A courtroom blowup and suspicions over $413,000 mean trouble for these attorneys
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Of the 35 attorneys on the Florida Bar’s last two monthly reports of disciplined attorneys, six are from Miami-Dade. The lawyers of Broward get a gold star for two months of good behavior.
Here are the lawyers disciplined by the Florida Supreme Court, in alphabetical order:
Sonia Amador, Miami — Amador has been suspended until further notice since Jan. 25 for not responding to Florida Bar inquiries. The FIU Law School graduate has been found in contempt of court.
John Chiarenza, Miami — While serving time for aggravated assault since 2015, Chiarenza has been appealing his conviction. The referee’s report said a mitigating factor in Chiarenza avoiding disbarment was how he lives after suffering “severe and permanent brain injury and trauma” after a 1994 car crash. Dr. Barry Crown testified that even a minor head injury makes Chiarenza “susceptible to death or permanent incapacitation.”
The referee said, “Based on the testimony of Dr. Crown, it appears more likely than not that [Chiarenza’s] actions were a response to what he perceived as a potentially fatal encounter.” So, the University of Miami School of Law graduate is suspended until Feb. 7, 2022. He’s scheduled to get out of prison May 11, 2020.
Timothy Chuilli, Coral Gables — Chuilli has been disbarred. Cora Richardson hired him to represent her in a matter. As the case proceeded, Chuilli fell behind in continuing legal education credits and Bar dues and was suspended from practice. The referee’s report said Chuilli wouldn’t give Richardson back the exhibits for her case, eventually stopped responding to her and, eventually, never responded to the Bar’s disciplinary proceedings. The University of Miami graduate had been a member of the bar since 1992.
David Goldstein, Miami — According to Goldstein’s request for disciplinary revocation, a longtime client wanted an accounting of how much of his money was in Goldstein’s trust accounts. Goldstein’s client subpoenaed the lawyer, asking for his documents and banking records. Goldstein is 71.
Instead of coming up with all those records and going through what they might reveal, Goldstein went for disciplinary revocation with the right to apply to be re-admitted in five years. The University of Miami School of Law graduate is, in effect, disbarred for those five years but the Bar discipline case goes away.
Alex Michaels, Coral Gables — Michaels’ consent judgment says he’s been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder II and Impulse Control Disorder and began undergoing treatment in November 2017. Since then, there have been no behavior episodes such as the ones that brought Michaels onto the discipline carpet here.
While defending a client in a criminal matter, Michaels fussed and argued with judges and burst forth at prosecutors and witnesses with “vitriolic outbursts, in and out of the court, including profanity-laced tirades, screaming and yelling and name calling.”
Michaels did two days in jail for contempt of court after, the original formal complaint says, getting caught mouthing “f--- you” to a prosecutor during a probation violation hearing. Michaels argued as he’d had complaints about his profanity before, he cursed at her in his native Romanian, but it meant what Miami-Dade County Judge Christina Miranda thought it meant.
During a deposition, the formal complaint said, Michaels grabbed a cellphone that was the subject of a search warrant and refused several requests to hand it over. Michaels shook his fist within inches of a female prosecutor’s face during a human-trafficking trial during which the complaint also says he called the victim a “whore.”
The complaint says Michaels threw a piece of evidence at another prosecutor during a court proceeding. When Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Stephen Millan called for a break so Michaels could calm himself, Michaels spent an ensuing break screaming at the prosecutor until she broke down in tears.
Acknowledging an unaddressed mental abnormality was in play, the referee still advised a six-month suspension, which began Jan. 26; write letters of apology to the four assistant state attorneys caught in Michaels’ eruptions; and keep up with the psychiatric visits and the medication.
David Philips, Miami — The founder and managing partner of DKP Attorneys & Counselors at Law has a Florida Bar disciplinary case open alleging misappropriation of $248,745 in client funds and another one open that alleges the same thing but with $165,000. Philips has gone for disciplinary revocation with the right to seek Bar readmission in five years.
This story was originally published March 11, 2019 at 7:39 AM.
