A Florida lawyer got booted from a Brooks Brothers. Now, he’s disbarred and a fugitive
A 65-year-old Orlando attorney accused of drinking $150 of a closed bar’s booze six months after he was kicked out of a Brooks Brothers store has been disbarred. He’s also a man on the lam.
Kenneth Wright also might be living in a Scottsdale, Arizona, resort hotel.
There’s a warrant for Wright’s arrest in Denver, according to a referee’s report by Judge Lawrence Michael Mirman.
Kenneth Carl Wright had been a member of the Florida Bar since 1988.
Brooks Brothers, behind bars and a bar
In March 2020, the week the United States shut down for the pandemic, Kenneth Wright first went behind bars.
Around 3 p.m. Tuesday, March 10, an arrest report says, a couple of Orlando police officers working at the Mall at Millennia were called to the Brooks Brothers store to deal with a potential shoplifter. When they arrived, the store manager told them she just wanted the guy taken out of the store and Brooks Brothers’ management wanted him prosecuted if he wouldn’t leave.
The report says Wright refused to leave and eventually asked the officers, “What are you going to do? Arrest me?”, then kept picking up items as if shopping. When police tried to do just that, the report said, Wright yanked his arm away, flopped to the ground and rolled to prevent easy access to his wrists.
Police eventually wheeled Wright out of the mall in a wheelchair because he wouldn’t stand up. He was arrested on trespass and resisting an officer without violence charges. On Aug. 7, 2020, Wright pleaded guilty to the trespass charge and be sentenced to time served and adjudication withheld.
Behind bars, the Florida Bar and a Denver bar
By the resolution of the Brooks Brothers case, Wright had more work for his professional cousins in the criminal defense line.
Wright was arrested on July 16, 2020, on three counts of aggravated stalking of a minor under 16 and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor from an alleged incident in Winter Park. Wright would be in Orange County Jail until posting bond on Aug. 7, 2020, the day his guilty plea in the trespass case was filed.
“Having been jailed for three weeks on a baseless charge and having been assaulted while in jail, [Wright] believed that getting out of Orlando for a while would help him get back on his feet,” Wright’s attorney, John Weiss, wrote in response to a Florida Bar request Wright was found in contempt for not answering inquiries about his arrests. “He then traveled to Denver to do some volunteer work and to clear his mind a bit.
“While traveling [Wright’s] laptop was stolen and then, by incredibly bad luck, his briefcase was stolen in Denver,” Weiss continued. “That briefcase contained his replacement computer, his wallet and all his IDS and credit cards. [Wright], for a while, was a homeless person.”
Weiss wrote that Wright “is currently residing in Arizona and has regained, so to speak, his equilibrium.”
Weiss didn’t say if the alleged thefts of computer and identification occurred before or after Wright’s September 2020 arrest in Denver.
“Security footage showed him trespassing with intent to commit theft by drinking alcohol belonging to a bar/night club within which he was trespassing,” the referee’s report said. “[Wright] drank a very large quantity of the bar’s alcohol (valued at $150), and also turned on the fryer.”
The referee’s report says Wright didn’t show up for his court dates after his arrest on that charge, “absconded and remains subject to a warrant for arrest as a fugitive from justice.”
One database lists Wright’s address as the Scottsdale Links Resort, a Hilton Vacation Club.
Unpacking Wright’s legal cases
As far as the aggravated stalking charge, the state attorney wrote “this case is not suitable for prosecution” in a “No Information” filing that dropped the charges on Nov. 9, 2020.
The state Supreme Court rejected the Florida Bar’s contempt requests in January 2021, but did require Wright pay $1,250 in administrative costs. Wright never paid that, making him ineligible to practice law in Florida, nor did he pay his annual Bar dues in October 2021.
In August 2021, the Bar filed a complaint against Wright for not sending it a copy of the final disposition of the Brooks Brothers’ case. The referee’s report says Wright never answered that complaint, so Judge Mirman entered a default judgment for the Bar.
In explaining his recommendation of disbarment, Mirman wrote: “I have considered Respondent’s willful lack of participation in these disciplinary proceedings to be an indicator that he is currently unfit to practice law” and that Wright’s Brooks Brothers’ episode “are also of such a nature that they are subject to public ridicule: that a lawyer would commit such offenses is an embarrassment to the profession, eliciting public ridicule.”
As for mitigating factors, Mirman wrote that though Wright didn’t respond in this disciplinary process, “a fair inference from the circumstances is that something is seriously wrong with him.”
Mirman noted that Wright blamed the Brooks Brothers’ incident on a medical episode from an alleged brain malformation as well as not eating enough calories after switching to a vegan diet, thereby leaving him low on energy and disoriented. From his chair, Mirman thought it was probable that Wright has mental health and/or substance abuse problems.
“Prior to this odd behavior, [Wright] had an absence of a disciplinary record pursuant to a long membership in the Bar,” Mirman wrote. “This mitigation, for purposes of determining the sanction, is heavily outweighed by the aggravation.”
Mirman recommended disbarment. The state Supreme Court agreed and disbarred Wright.
