DALLAS — A man previously accused in the murder of prominent Dallas lawyer Ira Tobolowsky in 2016, has filed a lawsuit against a former Dallas police detective and the felony trial bureau chief with the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office.
Tobolowsky was found dead with blunt-force trauma after he and his home in North Dallas were set on fire in May of 2016. The Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Tobolowsky’s death a homicide, and concluded that he died of thermal burns, smoke inhalation, and blunt force trauma.
Prosecutors in January dropped the charges against Steven Aubrey, who was involved in a legal dispute with Tobolowsky at the time of his death and was arrested in Florida in connection with the case in 2022, telling the court they were unable to make their case against Aubrey.
The new lawsuit, first filed in April in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, names former Dallas police detective Brian Fillingim, Glen Fitzmartin, the felony trial bureau chief with the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, and a Broward County judge John Fry, who presided over Aubrey’s extradition hearing.
The lawsuit alleges Dallas law enforcement officials lied to get the indictment against Aubrey.
“DPD detectives convinced Texas state criminal district court judges from whom they requested warrants that Plaintiff was hiding from police detectives and avoiding public view to conceal burns on his body. Not only were none of these statements truthful, DPD also knew them to be untrue. DPD had full knowledge of Plaintiff’s whereabouts and actions via credit card information, phone data, and eyewitnesses in the days immediately following Tobolowsky’s death,” the lawsuit alleges. “Despite the 11 search warrants they gathered, detectives had been unable to come up with facts or evidence to support their contention that Plaintiff was involved in Ira Tobolowsky’s murder because Plaintiff is innocent, which upon information and belief the detectives knew very well.”
WFAA has reached out to lawyers for the officials. We’ll update this story as more information becomes available.
The lawsuit seeks damages and an award for attorney’s fees and costs, court documents show.
