7 South Florida attorneys reprimanded, suspended or disbarred by the state Supreme Court
Lax legal work, supervision of legal work, lying and flat out taking money for a job not well done or done at all put seven South Florida attorneys on the Florida Bar’s new list of attorneys disciplined by the state Supreme Court.
In alphabetical order:
Miami attorney Ronald Cordon (University of Miami School of Law, admitted to the Florida Bar in 1990) is suspended for a year after he didn’t let his client know his full activities in handling a foreclosure.
According to the referee’s report, Dieudonne Bessard came to Cordon for help as 514 NE 163rd St. went into foreclosure in 2011. Cordon found out lender Kondaur Capital wasn’t interested in a loan modification, but would sell the two-unit home to another person or business.
Bessard couldn’t find a buyer. Cordon found three, two of which didn’t qualify for the necessary loan. Cordon told Bessard to find another attorney to handle the coming sale.
The third buyer Cordon found? He created it — Bond’s Capital Corporation, a company Cordon formed with President Wildonne Dorilas (Cordon’s mother), Treasurer Florence Beaubien (Cordon’s wife) with registered agent being the Cordon Law Office (attorneys Cordon and his sister, Marlie Cordon).
This was not disclosed.
Kondaur foreclosed on the property and Bond’s bought it. Bond’s attorney in 2011 testified that he never dealt with Cordon’s mother on Bond’s Capital matters. And when Bessard was evicted in 2017, the Cordon Law Office handled the eviction for Bond’s Capital.
Boca Raton attorney Ellen Dorfman (Brooklyn Law School, admitted 2010) said she notarized a 2014 agreement signed by Warren Diamond and Scott Diamond, even though she’d only seen Warren Diamond sign it. During a deposition for a 2017 lawsuit, she testified that both Diamonds were in her office and signed the agreement in front of her. She doubled down on that later during questioning before other facts, including the date of her notary commission, broke down the story.
Or, as the referee summed it up, Dorfman “notarized a document without Scott Diamond being present; she backdated the document to make it appear that it was executed years earlier; she provided a sworn document attesting to the accuracy of the initial document; she made several false statements during deposition; after consulting an attorney asserted her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination; and, gave an additional false statement that she knew could not be true.”
Dorfman is disbarred.
Miami attorney Leroy Lee (University of Florida, admitted 1997) got paid $1,600 by a client to write four letters for her and start divorce proceedings for her son. Lee’s guilty plea says he “provided partial services” and shut off communication after she asked about it.
This developed into a pattern.
With another client, Lee accepted a fee, but “never filed a complaint, never pursued the claim, and never informed [the client] of the status of the case.”
A woman hired Lee in December 2017 to collect a $38,000 default judgment, paying $1,200 of $1,800 retainer. His guilty plea said Lee estimated it would take six to eight weeks. After he’d done nothing on the case in eight months — Lee blamed “a virus” to his client, “demand for his services” to the Florida Bar investigator — the client said she wouldn’t be giving Lee the other $600 and wanted her $1,200 back. Lee said he would refund her money. He hasn’t.
Lee “also appeared to try to dissuade his client from taking further action by stating in a text message to her, “Paul encourage [sic] the church not to sue one another but to resolve their differences amongst themselves and be understanding.”’
Three other clients had similar stories. Lee is suspended for six months and has to pay $8,085 in restitution to clients.
Those employing a disbarred attorney as a paralegal should make sure that the paralegal doesn’t begin acting as an attorney again. The state Supreme Court hopes Miramar’s Fernando Socol (St. Thomas University School of Law, admitted in 2000) learned this lesson through a public reprimand for not supervising his paralegal.
Socol also owes Dr. Luis Marcano $156,375 in restitution.
By the time Leonardo Roth got disbarred in 2013 after a $4.3 million embezzlement at his own law firm, he was working as a paralegal at Socol’s firm.
“Dr. Marcano met with Mr. Roth at respondent’s law office and paid respondent’s firm a fee to help him obtain an L-1A visa,” Socol’s guilty plea says. “Dr. Marcano’s meetings and dealings were all with Mr. Roth whom Dr. Marcano believed to be a lawyer. Eventually, Mr. Roth proposed that Dr. Marcano obtain a visa through the labor certification process which required investment in a business. Mr. Roth recommended that Dr. Marcano make a $150,000 loan to a clinic which would sponsor him for this purpose.”
The borrower defaulted on the loan, Marcano halted the visa process and wanted to get his money back.
Socol “maintains that he has no recollection of ever seeing Dr. Marcano’s retainer agreement and that he had no involvement in or knowledge of any loan by Dr. Marcano,” Socol’s guilty plea says. “[Socol] maintains that the loan was arranged by Mr. Roth without his authorization and was the result of the rogue actions of Mr. Roth.”
Also, Socol says he doesn’t know of any work being done on Marcano’s L1-A Visa.
Maybe 77-year-old Fort Lauderdale attorney Stuart Jared Starr (University of Detroit-Mercy School of Law, admitted 1970) doesn’t want to be an attorney anymore. Starr isn’t dead, but he’s ghosted the Florida Bar as far as letting the Bar know he told all clients, opposing counsel and tribunals about his May 2018 suspension. That’s contempt of court.
Those repeated instances have morphed a 90-day suspension for violating rules for excessive fees, improperly charging fees and failing to work “with reasonable diligence and promptness” for a client into Starr’s current three-year suspension.
The discipline history of Miami Lakes attorney Luis Torrens (St. Thomas University School of Law, admitted 2006) shows an upward mobility nobody desires — admonishment in 2011, public reprimand in 2014 and, now, an 18-month suspension that starts April 24.
This latest issue comes from knowingly using wrong dollar amounts in loan documents and lack of supervision of a paralegal.
Torrens prepared mortgage documents stating that the amount of the loan was $250,000, but only $150,000 was dished out by lender XLT Investment (owned and operated by Torrens’ father, according to state records) on that date. Torrens knew this and should’ve revised the loan documents. Also, the HUD-1 statement said Torrens Jr. withheld $32,423 from the loan to pay three years of past due taxes. But, only $25,000 remained after $125,000 was used for the business investment that was the raison d’etre for the mortgage.
“Thus, there was not enough money for [Torrens] to pay the three years of taxes,” Torrens Jr.’s guilty plea states. “The evidence does indicate that [Torrens] purchased a cashier’s check in the amount of $12,766.72 and paid back taxes for 2008. The other two years of arrearages were paid by others.”
A paralegal working for Torrens later prepared a quit claim deed regarding the property that Torrens didn’t see notarized and says he knew nothing about.
Sunday ends the 15-day suspension for Coral Gables attorney Alba Varela (admitted in 1997).
Varela represented investors buying condos out of foreclosure. She hired an independent contractor to prepare a mailing to board members and unit owners through which she hoped to learn of any outstanding association fees owed by the properties.
This mailing counted as an advertisement. It would go to some owners whose properties were in foreclosure, some of whom already had hired attorneys. So, this would be direct communication without permission.
Also, Varela didn’t know the independent contractor “created a fictitious name for [Varela’s] law firm under which to mail the relevant advertisements,” the referee’s report states. “The name, County Court Trustees, was misleading because it created the appearance that the entity sending the communication was a court or government agency, and included a watermark that appeared to be a court or government seal.”
The contractor submitted an affidavit that attested to Varela’s ignorance.
In another issue, Varela didn’t inform a client of a potential conflict of interest.
This story was originally published April 6, 2021 at 7:55 AM.
