The University of Austin,a private college based in downtown Austin, is at the center of a federal fraud lawsuit against John Robison, who has ties to Texas and national GOP politics.
Ricardo B. Brazziell/American-Statesman
The University of Austin, the self-described conservative alternative to “woke” liberal education, is the backdrop of a federal fraud trial starting today.
The Justice Department says that John Robison, a conservative operative and filmmaker, bilked an investor out of $1 million he said would be used to purchase land in Bastrop County for a future University of Austin campus and community.
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It isn’t clear whether the university had a role in the deal.
Robison has said he relocated from California to Texas at the behest of former Gov. Rick Perry, who wanted to bring Hollywood to Central Texas. Now, he’s described in the lawsuit as a real estate fraudster who, according to congressional investigators, also had a role in President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden using fake electors.
Though he has said he’s a millionaire, Robison now claims poverty, asking for a court-appointed attorney to represent him in the federal case. He pleaded not guilty after his arrest in November.
John Robison, a Travis County-based conservative operative and filmmaker, arrives to the U.S. District Courthouse in Austin, Monday, July 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Federal prosecutors say an entity named FG Trust invested $1 million in Four Gates Property LP in 2022, in which Robison was the senior managing partner and held a 75% ownership stake. Walter Berkeley Fondren, a 29 year old with ties to the philanthropic Houston oil and gas family, was managing partner and held the remaining 25%.
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Robison told FG Trust that he was an experienced real estate investor and, according to records in an earlier state court trial he lost, already had property under contract. In that trial, FG Trust said that wasn’t true.
Four Gates was supposed to keep the cash locked up in escrow until it raised $2 million, enough to move forward. When it didn’t, the investment was canceled and Robison was to return the $1 million. He didn’t. FG Trust sued and won in state District Court, with a default judgment for $3 million in October 2023.
“Defendants did not hold the trust’s investment in escrow. To the contrary, upon information and belief, Robison — with the help of Fondren, who knowingly participated in Robison’s scheme — absconded with nearly all of the money,” according to the civil lawsuit filed by James Blake Brickman, an FG Trust trustee.
A wider web
Brickman is perhaps best known as one of the former state attorneys who blew the whistle on Attorney General Ken Paxton, alleging corruption and bribery. He is vice president of government affairs at Saronic Technologies Inc., the Austin drone boat builder that last week announced plans to invest billions of dollars in a Texas shipyard.
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Brickman also has ties to Joe Lonsdale, the tech entrepreneur who helped found the software company Palantir and is co-founder of the University of Austin.
Former Deputy Attorney General Blake Brickman, one of the plaintiffs in a whistleblower lawsuit against Attorney General Ken Paxton, awaits closing arguments at Paxton’s impeachment trial at the Capitol in 2023.
Jay Janner/American-Statesman
Brickman and Lonsdale are both listed as witnesses for the government in the federal trial. So is Fondren, who flipped on his former business partner and settled with FG Trust in the state civil suit.
Robison, however, stopped showing up for the state case and was hit with the default judgment.
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Lonsdale’s role in the federal case is not clear. He may be scheduled to testify about the relationship of Four Gates Property to the University of Austin. He may also be tied to FG Trust. Little information could be found about the private trust or Robison’s connection to Lonsdale and the trust.
The court filing names only James Blake Brickman as special trustee and does not identify Lonsdale as the trust’s settlor or beneficiary. Brickman’s attorney, Josh Romero, a Jackson Walker partner with extensive fraud litigation experience, is also listed as a government witness.
The federal case, however, is targeting Robison.
He was raised in Houston and attended Texas A&M before relocating to California. He has said previously that he made millions in technology companies in Los Angeles.
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But his business career has been tumultuous, including at least two separate bankruptcies. He was pushed into involuntary liquidation of his assets in a bankruptcy proceeding in 2003, according to court records, and filed for Chapter 7 again in 2009.
He was also working in media, founding numerous companies.
John Robison, chairman and CEO of New Republic Studios, seen in 2018 outside the studio in Bastrop County.
Austin American-Statesman
Return to Texas, GovWhiz, Bastrop
In 2013, Robison relocated to Texas and made a documentary about Texas A&M University’s decision to join the SEC athletic conference.
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He says he returned to the state at then-Gov. Perry’s invitation. Texas had enacted an incentive program to build up its film industry and was looking to ramp up productions. Robison has said it was a succinct pitch revolving around emerging technology and media markets in Austin.
“The difference between being California and Texas is I couldn’t get anyone in government to even treat any of my, whether it’s entertainment, business or technology [companies], as if we mattered … And Texas is completely different,” he said on a 2018 podcast.
But it was doors that Perry opened to a technology company called GovWhiz in 2016 that first put Robison under public scrutiny.
As the Austin American-Statesman reported at the time, Perry introduced executives from GovWhiz to various state government officials with the hopes of striking deals for undeveloped web-based products or apps. What the company actually did was a mystery, though, and the company dodged questions.
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Robison was chairman of the company’s board, and had longstanding ties with CEO Morgan Warstler.
It was not the only time Robison has been connected to controversy. He has been sued and investigated by the FBI before, according to filings by his attorneys.
He was investigated by the FBI in Dallas in 2013, but no charges were filed, the filings said. There is also a reference to another uncharged complaint against Robison’s company Arena Edge — which federal officials called a “parallel complaint” by Robert Steffens, another University of Austin booster and tech CEO — but no details were included.
New Republic Studios, the Bastrop studio John Robison purchased in 2017 and renamed the next year.
New Republic Studios
In 2017, Robison purchased a 200-acre film studio in Bastrop, naming it New Republic Studios, saying he was ready to sink millions of his own money into the production house. The company produced at least one feature-length film in 2019 but now appears to be closed.
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Access to Oval Office
Robison’s connections with Perry, who was Trump’s first-term secretary of energy, may have gotten him access to the Oval Office. That’s where, on Nov. 10, 2020, Robison and GovWhiz CEO Warstler made a pitch to the president who had just lost his bid for re-election. Their idea was to use alternative electors appointed by state legislatures controlled by the GOP to overturn his defeat by Biden.
“Bat. Shit. Crazy.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino said of the plan, according to the congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Trump, though, seemed very interested in the idea, according to the report.
Whatever its impact, it was clear that by 2020, the Aggie alum was running in powerful GOP circles in Texas and nationally.
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Fire Show Podcast in May 2018 featuring John Robison, left.
Screengrab
Robison now faces one federal count of wire fraud and three counts of engaging in monetary transactions in criminally derived property. All the charges are tied to the $1 million investment transaction from FG Trust into Four Gates Property LP’s account and transactions out of that account.
Beyond Lonsdale, Brickman and Fondren, a witness list filed Friday evening lists seven other people including two FBI agents, one of whom is a forensic accountant.
The accountant is likely to walk the jury through the fate of the $1 million investment from its Feb. 2022 deposit. While the money was supposed to be held in escrow, three transactions totaling $115,000 are included in the federal indictment flowing into other accounts apparently controlled by Robison.
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Brickman said in the state civil case that Robison and Four Gates had made off with nearly all of the money.
Fondren, alleged as a co-conspirator in state court, is likely to testify to the validity of representations made to FG Trust investors and others about what land contracts existed and if the duo ever intended to use the money for land.
If convicted on all counts, Robison could face 50 years in federal prison.
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