Don Hecker, attorney at law in Harris County and Fort Bend County
Mr. Hecker was the hired attorney for a family member experiencing legal problems, which had the potential to put the individual in prison for the rest of his life.in the case, no witnesses were willing to testify, and no evidence was presented except for a deposition.
The family member had hired another attorney to represent him in Fort Bend County, however the attorney was unreliable. Mr. Hecker approached the family member after noticing the attorney had not showed up for a court date and told him that he, Mr. Hecker, would be at all court hearings and a better representative in court proceedings.
The family member, fed up with his previous lawyer, decided to hire Don Hecker to represent his case. Mr. Hecker either showed up to scheduled hearings or sent an assistant to postpone them. At the time, I was unable to be involved in the case because I was not living in the area.
The family member had cases in Ft. Bend and Harris Counties. Mr. Hecker repeatedly postponed trial dates, did not come to visit the family member, and was often unreachable for days or weeks on end.in the end the trial was postponed for over a year, and Mr. Hecker presented my family member with a "deal" and said something to the affect of "this is the best you're going to be able to do".
The deal was attrocious, 10 years deferred adjudication, fines in both counties, and some almost impossible rules to abide by. For those that don't know deferred adjudication means the defendant accepts guilt and agrees to abide by the states rules for a predetermined period of time. If at any time during this period, the defendant so much as gets a speeding ticket let alone breaks any of the rules of the agreement, the state reserves the right to sentence the individual to the full amount of time punishable for the offense.
On the most important day of my family members life (the day he signed the deal), Mr. Hecker did not show up to clarify the deal and answer questions, and instead sent an assistant to have the work done. I'm not confident that the family member ever really fully understood the full implications of the deal. He thought he was receiving probation rather than deferred adjudication.
5 years into the deferred adjudication, the defendant broke a rule of his deferred adjudication. No crime was comitted, and no one was in danger. This time I stepped in to help the family member with their legal problems.
For the first time, I contacted Mr. Hecker and left a voice mail stating the facts of the situation. I received a call back within an hour. Mr. Hecker explained what was going on and what the next step was, to get him $1500 immediately so he could begin working on the case (he had been the legal counsel for the family member for 5 years already). During the phone call I had to repeat the message which I had left him 2-3 times, before he realized exactly what was going on.
I paid the money via credit card the next day and a hearing was set for a week later. The hearing was cancelled by the judge and rescheduled for 2 weeks later. Repeated calls and voice mails to Mr. Hecker's phone were never acknowledged or returned.
On the day of the hearing, I tried calling Mr. Hecker again to find out the status, no answer and no returned phone call. Frustrated I called the office in the early afternoon, and was informed that Mr. Hecker could not make it to the hearing but had sent someone to reschedule, by the receptionist. I asked her to relay the message that I urgently needed to speak with him. I never received a call.
When I called the office again the next day, the receptionist told me a different reason that he had missed the hearing. She said he had been in trial and that he had rescheduled the meeting. I called Don Hecker every day after this missed hearing and left a polite message, I never received a call.
5 days after the hearing I was fed up and I had another family member leave a stern message stating that it was unfair to leave us in the dark. Thankfully he called back and went into a spiel about what had happened and what was going to happen next (the next court date was 2 weeks away). This was the first time I had talked to Mr. Hecker in 5 weeks that the family member had been in jail, after our first contact. Obviously, he did not listen to my original explanation of the situation as he still did not have the facts straight. He agreed to contact us if anything changed.
Mr. Hecker is at the Harris County courthouse regularly and the family member was located a 5 minute walk away from the courthouse at the Harris County Jail. Attorney's have the right to visit clients 24/7/365, however after 5 weeks, Mr. Hecker had never been to visit his client.
On the eve of the next court date, I had not heard anything from Mr. Hecker, so I assumed everything was ok. Originally a motion to adjudicate was submitted in Harris County, which means the state wanted to put the defendant away forever. Thankfully I did some research online and came across the family member's profile in the Harris County Sherrif's website, there were 2 additional charges which had been added 4 days before, in Fort Bend County.
My eyes popped out of my head. I found this information at midnight, and decided immediately to appear at the hearing at 8 A.M. The next morning in Houston, a 3 hour drive from my house. Naturally I could not sleep, so i left my home at 5 A.M. On the day of the court date and travelled to Houston. To my surprise, Don Hecker actually showed up.
When he went in front of the judge, he told him the wrong facts of the case. He also said, "Your honor the defendant has been in here for 60 days already". The judge stopped him immediately and said, "How many days?" Hecker said "60". The judge replied sternly "47, sir, he has been in here for 47 days." At which point Hecker had no leg to stand on, the judge continued, "I'm not statisfied with the information you are presenting me here today. You need to go back and sit down with your client again, find out more information and present it to me at the next hearing."
The next hearing was 1 month away. After 47 days in jail Mr. Hecker never visited the defendant (even though he was 5 minutes away several days a week), still did not know the facts of the case, lied to the judge, and was completely unprepared.
After the hearing, Hecker approached me. The first thing he said was, "Fort Bend County has filed a motion as well". I said, "I know I saw that last night that's why I came here, to find out what is going on, and what we need to do." He responded, "Here's what you need to do, you need to get me another $1500 so I can get to work on the Ft. Bend County case." He actually said I need to get him money so he can get started, exact words.
After I left the courthouse, I was at least relieved that I had talked to the attorney, and I assumed he had met the defendant before this hearing, I visited the defendant directly after the hearing, as he was a 5 minute walk away, and found out that he had not seen his attorney since he went in.
I started putting two and two together and did some online research about the guy when I finally came across consumer complaints.in the report that had been filed, I felt like I was reading the details of my situation, it was absolutely the exact same story as what I was going through.
I immediately began searching for another lawyer, and had hired one by the end of the week. The new lawyer said he would take care of informing Hecker he was no longer the attorney. He did, however, to my absolute surprise and awe Hecker appeared at the next hearing and acted as if he were the attorney. He came to me again and repeated the line "You need to get me $1500 so I can get started on Ft. Bend". I was baffled and said, "I don't know what to say, but, your no longer the attorney on this case."
The guy is so disorganized and absent minded, he did not even remember that he was no longer the attorney on the case!
During the time I was interviewing other attorneys, each attorney who was familiar with Hecker had the same thing to say, "Oh no! That's why your family member got this deal, I don't know anyone who would accept a deal like that, it's practically impossible to adhere to."
Save your money, save your headaches, save yourself from fretting and worrying and do some research before you hire this attorney. A good place to start is com
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