Stealing money, ignoring clients and other misdeeds by Miami and Miami Beach attorneys
Four Miami-Dade lawyers have been disciplined by the Florida Supreme Court, according to the most recent monthly Florida Bar report of attorneys.
In alphabetical order:
Betty Blanco of Miami
Six disciplinary matters hung over Blanco (admitted to the Bar in 1994). Blanco brought them all to the end by applying for disciplinary revocation. That means she’s essentially disbarred for at least five years. The discipline cases go away. Any criminal or civil matters connected to the discipline cases remain.
One client, who had legal insurance that would pay for 15 hours of work, paid Blanco a $7,500 retainer and $1,000 cost deposit, Blanco’s disciplinary revocation application said. But in the two months of representation, Blanco didn’t file a pleading for the woman. The woman fired Blanco and asked for a refund after she “took exception to” Blanco’s draft of a domestic violence restraining order.
The Bar said Blanco didn’t return “any portion of the unearned fees nor the cost deposit, despite the fact that there is no evidence that any costs were incurred.”
Another client paid Blanco a $20,000 retainer to deal with a deportation matter and said she was “unresponsive.” He fired her and hired another attorney he said handled the matter in six months. Blanco said this matter had some complexity and her client wasn’t transparent about his “criminal convictions.”
Blanco’s disciplinary revocation application says she “has not returned any of the unearned portion of the $20,000 retainer fee.”
A Blanco client in a “lengthy and contentious” divorce received $2.9 million. The woman said Blanco sent her $1.4 million, took $419,755 out as her fee without providing an invoice and hasn’t accounted for the remaining $1,080,245.
Blanco “did not properly account for her time and her fees in the billing statements she provided to the Bar,” the petition says.
She also said when she paid Blanco a “non-refundable” $10,000 retainer to work on a post-divorce matter, Blanco took too long to start working on it. The woman fired Blanco and wanted a refund. Blanco refused to return any of the $10,000 as, she claimed, the client didn’t allow her even a week to work on the matter.
There was an issue with a check to a seller in a real estate sale for which Blanco was the settlement agent as well as another immigration matter. Blanco declared a retainer fee “non-refundable” although the Bar said she’s accused of not filing anything and not presenting any bill.
“Although [Blanco] disputes the allegations against her, for purposes of the instant petition, she acknowledges that the above paragraphs accurately reflect the allegations pending against her,” the petition says.
Blanco will no longer be a Florida attorney as of Oct. 23.
Brooks Siegel of North Miami Beach
Siegel (admitted in 2017), who runs Lemon Law Group Partners out of North Miami Beach, also is a member of the State Bar of Arizona. Arizona hit him with a public reprimand and one-year probation on Dec. 15, 2020, for this case.
According to his guilty plea filed in Florida, a client hired Siegel’s firm for a Lemon Law case with Land Rover in December 2018. The client electronically signed a fee agreement sent by Lemon Law Group staff. The client “had no communication with [Siegel] throughout his entire case, including an initial offer, counteroffer and settlement.”
But the client found himself in erratic email communication with Siegel’s paralegal. A March 26, 2019, email from the paralegal indicated things should be wrapping up soon, but the client “did not receive any settlement funds and did not receive any communication from [Siegel] concerning the significant delay” in the settlement release.
On June 12, 2019, the paralegal said Siegel “should be clearing things up” that week. When that didn’t turn out to be the case, the client filed a charge with the Arizona Bar. Siegel didn’t speak to the client himself until Dec. 28, 2019. The settlement check wasn’t received and forwarded until February 2020.
In reciprocal discipline, Siegel received a public reprimand and a year of probation that can end as early as December with proof of completion of his Arizona probation.
Michael D. Stewart of Miami
Stewart’s clients, although their cases were different, all sang similar versions of a song that could be called “Money for Nothing.” What follows comes from the referee’s report accepting Stewart’s guilty plea for consent judgment.
Two investors in AMA Resources paid Stewart (admitted in 2005) $4,250 in December 2015 to help them get AMA’s financial records. After filing the civil complaint, they didn’t hear from Stewart, just his non-lawyer assistants, Raymond Betancourt and Sara Sanchez. They also didn’t get the defendants served. Stewart’s effort was less than minimal over the next 16 months. Finally, Stewart suggested his clients hire a private investigator to find the defendant — which they’d suggested 10 months earlier.
Another client paid Stewart $700 in late 2017 for a representation in a trademark application case. On Sept. 7, 2018, the other side filed for summary judgment. The referee’s report says the client didn’t find out about this until Oct. 15, 2018, when Sanchez told the client more documentation was needed to respond to the summary judgment motion. But, she couldn’t tell the client exactly what documentation.
After November and December 2018 emails to Stewart went unanswered, the client learned the summary judgment in favor of the other side had been entered on Nov. 6, 2018. Stewart offered on Feb. 12, 2019, to pursue the trademark case for free, but didn’t do anything.
A client lost a home through Stewart’s inaction in a foreclosure action. Once again, the client spoke only with Betancourt and Sanchez. In September 2017, Betancourt told the client they would negotiate a way for the client to keep the property. So, it was a little bit of a surprise when the client heard about a summary judgment hearing happening in nine days and then learning later that a summary judgment had been entered against her “as a result of her attorney’s non-appearance in that hearing.”
Stewart’s office eventually advised the client to file for bankruptcy, which she did while paying more money to Stewart. He didn’t appear at hearings to set aside the foreclosure and she lost her house.
A fourth client’s company, Air Charter Professionals, paid Stewart $2,500 to handle two civil suits in June 2016. Upon requesting his client file in June 2018, he found out about a Notice of Lack of Prosecution hearing scheduled for Aug. 20, 2018. In an Aug. 17, 2018 email, Stewart told the client the hearing “was for status and scheduling purposes.”
Actually, the hearing was for exactly what a Notice of Lack of Prosecution hearing sounds like. The lawsuit was dismissed at the hearing. Stewart didn’t appear. He refiled the suit on April 16, 2019. It was dismissed for lack of service in June 2020. As for the second lawsuit, “the court docket is replete with motions for continuance, but little substantive activity.”
The referee’s report also notes that Stewart, during the Bar investigation, “omitted certain communications between himself and his client whereby the client was misled regarding the filing of the motion to set aside dismissal.”
Stewart begins a two-year suspension on Thursday and owes those clients a total of $9,300 in restitution.
Jordan Weinkle of Miami Beach
In contrast to the pudding pace of most discipline cases, the Bar applied for emergency suspension of Weinkle (admitted in 2015) “based on facts that establish clearly and convincingly that Jordan Garrett Weinkle appears to be causing great public harm.”
Why? “Misappropriated funds” and going dark on the Bar during the inquiry.
The Bar’s emergency suspension petition says The Weinkle Law Group, as the settlement agent in a mortgage transaction, was supposed to hold $60,000 in its trust account for the property taxes in a mortgage transaction. But they didn’t get paid and the bar’s staff auditor found the firm’s trust accounts didn’t have the cash to pay the taxes.
The Bar investigator also found the Weinkle Law Group issued payroll checks from trust accounts.
Plus, the Bar noted, a Nov. 22, 2020, email from Weinkle to Equity Lending Solutions, the transaction’s loan broker.
Weinkle claimed that he was “transitioning away from the practice of law so that I can dedicate the majority of my time to my job in the United States Army ... .For the last 8-10 months, juggling my military career and my law practice has resulted in me becoming quite disheveled in my civilian life, as I’m sure was apparent.”
The petition said, “However, [Weinkle] has no record of being on past, current or future active duty in any branch of the armed forces.”
Weinkle is suspended until further notice.
