Authorities on Monday raided the law office of former Harris County Republican Party chairman Jared Woodfill.

Investigators with the Harris County District Attorney’s office wheeled carts of documents from Woodfill’s office at 3 Riverway at least an hour after they arrived.

Woodfill was the chairman of the county GOP for 12 years until 2014. He frequently practiced in juvenile and divorce courts in Harris County.

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He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Woodfill is the subject of two separate formal complaints — one to the State Bar of Texas and the other to the Houston Police Department. In both complaints, Woodfill is accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients’ trust accounts.

In the criminal complaint, filed in March 2017, Richard Rodriguez accused Woodfill’s firm of stealing more than $300,000 from a divorce trust account. Rodriguez said Monday he believed the search was related to his complaint.

A Monday hearing in Rodriguez’s case was suspended shortly before the search at Woodfill’s office, according to court records and an interview.

In a separate case also involving a divorce, a federal bankruptcy court judge found in 2016 that Woodfill’s firm acted in “extreme bad faith” by misrepresenting how much its attorneys were owed while in Harris County family court and in a subsequent bankruptcy case.

Woodfill’s firm had “taken funds from the (trust) account that have not yet been earned and, thus, several thousands of dollars have been unaccounted for,” U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Jeff Bohm wrote in a February 2016 finding of fact document, federal court records show.

“Indeed,” Bohm continued, “based on the information provided at trial, there is at least $140,449.36 in unaccounted funds and/or overpayments to (Woodfill’s firm).”

Woodfill’s firm disputed and planned to appeal Bohm’s finding, court records show.

In November, the State Bar of Texas publicly reprimanded Woodfill in a complaint that the Chronicle found is related to the bankruptcy matter.

“Woodfill had direct supervisory authority over members of his firm who violated the disciplinary rules during the representation in a divorce,” the State Bar of Texas wrote, “and Woodfill failed to take reasonable action. …He was ordered to pay $3,490 in attorneys’ fees and direct expenses.”

rob.downen@chron.com

lise.olsen@chron.com