Charles L. Duke

I hired my attorney Mr. Charles Duke, of Duke and Momberger Attorneys at Law, (9225 Katy Fwy, Houston - TX 77024-1509 ) in April 2009. I was asked to pay a $2,500 retainer fee, for a malicious lawsuit my ex husband filed against me in February 2009. I was never made to sign a legal contract, or given... a receipt for the $2,500 retainer fee, or was ever given a single invoice for the work done, despite asking Mr. Duke countless of times. I also filed for a legal ‘discovery’ on my ex husband during the upper mentioned lawsuit, and my ex did the same to me after. My ex husband's discovery was never produced by the due date or otherwise. Against my wishes, my own attorney proceeded to pass on my own discovery (which I produced in the due time allocated to me) to the opposite council, before receiving theirs. Mr. Duke DID NOT file a sanction to obtain discovery from the opposite council, despite the fact that the opposite council continually refused to produce their paperwork. Eventually my ex husband dismissed the lawsuit but, in my opinion, my attorney acted unethically and very unprofessionally. By September 2009, Mr. Duke convinced me to part with another $3,000 to conduct an investigation into my ex husband’s USA Checking Account, for suspected fraud. Mr. Duke gave me details on how he had ways, to look into people’s US bank accounts by accessing said accounts from another country. He proceeded to mentioned Canada and the Caribbean. Mr. Duke told me he had an investigator capable of retrieving my ex husband’s bank statements from said sources. According to Mr. Duke, if proof of fraud was to be found, we would then proceed to legally file for fraud. This extra expenditure of $3,000, could have been avoided if financial ‘discovery’ from my ex husband’s attorney, was to be sanctioned during the upper mentioned lawsuit of April 2009. Again, I only found out about this a couple of weeks ago after lodging yet another complaint with my attorney during a visit to his office. Mr. Duke never gave me a receipt or any invoices showing me how my $3,000 was spent for the work he was supposedly conducting on this financial investigation. Despite countless calls, emails, and faxes asking for some evidence, I have yet to receive anything to date. I later found out that delving into people’s Bank Accounts is a Federal Offence in the United States. My Attorney never mentioned this to me. Six months later, I have not a shred of evidence on what my money has been spent on. Despite several attempts by phone, email, faxes and letters, to date I have no receipts, no invoices, and Mr. Duke is very evasive when asked above the ‘financial investigation’ he is supposedly conducting, and does not respond to any of my correspondence regarding this matter. I now realize I acted very naively but at the time, I was not aware of rules and laws in Texas. I trusted Mr. Duke and his 37 years of expertise as an attorney. Only after several investigations conducted by me, and by contacting other attorneys and private investigators, did I realize I had been defrauded of my money by my own attorney.