A $580,000 fraud and document shenanigans: 7 South Florida attorneys get disciplined
Rare is the month that the Florida Bar’s monthly report of attorneys disciplined by the state Supreme Court doesn’t have one disbarment, felony arrest or conviction from Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach or Monroe counties.
February’s report, which came out Thursday, is that month.
But among the seven attorneys suspended or reprimanded, there’s an emergency suspension involving a hundreds of thousands of questionably handled dollars and an issue involving furniture treated like a toilet.
In alphabetical order:
▪ Fort Lauderdale’s William Amlong (admitted to the Florida Bar in 1985 after 18 years as a Miami Herald reporter) and Jennifer Daley (admitted in 1990), a former associate with The Amlong Firm, each will start a 91-day suspension on Saturday.
For the most part, the referee’s report calls out Daley for her actions in handling Fair Labor Standards Act and discrimination lawsuits for a client in 2012 and 2013 and Amlong for his inaction as the lead attorney and her supervisor.
At issue were the return of company documents by The Amlong Firm’s client, an employee fired by EDCare.
First, Daley didn’t make sure the employee complied with the return of all company documents., according to the Bar report. Later, Daley instructed her client to return the “original documents,” a phrase the referee thought was “deliberately designed to conceal” that The Amlong Firm and the client had piles of EDCare documents.
And when Daley’s assistant told EDCare attorney Lori Patterson that the client had returned the company laptop and “original documents,” the referee found another piece of deception. The referee thought it implied that all documents should have been returned, “a misrepresentation that Amlong made no attempt to correct.”
The referee found that Daley “made false statements to Patterson, failed to disclose material facts, and obstructed Patterson’s access to evidence.” The referee also said, “Amlong did not take any further action to ensure the misstatements regarding the EDCare documents were addressed. The referee finds that Amlong was negligent in failing to cure the discovery and return of confidential information issues raised in the motion for sanctions filed by EDCare attorney Lori Patterson and reviewed by Amlong on Aug. 8, 2013.”
The Amlong Firm paid $422,433 in sanctions related to the EDCare cases.
▪ West Palm Beach attorney Brandon Barker didn’t show up for a Feb. 28, 2020, trial in Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Scott Suskauer’s court, nor did he inform the court that he’d be a no-show or late. A complaint from Suskauer to the Palm Beach County Bar Association’s Professionalism Panel said Barker claimed he got occupied with a bond hearing in the main courthouse.
The panel met to discuss this on July 23. Barker didn’t show up there, either. A Bar complaint was filed. An Aug. 17 letter was sent to Barker requesting his response by Sept. 1. When it didn’t come by Sept. 22, the Bar claims, its attorney called Barker. He said he got the letter and a response would be coming. None has come.
So, beginning March 13, Barker is suspended until he answers.
▪ Boca Raton attorney Andrew Hodes (admitted in 2011) made a mistake, tried to correct it and wound up being accused by a court of “fraud, misrepresentation, forgeries and/or material alterations regarding the subject property and title to same.”
Lenard Johnson is Bobby Johnson’s father. Anita Rufus is the mother of Cory Rufus and Bobby Johnson’s sister. Anita Rufus died in 2007 and Hodes was hired in 2014 by Lenard Johnson to handle her estate administration.
That would seem simple enough, as the entirety of her estate was a Lauderhill house that passed to Cory Rufus. Cory Rufus was moving the house along to Bobby Johnson. But Hodes wrote “Lenard Johnson” instead of “Bobby Johnson” as the grantee (the person getting the property) on the quit claim deed dated in November 2014. Cory Rufus signed it.
Hodes’ guilty plea says when he saw his mistake, he “changed, without authorization, the pre-typed month on the deed from November to December and the first name of the grantee on the deed from “Lenard” to “Bobby” in an effort to correct his previous mistake.”
Bobby Johnson wound up suing Lenard Johnson and now owns the property. After that suit, the 17th Judicial Circuit Court made the above statements about Hodes and Lenard Johnson.
The referee noted that Hodes didn’t benefit from what he did, had a clean record, lacked experience at the time, showed remorse and cooperated with the disciplinary process with full disclosure.
Still, the referee, the Bar, Hodes and the state Supreme Court agreed on Hodes’ 60-day suspension that began Feb. 20. He also has to attend Bar Ethics School.
▪ Apparently, the Florida Bar has requested documents from Key Largo attorney Diane McGuire (admitted in 1990) and she hasn’t turned them over in full.
“The Court takes very seriously every attorney’s obligation to completely and timely respond to inquiries made by The Florida Bar. Therefore,because this Respondent did not respond to the inquiries, Diane Marie McGuire is hereby held in contempt and is hereby publicly reprimanded.”
▪ The Bar petitioned for emergency suspension for Miami’s Enrique Miranda (admitted in 1984) for what appeared to be a couple of pieces of funny money handling while acting as an escrow agent in two transactions.
As alleged by the bar, in the first, Miranda received $200,000 from Xeon Holding Limited for C.L. Campos Assesoria Empresaria. Miranda was to give Campos $100,000 for pre-transaction expenses, $95,000 once the job was done and keep $5,000 as his fee.
Within 15 days, almost all the money was gone from Miranda’s trust account.
The Bar says Miranda didn’t give Campos the $100,000, but did give $186,000 “to various persons and entities who appear to be unrelated to the transaction governed by the agreement.”
When the job wasn’t done and Xeon asked for its $95,000 back, Miranda said he was sick and would give it back when he got better. Then, he stopped answering Xeon’s attorney.
The Bar says Miranda lied to them, saying he had $98,615.00 in the trust account when Xeon asked for its money back. An auditor’s look at the account says on the day Miranda should’ve returned the $95K, the account balance was $13,465 and that was the high point of the six months during which Xeon was trying to get its money.
Miranda gave Xeon its money from “funds recently deposited into his account from a law firm that appears to be unrelated to the transaction and/or escrow agreement,” the Bar said.
The Bar says while it was looking into this, Miranda’s trust account received a deposit of $581,008. Then, he got a contract from an Aldo Algandona, someone Miranda knew, saying this money was for him as part of a Panamanian renewable energy deal.
Miranda didn’t bother to check on this, the Bar alleges, but just moved the $581,008 along to Algandona. Problem is, the Bar says, the money was loot from a wire fraud game.
“The couple remitting the funds believed they were making a deposit on the purchase of a home in North Carolina,” the Bar said. “The fraudster in this case hacked into the email account of the law firm/closing agent and changed the wiring instructions from the correct account to respondent’s trust account.”
The bank got back most of the money, but the couple remains out $5,934. And, as of Feb. 11, Miranda has been officially out of the attorney business until further notice.
▪ The late Inge Fruth made Boca Raton attorney Francisca Wider (admitted in 1998) the personal representative of her estate and Grace Barona, a neighbor in their Hollywood condominum community, the sole beneficiary in her will in 2014.
By 2016, Wider said in testimony that the referee found credible, Fruth felt she had no friends and wanted no one but Wider to enter her apartment after she died. After Fruth died in June 2016, Wider told Barona she was “mentioned” in the will, but not the sole beneficiary. She said she did so because she didn’t have the original 2014 will. Wider went about the business of handling Fruth’s funeral arrangements and making sure the home expenses for the condo were paid.
When Wider finally got into the apartment on July 20, 2016, she said she found “shredded paper everywhere, boarded-up windows, empty pill bottles, liquids on the carpet and floor, potatoes sprouting in the bathroom tub, and sink and furniture that was torn and stained with urine, feces and vomit.”
Neither Faith Farm nor Goodwill wanted the furniture, so Wider tossed it. She cleaned, scrubbed and fumigated the place by her own hand to honor her client’s wishes. And on Aug. 2, she found the 2014 will.
Wider met with Barona, informed her she was the sole beneficiary in Fruth’s will, and had her sign a joinder, waiver and consent that would speed up the probate process. Soon after, Barona decided to object to Wider being the personal representative. She also expressed displeasure Wider had tossed furniture out of the condo without informing her of her sole beneficiary status.
A settlement stipulation gave Barona the apartment and investment accounts worth $103,000 while Wider got $8,500 for her time and money spent out of her own pocket for the condo and expenses. Then, Barona filed a Bar complaint against Wider.
Wider erroneously believed the settlement stipulation precluded the right to file a Bar complaint. In a letter to the Bar, she accused Barona of acting in bad faith and “depending on the outcome of this matter, I will consider what, if any, action to take regarding this willful breach of contract.”
The referee had a problem with that and other similar statements — “conduct that cannot be tolerated and is prejudicial to the administration of justice” — as well as not telling Barona she was the sole beneficiary when she had the chance, especially before tossing anything in the apartment.
Wider gets a public reprimand, has to do time in Florida Bar Ethics School and pay the Bar’s costs of the case: $11,841.
