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Criminal Justice
District attorney drops charges against litigant charged with murder of prominent Dallas lawyer
A Texas district attorney has dropped charges against a litigant who was set to go on trial this month for the murder of a prominent Dallas lawyer. (Image from Shutterstock)
A Texas district attorney has dropped charges against a litigant who was set to go on trial this month for the murder of a prominent Dallas lawyer.
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot sought dismissal of the case against Steven Aubrey, 63, on Jan. 12 to allow “for further investigation,” according to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth.
The investigation is ongoing, a Dallas police spokesman confirmed to the broadcast station.
Aubrey was arrested in 2022 and charged with the May 2016 murder of Dallas lawyer Ira Tobolowsky, who was found dead in a suspicious garage fire. The medical examiner determined that Tobolowsky died from blunt-force injuries, smoke inhalation and burns.
Aubrey was an opposing litigant in two lawsuits involving Tobolowsky. In the first, Tobolowsky represented Aubrey’s mother in a suit filed by Aubrey in a trust dispute. In the second, Tobolowsky filed a defamation suit alleging that Aubrey had tried to get him to quit the prior case through “intentional lies, fraud, defamatory statements and dirty tricks.”
Tobolowsky’s family was awarded $5.5 million in the defamation case in 2017. Aubrey has denied involvement in the murder, according to the Dallas Morning News. He did not participate in the defamation suit.
The Dallas Morning News reports that Tobolowsky “was a well-liked attorney who came from a prestigious Dallas family that has been active in the Jewish community and the legal profession.” Tobolowsky’s cousin is a state district judge. He is also related to actor and director Stephen Tobolowsky and to Peggy Tobolowsky, a professor at the University of North Texas.
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