A group of private lawyers has run up six-figure incomes by repeatedly billing Dade County taxpayers for hours they did not work. Many times, the attorneys billed for more than 24 hours of legal work in a single day.

In the past three years, the five most favored lawyers were able to charge taxpayers more than $2.3 million by accepting appointments from friendly judges to represent poor criminal defendants.

Begun with the best intentions to protect the rights of the indigent, the court-appointment system has become a public piggy bank for well-connected lawyers. None of their bills was ever audited.

The Herald reviewed a sampling of their bills -- more than 1,000 -- and found that:

Eighteen times, Randy Maultasch charged more than 24 hours in a single day. On March 28, 1988, he billed 17 hours for a routine six-minute hearing.

Eleven times, Arthur Carter Jr. charged more than 24 hours in a day, including billing more than 30 hours a day on three different Saturdays. He also billed 164 hours in a single week -- only four hours fewer than there are in a week.

Theodore Mastos charged 30 1/2 hours on a single day, including 10 1/2 hours for preparing the same three legal documents over and over again.

"Billing more than 24 hours in a day? That is fraud, pure and simple, " said John Marquess, chairman of Legalgard Inc., a private investigative firm in Philadelphia that scrutinizes attorneys' bills.

Dade Chief Judge Leonard Rivkind and State Attorney Janet Reno reacted with outrage and dismay after they learned of The Herald's findings.

"That shouldn't have gotten by us. That is our mistake, " Rivkind said. "If a lawyer is billing that kind of hours in a day, that is a mistake on our part. If you let me know where that's occurring, we will attempt to recover that money."

"It's outrageous, " Reno said.

INFLATED TIME
Lawyers' bills were rarely scrutinized

For the lawyers, it was easy. The judges signed the bills and rarely scrutinized them. The county paid the bills and rarely challenged them.

The Miami Herald reviewed legal bills submitted by the lawyers who made the most money from court appointments between 1988 and 1991.

Hundreds of abuses were uncovered:

* The five Dade County lawyers who earned the most money from court appointments all billed more than 24 hours in a day. They did it at least 55 times.

* Dozens of lawyers billed hundreds of thousands of dollars for "preparing" routine legal documents. In fact, they merely copied the same "boilerplate" papers and signed them over and over again.

* Eight lawyers regularly inflated the time they spent in court by claiming numerous hours they spent waiting for their cases to be heard or charging for the same hours in multiple cases. Routine five- and 10-minute plea hearings and status conferences turned into charges of seven, 15 and even 17 hours on lawyers' bills.

* Four lawyers negotiated plea bargains in petty criminal cases and then turned in bills that far exceeded those for most murder defendants.

* Three lawyers were paid for jail visits there is no record of them ever making, one for depositions she never took and one for a hearing he never attended.

* One lawyer even billed the county for the time it took him to prepare each bill.

TRACKING ABUSES
Officials suspected some bill-padding

Finding the abuses is difficult. Since each case generates a separate bill, the hours a court-appointed lawyer works are scattered in dozens of different files.

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