Good Neighbors
Legal Team Assembles to Rectify Financial Elder Abuse
Julian Driscoll – an 82-year-old native Texan, retired Army engineer, and Hill Country resident – had had his land stolen, and he needed help.
Driscoll’s longtime neighbor and supposed friend and caretaker, Doug Cones, took advantage of him while Driscoll was struggling to regain his health to seize Driscoll’s valuable property, estate, and current power of attorney. When Driscoll returned to health and realized what had happened, the kind, trusting, and even-tempered man was understandably as angry as he had ever been.
Julian was such a polite person all of the time, very calm, unexcitable,” recalls Lynn Helton, Driscoll’s cousin and closest living relative. “But when he heard that Doug now owned his property, he pounded his fist and cursed. Well, no one had ever heard Julian curse. That’s when he told Shirley to go get me.”
Shirley Bode was also Driscoll’s neighbor, and she had noticed his absence at his home and searched for Driscoll for a couple of weeks before locating him at a local nursing home in the Spring of 2015. Driscoll had suffered a small stroke and some complications that kept him hospitalized for over a week. He had then been transferred to the nursing home. And the person who had taken Driscoll to the hospital and delivered him to the nursing home? Doug Cones.
The morning after Driscoll arrived at the nursing home, Cones had come to his room with a stack of documents from an attorney, and a notary, and instructed Driscoll to sign the papers. Driscoll’s failing eyesight meant he couldn’t read the documents himself, no one read them to him, and he trusted Cones – a believed friend who had helped Driscoll manage his cattle, run errands, get to doctor’s appointments.
So, Julian signed. Cones filed all the paperwork in the deed records at the county courthouse within just a few hours.
Later, Driscoll would say he didn’t have any memory of signing the papers. And what he signed, he learned afterward, deeded Cones his very valuable 106-acre creek-side property (including the house Driscoll had lived in since 1977), established a will leaving his entire estate to Cones, and gave Cones his durable power of attorney, cursing seemed like a relatively mild and well-earned reaction.
Once Bode told Helton what was happening with her cousin Julian, the strong, empowered women immediately went to visit him, then went to the constable, and even called the Texas Adult Protective Services Abuse Hotline, but with no action or positive results. Meanwhile, Cones continued to visit Driscoll, and Driscoll tried to persuade him to own up to what he had done and undo it.
“Doug just kept saying Julian meant to give him his property, and he meant to keep it,” Helton says. “Julian transferred his power of attorney to me, but no one would do anything to help us otherwise. It was really frustrating.”
Driscoll decided to engage an attorney. Helton tried a few lawyers she knew, but kept running into conflicts of interest, due to other active investigations involving Cones and his own litigious nature. Eventually, a friend of Bode’s recommended Braun & Gresham Attorney & Counselor Patrick L. Reznik.
Reznik and his colleagues Margaret Menicucci and Carly Barton got to work, first revoking Driscoll’s latest will and returning to one he had already had. Then they filed a lawsuit against Cones to void the new deed and will due to elder exploitation, since Driscoll had been temporarily incapacitated at the time he signed the property transfer paperwork.
We once again tried to give Doug the perfect way out of litigation,” explains Reznik. “I asked him in his deposition, ‘Why don’t you just give Julian back his property? If he wants to give you the property, he can choose to do that now. If you really care about him like you say you do, then just give it back.’ But nope, he was dug in. He had the ability and the opportunity to do the right thing, and he chose not to.”
Sadly, Driscoll died in 2017, before the case could get to trial. Cones and his attorney contested the will, but the judge deemed it a frivolous contest, and the pair were ordered to pay sanctions.
Cones’ attorney was eventually found to be in contempt of court for nonpayment and lying to the judge. Helton, as executrix of Driscoll’s estate, went through the probate process, and ultimately decided to continue with the lawsuit against Cones.
I just wasn’t going to let this thing go,” Helton asserts. “Doug Cones literally stole the land and while Julian was at his weakest. A neighbor told me Doug said to him, ‘Well, Julian’s dead, the case is over.’ And I guess I could have said ‘Let’s forget about it,’ but I just wouldn’t do it. I wasn’t about to let him get away with that nonsense.” With Helton and Reznik’s team, they chose to pursue the right thing and see if justice would prevail.
Following multiple and excessive delay tactics by Cones’ legal team, the case finally went to trial in the Fall of 2023. Reznik and his team won a jury verdict, determining that Driscoll did not have the mental capacity to execute the deed documents at the time he signed them. Cones appealed the verdict and lost; he then petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to consider the case and lost again. The verdict was finalized in August of 2025 – almost a full decade since the event initially began.
Our main specialty is standing behind landowners,” says Reznik. “But beyond that, I’ve got 25 years of trial experience, Carly is a litigation ace, and Margaret has deep estate and probate knowledge. Our team came together with all of our skillsets and tenacity to stay with this case. Julian was rightfully sad and disappointed in this neighbor whom he had put a lot of trust into, and we were all passionate about seeing it through and winning.”
“I don’t give my trust all that easily,” Helton notes. “But I have full confidence in Patrick and his team. He’s courteous, personable, and very responsive. He was always gentle and patient with me, and was happy to explain whatever I didn’t understand. The team at Braun & Gresham know the law, they’re good people, and they will go to bat for you. They work real hard to win your case.”