2 men paid a Florida family law attorney $5,000. She ghosted each without doing the work
Clients of a Naples family law attorney complained to the Florida Bar that she stopped communicating with them after they paid her for work, and the Bar knows how they feel — she didn’t answer the Bar grievances filed against her in any way.
Denise Gunn, admitted to the Bar in 1997, was disbarred on May 23.
A call to Gunn’s business phone number gets “The subscriber you have dialed is not in service.” Four out of five emails to her email addresses bounced back. No databases record her death. Online criminal court records from Collier County indicate she’s alive.
Collier County online court records say on May 24, the day after “Denise A. Gunn” was disbarred, a “Denise Alicia Gunn” signed a deferred prosecution agreement after being charged with possession of a controlled substance. The arrest report says on Feb. 29, police found 4.1 grams of methamphetamine in a sandwich bag in Gunn’s car after stopping her for making a right turn out of the left turn lane when leaving a Walmart.
Still, Gunn ghosted clients and the Florida Bar.
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Money for nothing
Without Gunn’s testimony or participation in any way, the report by Judge D. Ryan Felix, the referee in Gunn’s disciplinary case, echoes the Bar complaints from grievances filed by Trevor Stanislaus and Xavier Gressett.
Stanislaus said he signed a retainer agreement and paid Gunn $1,500 of a $4,000 flat fee for a matter in May 2021. Gunn spent May and June ignoring Stanislaus’ phone calls so, on July 4, 2021, Stanislaus asked Gunn to cancel his money and give him a refund if she couldn’t handle the case. Gunn answered she was working on his petition. He’d also requested a copy of the retainer agreement, which she said was in the mail.
Stanislaus didn’t get the petition, the agreement or a refund, despite repeated requests, but did get a text on Aug. 17, 2021 saying his petition was ready. That was the last Stanislaus heard from Gunn.
Two months later, Gressett signed a retainer agreement with Gunn for $3,500. Gunn filed a notice of appearance on Nov. 1, 2021 and attended a hearing on Jan. 5, 2022. Gressett finished paying the $3,500 in April 2022 and Gunn “took no further action on his behalf, yet she failed to withdraw from his case.”
This story was originally published June 2, 2024 at 11:52 AM.
