Fraud, drugs, stolen money by Miami, Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach lawyers
December’s usually large Florida Bar list of attorney’s disciplined by the state Supreme Court includes 10 attorneys from Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, three of whom are disbarred, two of whom are disbarred in effect and two of whom are suspended.
In alphabetical order...
Robert Cook, Tequesta
In November 2018, Cook’s guilty plea for consent judgment says, he filed a motion to withdraw from a loan modification and foreclosure client. He never got confirmation from the judicial assistant that the orders were entered nor did he set his motion to be heard.
Cook didn’t appear at the Feb. 20, 2020, final hearing on the foreclosure case because he thought he had successfully withdrawn as counsel. The final judgment went against his clients, but was set aside once Cook’s error was set aside, and he represented the client through the end of the case.
In another case, Cook filed a notice of appearance for a foreclosure client in November 2019, then turned the case over to an attorney in his office. When that attorney had to take an emergency medical leave on Jan. 15, 2020, and Cook didn’t cover for him, the client was left without an attorney for a Feb. 27 hearing. Afterward, Cook’s guilty plea says he made “substantial efforts” on behalf of the client and even helped with the sale and getting the foreclosure vacated.
Cook received a public reprimand. This is Cook’s second public reprimand and, with two suspensions, the fourth disciplinary action against him in the last eight years.
Timmy Cox, Plantation
With client Mark Metellus on trial in Martin County Judge Sherwood Bauer’s courtroom, Cox impugned Bauer’s impartiality. That’s considered disrespectful, as is interrupting a judge over 20 times and speaking over that judge during a hearing on your motion for a mistrial.
“At one point, [Cox] interrupted the court by stating,”First of all, I am entitled to a record, you may not want me to have a record, but you have been speaking for 93 seconds, I have been counting.” When Judge Bauer advised respondent that he was being rude, [Cox] stated, “You’re being rude to my client.”
While representing a client in an adoption case, Cox filed a petition that was rejected with prejudice as it “was legally insufficient on its face. [Cox] demonstrated incompetence and lack of decorum during a hearing in that matter.”
During the same adoption case, Cox “did not advise the mother that the document she was signing irrevocably surrendered her parental rights to her child. The mother thought she was only signing papers for the child to go home with respondent’s client.”
Nobody did a pre-consent interview with the mother or made sure she knew she could have an independent witness. Also, the consent wasn’t signed in the presence of two witnesses.
All of the above comes from Cox’s guilty plea for consent judgment that was accepted three times by referee Lisa Davidson. But the state Supreme Court rejected Davidson’s first referee’s report that recommended a 60-day suspension and her second report that recommended a four-month suspension.
“Should the parties elect to pursue another consent judgment,” the court said in slapping back the second report’s recommendations, “the court will approve a consent judgment that results in the imposition of a one-year suspension, along with the other conditions recommended by the referee, if filed within 30 days of the date of this order.”
So, Cox is serving a year suspension that began Dec. 25.
Thomas Craft, Tequesta
Craft pleaded guilty in New York federal court to securities fraud. His sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 22. Saving everyone time and money as far as professional discipline, Craft petitioned for disciplinary revocation with leave to reapply in five years.
Craft is essentially disbarred until at least Dec. 16, 2026.
Cesar Dominguez, Coral Gables
As the escrow agent in an agreement between seller LBTP Investments and buyer Parcours Invest, Dominguez received $186,000 in his trust account on July 15, 2016. A legal disagreement over the escrow money ended on Sept. 5, 2017, with the decision being made for the $186,000 to be sent to the plaintiff, Distinguised Real Estate Services.
Dominguez told the court and everybody involved that the $186,000 would stay in his trust account through the appeals process. He stated in a June 2017 court filing the $186,000 remained in his trust account. He sent emails on Sept. 26, 2017, and Oct. 2, 2017, saying until everybody’s attorney’s fees were determined, the $186,000 would stay in his trust account.
The $186,000 wasn’t in the account. In fact, the account was down to $6,085.87 at the start of June 2017, $3,065.84 at the end of June 2017 and $65.87 at the start of September.
The referee’s report says Dominguez admitted that he “improperly released the funds.”
Earlier in 2017, Dominguez was the escrow agent in a sale of a seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom Pinecrest house. He sent notification that he received $50,000 in escrow funds on Feb. 20, 2017, and another $150,000 on March 6, 2017. That’s $200,000 that should have been sitting in Dominguez’s trust accounts.
But he never put it there. Dominguez told everyone the money was there as the matter wound up in court. The sale fell through and the seller demanded the money because the buyer of breached the contract. After the decision went the seller’s way, Dominguez had to admit he’d already returned the money to the buyer.
Dominguez has been disbarred.
Mario Lamar, Coral Gables
Lamar has been a member of the Florida Bar since 1973. He represented both Franklin Duran and Carlos Kauffmann after their 2007 arrests on charges of acting as unregistered agents of a foreign government and conspiracy to act as unregistered agents of a foreign government.
Though Lamar wasn’t dealing with their criminal problems, only with what the referee’s report described as Duran and Kauffmann’s “massive business divorce,” there was a conflict of interest. Especially when Kauffmann and Duran each paid Lamar $125,000 to represent him against the other.
Kauffmann’s mother kicked in an extra $40,000 for her son. Lamar and Kauffmann’s father had known each other since a 1959 meeting in boarding school.
In the criminal matters, Kauffmann took a plea deal and testified against Duran in October 2008. Lamar claimed he didn’t know Kauffmann was testifying until the day he took the stand.
“Upon becoming aware that Kauffmann was testifying against Duran, Mr. Lamar was presented with a clear, unwaivable conflict of interest, yet he continued to represent both of them,” the referee wrote. “While this presented an unwaivable conflict, Mr. Lamar didn’t even attempt to discuss this issue with Duran to obtain informed consent ... and he didn’t relinquish any of his fees.”
Duran was convicted and was at the downtown Miami federal prison until June 3, 2011. Notes by Lamar and those of his paralegal say during Lamar’s visits to Duran, the incarcerated man asked about Oceanika Yachts, a company in which Kauffmann and Duran had a 50-50 investment.
After Duran finished his prison time in July 2011, he went to Oceanika’s office and found the company had been sending “substantial sums of money” to Lamar. Duran then asked Lamar about the money and Lamar denied he’d received anything. Duran called him on that lie, the referee’s report said, so Lamar showed him a computer screen that said there was $400,000 from Oceanika in his trust account.
But Lamar was in the middle of a two-year period during which Oceanika sent $1,901,649 to Lamar’s trust account. And Lamar sent all the Oceanika money to Kauffmann, even after Duran filed a civil lawsuit against him.
Duran won a $876,319 total judgment against Lamar. Both sides appealed, but Lamar dropped his appeal and settled the case.
Lamar’s three-year suspension starts Wednesday.
Julio Martinez, Miami Beach
Martinez’s guilty plea for consent judgment says he was busted for cocaine possession in September 2014. He completed his time in drug court in August 2017 and entered a diversion program with Florida Lawyers Assistance in 2018.
But after testing positive for cocaine “several times,” Martinez had his case kicked back to the grievance committee. Since then, he says he’s completed two residential programs and is living in a sober home that requires two drug screens and four meetings per week.
Martinez received a public reprimand and is on two years’ probation.
Enrique Miranda, Pinecrest
Miranda has been under emergency suspension since Feb. 11 for some sleight-of-dollar money moving as an escrow agent in two transactions.
The referee’s report says, 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 obeyed Campos’ instructions to give $186,000 “to various persons and entities who appear to be unrelated to the transaction governed by the agreement.”
Campos’ unilateral orders about escrow funds and Miranda following them fall under “illegal” for a reason. When the job wasn’t done and Xeon asked for its $95,000 back, Miranda didn’t have it. He 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 $95,000, 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 from a Mr. Betters. 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. Also, Miranda said, he got a letter from Betters backing that up.
Miranda didn’t check out Betters, didn’t try to reach out to him, though he had contact information. He just moved the money along — $569,764 to Algandona, $5,000 to Capital Solutions Group in Illinois, $300 to Yiwu Mocho Group in China. The referee hypothesized that the $5,948.79 might’ve been Miranda’s fee as escrow agent.
Escrow agent in a wire fraud. The referee’s report says a hacker got into the email account of a law firm that was a closing agent on a sale of North Carolina property and changed the wiring instructions to Miranda’s trust account.
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.
If Miranda had done his job, the referee said, the fraud would’ve been found before the money left his trust account. As it is, the bank has some of the money back, but that couple who thought they were getting North Carolina real estate is still out $11,045.79.
Miranda is disbarred.
Stuart J. Starr, Plantation
After getting 90-day suspension in May 2018 for violating rules for excessive fees, improperly charging fees and failing to work “with reasonable diligence and promptness” for a client, Starr ghosted the Florida Bar.
When suspended, an attorney is supposed to let all clients, tribunals and opposing counsels know about it and send the Bar a sworn affidavit with the names and addresses of everyone given a copy of the suspension order. Starr didn’t do that, so he was hit with a suspension for contempt of court. Then, a longer contempt suspension, three years.
Finally, on Dec. 15, the 78-year-old was disbarred.
Starr is still alive, not always the case for an attorney disbarred and not responding to the Bar.
Robyn Sztyndor, Fort Lauderdale
Sztyndor literally and electronically ran her mouth in several cases and got a public reprimand for it.
Such was the case of Sztyndor, who, until withdrawing in 2019, was representing Blair Wright of Outreach Housing in a still-pending criminal case involving a racketeering charge.
Sztyndor’s guilty plea says her emails during a still-pending racketeering criminal case involving Blair Wright of Outreach Housing referred to opposing counsel as ““out of control,” and “overly hostile,” among other things. Further, in emails with opposing counsel [Sztyndor] stated that the depositions of two of the witnesses in the case were “going to be epic” and great “entertainment.””
During Broward and Palm Beach County cases involving Outreach, Nationwide Pools and Home Defense, in addition to “unprofessional and sarcastic” shots at opposing counsel and witnesses, Sztyndor “made unprofessional statements orally and in emails and court filings impugning the integrity” of two judges.
After filing a Judicial Qualifications Commission Complaint against Circuit Court Judge Michael Gates, Sztyndor publicly filed the complaint in the Outreach and Nationwide cases, asking Gates be disqualified. She “repeatedly stated” that he “rubber stamped 53 orders for the Office of the Attorney General.”
When 17th Circuit Court Judge Peter D. Blanc recused himself the Home Defense case, he said [Sztyndor] said to his judicial assistant that she didn’t know “if it was “just Judge Blanc’s confusion or his bad memory” regarding a procedural issue in the case, but that she was going to “take it up with the JQC” and would take her orders from the JQC from that point forward.”
Though that’s in her guilty plea, the guilty plea also says Sztyndor remembers only that she told the assistant that her client would complain to the Judicial Qualifications Commission.
While representing Outreach Housing in another case, Sztyndor denied a request by witness Clovis Nelson to reschedule a deposition so he could retain counsel. Nelson had a claim against Outreach. She also sent text messages saying she’d move to strike his claim if he didn’t appear.
Nelson appeared and said on the record he wanted independent counsel. Sztyndor objected to any postponement and said again she’d seek sanctions, contempt and move to strike Nelson’s claim.
This treatment of Nelson violated rules of misconduct as well as respecting for rights of third persons.
While handling litigation in another Broward case, Michael Bogdan v. Living Free Institute, Sztyndor “questioned opposing counsel’s veracity” during a deposition, when emailing the judge’s judicial assistant and in a court motion.
“[Sztyndor’s] conduct resulted in a burden on opposing counsel’s clients, and the clients fired opposing counsel.”
In addition to the public reprimand, Sztyndor has to attend a Bar Professionalism Workshop and be on probation for two years.
Jordan Weinkle, Miami Beach
Weinkle has six discipline matters pending, most stemming from what caused his emergency suspension in September: “misappropriated funds,” apparently lying about military service and ignoring Bar inquiries.
The emergency suspension petition said The Weinkle Law Group was supposed to keep $60,000 in its trust account to cover a transaction’s property taxes. But after the taxes didn’t get paid, the Bar’s staff auditor saw the trust accounts didn’t have the tax cash.
But The Weinkle Law Group had written payroll checks on trust accounts.
The emergency suspension request included a Nov. 22, 2020 email from Weinkle to the transaction’s loan broker that claimed 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 suspension request noted that there’s no record of Weinkle “being on past, current or future active duty in any branch of the armed forces.”
Weinkle went for disciplinary revocation. He’s essentially disbarred until Dec. 2, 2026 when he can apply for readmission.
