Dr. Ellen Lin of San Antonio alleges she was defrauded in an investment deal that she was told involved the operation of surgical hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers. She’s seeking to recover the $500,000 she says she invested.
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A San Antonio doctor alleges in a lawsuit that she was defrauded over an investment tied to the operation of surgical hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers.
Dr. Ellen Lin is suing multiple parties, including Ben Brunton and Eric King — owners of San Antonio’s Prestige Motorsports, which buys, sells and services exotic vehicles — and Jordan Fowler, CEO of Plano-based Legent Health. Legent partners with physicians on surgical hospitals and surgery centers.
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She says in the complaint that the money she invested was “used elsewhere or simply wasted by the Defendants on personal expenses or to aid other entities controlled by them or owned by them.”
The defendants have not yet been served with the lawsuit, filed March 19 in state District Court in San Antonio.
In a text, King said he denies all of Lin’s allegations. “I look forward to my day in court,” he added.
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A representative for Fowler declined to comment. Brunton couldn’t be reached for comment.
Lin, board certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation, says she was solicited by Fowler, Brunton and King and agreed to commit $500,000 in capital in 2021. She entered into a subscription agreement and a limited partnership agreement with Trinity River Partners I LP. King signed for Trinity, she says.
Fowler and Brunton said she would receive a “preferred return of 20% per annum compounded” on her investment, she says.
Years passed without hearing from the defendants, Lin says. So she began to investigate and learned that the defendants had vacated their San Antonio office building at 8435 Wurzbach Road and closed one of the surgical centers.
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She tried to contact the defendants but got no response, she says. She adds that she learned that Brunton had been fired.
In September, she says she received a tax form for Trinity River Partners for 2024. It showed that her $500,000 investment had an “unexplained $301,550.00 loss.”
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Two months later, Fowler informed her she would get back 7% to 15% of her investment, she says.
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But she later received a document that said the partnership was being dissolved and she would receive $8,083.14, or about 1.6% of her investment, she says.
At this point, Lin says, she realized she had been “deceived” and hired attorneys Ernest Valdez and Dinah Gaines to investigate and file the lawsuit to recover the $500,000. Neither attorney responded to a request for comment.
Lin and an affiliated company list their causes of action as fraud, fraudulent inducement, negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract.
The complaint doesn’t mention by name any surgical hospitals or surgery centers earmarked for investment.
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She later learned that investments were made in real estate where such facilities were located in Bexar County but not by the partnership she invested in, she says. The addresses are not provided in the lawsuit.
Companies and partnerships that also are named as defendants are: Trinity River Partners I, Trinity River Partners II LP, Trinity River Partners GP LLC, Trinity River Capital LLC, PSN Group, PSN Holdings and MFH Holdings.
PSN is an acronym for Plano-based Physicians Surgical Network Affiliates, which provides health care and surgical services through Legent. MFH stands for San Antonio-based Medical Facilities Holdings, according to a 2023 news release about a 60,000-square-foot medical office building that opened at 10622 Texas 151 in Westover Hills.
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Trinity Rivers Partners I, which later became II, was an “unregistered entity” that “in effect sold security interests in the operation of surgical centers and in real estate that allegedly has been acquired initially by PSN Group,” Lin says in her suit.
Madison Iszler contributed to this report.