HOUSTON -- A high-powered attorney made a mistake that cost him more than a million dollars: putting his exotic car collection in the hands of an ex-con, the Local 2 Troubleshooters reported Thursday in an exclusive story.

More and more people are getting a look at high-powered attorney John O'Quinn's impressive, one-of-a-kind car collection that includes hot rods, a Bat mobile and a limo from President John F. Kennedy's motorcade.

O'Quinn is a Texas lawyer who went over a decade without losing a case and made billions in the Texas tobacco settlement. He also played a prominent role for his exploits in asbestos, tobacco, silicone implants and fen-phen cases.

O'Quinn unveiled his collection at an "Opera In The Heights" fundraiser in April.

But O'Quinn discovered his classic car collection is much smaller than he thought because of an ex-con he put in charge of the whole collection.

"John has even said to me that he thought of that young man as a son, as his own son," former Houston FBI Chief Don Clark told Local 2.

Clark, who now works for O'Quinn, was put in charge of adding up the seven figures of losses.

"This was a well designed and well thought out scheme," Clark said.

O'Quinn counted on Zev Isgur, 31, to take care of the collection and make it bigger. O'Quinn told him to find impressive cars anywhere in the world, then O'Quinn would approve the purchases and cut checks for any amount that Isgur would ask for.

"The defendant said he had gone to car auctions and in one case bought six cars and in one case he bought nine, and O'Quinn would just cut him a blank check. So he got the checks and he just took the money," Harris County Assistant District Attorney Steve Baldassano told Local 2.

Isgur was paid a healthy salary, and police said O'Quinn bought a $400,000 Meyerland home for Isgur to live in. But when his lifestyle appeared too lavish, O'Quinn got suspicious and he started auditing his entire collection of cars.

O'Quinn came up three-dozen cars short.

Isgur insisted the cars had been left behind in O'Quinn's old warehouse near Highway 59 and Bissonnet.

One investigator with the Houston Police Department told the Troubleshooters the warehouse was empty. Isgur was telling O'Quinn there must have been a break-in and that 36 of the cars were stolen.

"Which, I guess could happen, except they'd have to bring 20 tow trucks to steal the cars," Baldassano told Local 2.

Now, police said it turns out the cars were never in the warehouse. O'Quinn thought he owned three-dozen expensive cars that had never even been purchased.

"He trusted him a great deal and he was absolutely, and still is to the point, devastated," Clark said.

In some cases, records showed Isgur set up companies to funnel the payments into his own pocket.

Clark said his audit showed well over $1.3 million missing.

Some of the cash was recovered from a woman that Isgur described as his girlfriend.

Police said the woman is a local stripper who coughed up $800,000 of the stolen money on the spot. Clark told prosecutors she wasn't in on the rip-off.

Houston police said other strippers were sometimes allowed to drive all over town in the cars that do exist.

Clark would not confirm that with Local 2 but he did say all of the car that Isgur loaned out had been returned.

Isgur was indicted on five felony charges. He pleaded guilty and was placed back behind bars for 25 years. He served time before in 1994 for burglary.

The prosecutor on the case said he see embezzling like this all the time when people with money place so much trust in one person.

"They just turn over the entire operation to their law clerk or book keeper and they never check on them because they don't like doing that stuff," Baldassano said.

O'Quinn's collection is still growing. He's trying to add more cars to draw crowds for local charities and other events. But, as he buys cars in the future, he has put new accounting safeguards in place.

O'Quinn's office said the attorney knew of his curator's troubled past all along. The attorney hired Isgur after reading a newspaper letter the convict's mother wrote asking that someone give her son a chance.