Even as the implications of the Wyoming fight between Tex and Mike were emerging, the IRS, on September 1, 1994, raided the three-story Moncrief Building where Tex and his sons conducted business.
"Raids like this should simply not happen to America's citizens," the Star-Telegram declared in an editorial. Tex's youngest son, Tom Oil Moncrief, was in the office when the agents came. "They told me I could wait downstairs in the lunchroom," he told the local daily, "and they said when I left, I couldn't come back. They really treated us like criminals."
Eight days after the IRS raid, attorneys Richardson and Hilsher dispatched a letter to Tex Moncrief's lawyers demanding a detailed accounting of the grandfather's estate, for which Tex and his sons served as executors. That letter launched a series of meetings and correspondence among the troops of lawyers representing the Moncrief family members. "From September to March, we tried to get in to look at the books," says Goodwin.
Making little progress, Mike Moncrief and his brother, on March 7, 1995, filed suit in Fort Worth state court. Their wide-ranging claims allege fraud and embezzlement in Tex's handling of the family assets. They even alleged that Tex had "unduly influenced" his 91-year-old mother to change her will in favor of Tex's family. But the central issue of the litigation was the dispute over whether Tex truly owned 50 percent of the late patriarch's assets.
On March 24, 1994, Tex filed his counterclaim, alleging that his nephews' suit was "designed to purposefully cause extreme emotional distress.
"These actions have caused extreme and significant harm to this 75-year-old, highly regarded man," the counterclaim added.
The two sides were to have stood face-to-face in court on March 30; Tex showed up, but Mike, citing legislative business, let his lawyers represent him.
State District Judge Bob McGrath settled one matter quickly: the senator's side of the family would get to see more of the documents that Tex had been reluctant to cough up. But he also ordered the senator's attorneys to revise or withdraw their inflammatory allegations of Tex unduly influencing his mother to change her will.
The judge ordered a 90-day cooling-off period to allow the warring Moncriefs to review the records and try to settle the differences.
Tex's lawyers tried unsuccessfully to unseal the federal search warrant that justified the IRS raid on their offices. In court papers, they blamed the raid on allegations by a "disgruntled" and "revenge-seeking" former employee.
The cooling-off period is to conclude at the end of this month, but Mike Moncrief's lawyers may well seek an extension to finish reviewing the voluminous records in Tex's offices.
Mike Moncrief doesn't expect a quick resolution. He says he cannot imagine trusting his uncle or cousins again; he says he no longer even speaks with them. Moncrief says he would be willing to share ownership of oil properties with his relatives, but he will rely on third-party management companies to account for their respective interests.
The senator also says that he has learned a lot about trusting others in private business. He admits to a mistake or two. He recalls one occasion on which he invested in a bad real estate deal with "the wrong kind of people" and sought his grandfather's help. "You got yourself into this," Mike remembers his grandfather telling him. "You get yourself out of this."
Now, through litigation, Mike Moncrief is trying to do just that. Only this time he is alleging that the wrong kind of people with whom he is involved are his own kin.
