell my property, but they were insisting I pay them a large amount of money and sign a release document, both of which I refused to do.
At the same time, my ex- and his father began pressuring my 2 oldest children (over 18) to sign trust documents giving their dad total control of their assets, which they refused to do. One night, the younger kids called from their dad’s house to say he’d gone to “a big meeting about real estate development in our neighborhood” at his office. My oldest child and I drove there, took photographs, and logged detailed vehicle information on who was there. One of the cars parked out front resembled the first p.i.’s, so I emailed the photos and info. to the new investigators and lawyer.
The next morning, the ex-DEA agent called with a series of detailed instructions for me: 1) go to the courthouse and get copies of all documents filed under the fraudulent trust; 2) mail a retainer check to an additional atty. they wanted to consult; and 3) send the original document to a former FBI document examiner for inspection. I did what he asked and also filed a tax protest when I discovered the fraudulent trust had been used to conceal enormous increases in my appraisals. The atty. working with them (a city councilman in his town) sent me a formal invoice for the first time that mentioned a will and another document I knew nothing about. The two p.i.s gave me invoices showing they’d actually met with the additional atty. (listed as a “Government Attorney” with the state bar) right after I’d emailed the vehicle info. and photos. They also mentioned that all of the vehicles except the ?p.i.’s belonged to local doctors and that one vehicle had a plate that did not belong on it.
The atty. and two p.i.s continued to insist that I pay off the fraudulent trustees and get them to resign, and I continued to refuse. The atty. then suddenly called and asked me to come in to sign some documents, which I discovered were a will that mentioned trusts, a POA, and related documents. He insisted I sign these for my protection, so I did so reluctantly, but I noticed problems with one document when I got home and destroyed it, and I later destroyed all these documents. I then insisted on going back to his office to pick up my law enforcement statement and my 2 trust documents. When I arrived, I was confronted by the atty. and both p.i.s in a meeting that was very threatening and scary. They did give me a partial copy of my statement and the fraudulent trust document, but they refused to return my copy of the first trust document that had my handwritten notes about the changes I’d insisted on. As I left, I saw my former father-in-law’s vehicle nearby and realized he’d been listening in, so I fired all of them and began filing complaints with law enforcement.
I prepared a complaint and a box of documents for the FBI, but when I went to mail it, several men with badges followed me into the post office and the FBI said they never received the box. I went to San Antonio and met with an agent who refused to do anything, so I began filing state-level complaints against all the p.i.s and, in the process, began to notice code names, fake addresses, and other signs of criminal intent. Despite filing repeated complaints, however, law enforcement at all levels did nothing. At the same time, the second set of p.i.s began stalking and harassing us and attending meetings at my ex-‘s office and his family’s law office. I was so frightened by the harassment from former federal agents, DPS troopers, and local law enforcement officers who were now also following us around that I complained to the DOJ—who also did nothing.
When a man turned up at the front door saying he wanted to discuss development of my property and I could not find an atty. to represent us (most wouldn’t even talk to me), I took the fraudulent trust document to a document examiner with ties to the FBI. She wrote a report saying the document was manipulated and recommended an atty. that she said would help us. I met with the lawyer she recommended and decided to hire her to deal with the fraud. Immediately after I hired her, the first p.i. filed a lawsuit (using an atty. connected to the man who’d made the low cash offer for my place) alleging I owed him a large sum of money for back property taxes (which I’d paid myself and had the receipts for) and vague, ridiculous “trust expenses”. I had my atty. file a countersuit, but I began to have problems dealing with her and was not sure if she was representing us properly, especially when my kids said their dad showed them blueprints for medical office buildings he planned to construct next door and site work began along our fenceline.
My next shock came when I received notice that the p.i. suing us had an ex-Secret Service agent with extensive state and federal law enforcement credentials who was willing to testify that the fraudulent trust document was legit., which I knew to be false. This expert witness would not provide a report, however, and he abruptly quit when I tied him to my ex-husband and local real estate. He was replaced by another document expert, this time with ties to the CSI t.v. shows (also with no report).
Meanwhile, the harassment of us by law enforcement and others was so bad that I did internet searches and found the Police Complaint Center, which offered to help citizens file effective complaints, document incidents, and advertised Emmy award-winning investigations they’d done. I contacted the PCC, and Ex Dir. Diop Kamau asked for more information. I mailed him sample documentation and gave him more info. on the phone, and he said he could help us, so I paid him a retainer and signed a simple contract. He soon called back to say that my ex- was desperate to get hold of my property, and he said he couldn’t help me file complaints until I installed (expensive) security equipment in and around our home. I was frightened and agreed to this despite the cost, but in the months that followed, he continued to charge me for various goods and services that were never provided, and employees of his kept wanting access to our house to install and/or check equipment we never saw. Since he advertised legal services, I asked him whether our new atty. was representing us properly. Soon after this, a packet from Pre-Paid Legal Services arrived in the mail with my name and my ex-‘s address on it. This contained a will; Kamau claimed he knew nothing about it in an email.
Also, it gradually became very apparent that my ex-, his family, friends, and even complete strangers had access to private conversations inside our house and that amplified harassing noises were somehow being broadcast from various locations to disturb us at all hours. I’d already begun to suspect all was not right with Kamau when I accidentally discovered a local phone listing for an associate he’s said was from Wash., D.C. I immediately began asking Kamau for reports, detailed invoices, and a list with locations of all equipment he had on my property. When he missed 2 deadlines for providing this, I went to the FBI and told them I believed we were under illegal surveillance.
The FBI told me I needed to contact the TX DPS instead, and I was told by them to fax a request for a sweep of our property to their head, Col. Davis. I did this (repeatedly), but there was no response
One day, I happened to notice that the fraudulent trust document had been filed without being properly notarized. I emailed my atty. about this, and she emailed back that it didn’t matter. At the same time, legal notices of zoning changes and other hearings regarding land close to us were being published in the local paper, but the locations and other info. were vague and my atty. told me not to be concerned. Then late one afternoon, she suddenly faxed me notice of a hearing in 2 hours for land that sounded like mine (but she said it wasn’t). I ran over to the city office, confronted the city planner, and learned that it was indeed my property up for rezoning to commercial (and the applicant was the city). I filed a hasty protest, but my land was rezoned anyway. I fired my atty, filed a complaint with the TX OAG, and continued to pressure the FBI and/or DPS to sweep our house for illegal devices. I also obtained copies of my cancelled checks to Kamau and discovered they’d all been converted to wire transfers. On the backs of the checks were stamps from other states: FL, KY, and PA.
Around this time, a very close associate of my ex-husband’s who also owned extensive property bordering ours suddenly died the same day my youngest child and I had seen a city ambulance in front of my ex-‘s office with its lights flashing. My kids and I were terrified, and I again contacted law enforcement with no response.
In the meantime, I’d been frantically and continually searching for another atty. to represent us without success. They all either insisted on my signing over 30-40% of my (now commercial) property first or else they flatly refused to talk with me. I began turning to various legal assistance organizations, but I ran into the same problems with every lawyer they sent me to. I began to realize that none of the document experts or attys. had ever mentioned anything about the fraudulent trust document’s not being properly notarized, so I contacted a personal injury lawyer with federal contacts and asked about filing a major lawsuit.
The next day, an attempt was made to break into our house. Within the next few days, Diop Kamau emailed threats to illegally invade our home with local police in order to remove “equipment”. I begged the FBI, DPS, and DOJ for protection, but they would not respond. Thankfully, we were left alone in the end, but an investigator Kamau said worked for him emailed me what looked like a death threat and also brazenly sent me back 2 pages of my private fax to the atty. Again, the FBI, DPS, and DOJ all refused to respond. A legal assistance organization advised me to go to the D.A.’s office and get protective orders, but I’d started hearing rumors that the man that had sent me the death threat might work there, so I was afraid to do this.
Not long after this, I received a strange phone call from someone claiming to be an FBI agent from 2 different offices who tried to convince me to sell my property and leave town. I asked the FBI and DOJ to either confirm or investigate this call but they refused. I then prepared a detailed chronology of our case plus a catalogued, tagged, and ordered set of our documents along with a case summary; after I’d finished, I was shocked at the relationship between what had been going on with us and the timing of the various suspicious deaths. I took all this to the D.A.’s office, and a woman there gave me a handwritten receipt and said an investigator would be in touch with me (but they weren’t). I tried to take a matching set of evidence to the FBI in San Antonio, but the agent there refused to accept it and said he couldn’t do anything. Over the next year, I continued to file complaints that were ignored and to search unsuccessfully for proper legal representation.
In Oct. 2008, WOAI’s Brian Collister reported on over $30 million worth of DHS equipment that was missing, some of it sophisticated surveillance devices; I knew some local first responders had been in trouble for missing federal equipment before. I found out that local companies had government contracts to manufacture surveillance and other equipment for the DHS, NASA, and the CIA, and I discovered that my ex-husband had ties to these companies.
I then began hearing that my ex-husband’s family had close ties to Tom Loeffler, David Dewhurst, and other high-level political and law enforcement officials. I did know that the former head of the DPS’s CI Unit was a life-long friend of my former father-in-law and that my former brother-in-law had been a classmate of Alberto Gonzales. I also knew that the Bush family and Karl Rove have ties to this area and that the LBJ ranch is nearby.
On 1/1/09, another person with ties to our neighborhood turned up dead in San Antonio—a day after her parents’ home near the LBJ ranch was broken into. I sent info. to SAPD, but no one ever contacted me. In April 2009, legal notices and signs regarding proposed medical office buildings on both sides of us that similar to the ones my kids had been shown by their dad began appearing, but we still had no atty. I recently received 2009 tax appraisals that are 39% higher than a year before, and I need to file a protest of this by 7/6/09 but have no help with this so far. I have received several communications regarding the pending lawsuit that no one will explain to me plus a copy of a death certificate for the first p.i./fraudulent trustee. Now actual construction work has started on the offices all around us and I am hearing rumors of other local suspicious deaths connected to real estate development. I received several strange letters from the DOJ refusing to prosecute any of this that a San Antonio newspaper reporter asked for copies of but never did anything with. At this point it seems clear these people are not at all afraid of being prosecuted or held accountable, for whatever reason.
I have extensive documentation for all of this and will continue to search for the help we need. Finally, we continue to be followed and harassed by local, state, and federal law enforcement, and we continue to see many signs that we are still under illegal surveillance (people still repeat our private conversations back to us, for ex.). We would be extremely grateful for any suggestions as to what we should do. I don’t know how such things can happen in a supposedly free country; I only know that they have.