A former judge, a Coral Gables attorney and a Broward thief among lawyers disciplined
Absconding with money from an estate and letting assistants do a Lemon Law lawyer’s job are just two of the reasons lawyers from Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties wound up on the monthly Florida Bar report of attorneys disciplined by the state Supreme Court.
In alphabetical order:
Debbie Campbell, Coral Gables
Svetlana Kozlovskaia filed a Florida Bar complaint about Coral Gables attorney Debbie Campbell, alleging misappropriation of funds and other ethical violations. On Dec. 26, a subpoena demanded Campbell get the Campbell Legal Group’s trust account records from Jan. 1, 2019, through Nov. 30, 2023, to the Florida Bar by Jan. 19.
A week after the deadline, Campbell asked for an extension, arguing “proper due process” required she get a lawyer to help with the records, and “compressed trial dates and overburdened dockets” made lawyers hard to find in January. She got an extension, but still didn’t come across with the records demanded.
The Bar filed a petition for contempt on March 27. After an extension, Campbell answered on May 6 that she’d told the Bar she wanted to “immediately begin the process of entering a consent judgment, the procedures for making an admission of minor misconduct, and engage in all efforts to settle the matter.”
That offer to end the original case with a guilty plea for consent judgment was rejected by the Bar because Campbell still “has provided no documents in response thereto, even after being placed on notice of the instant contempt proceedings. [Campbell] has shown no good cause for her failure to respond to the subpoena served on her last year.”
Campbell is suspended until she satisfies the subpoena.
READ MORE: ‘Competence’ violation among reasons South Florida attorneys got suspended, disbarred
Todd Herman, Fort Lauderdale
Fort Lauderdale’s Todd Herman was suspended in October for ignoring three Florida Bar grievances. On Nov. 22, came another accusatory shot, this one from Luis Perez.
“I am requesting an investigation on my former attorney, Todd Herman, for his actions once the lawsuit was settled,” Perez wrote to the Bar. “Todd Herman kept the compensation to himself despite it originally being for my medical expenses. The total compensation for the lawsuit was $10,000. As of, today, I still have yet to receive a penny for compensation for medical expenses. It is important to note that Todd Herman was absent for all three court hearings regarding the location of the compensation and rationale for his actions.”
Travis Stultz of Weinstein Legal, who took over as Perez’s attorney, wrote to the Bar that when he requested Perez’s file from Herman in May 2022, Herman didn’t say anything about the $10,000 he deposited in 2020.
“The medical payments coverage payment was not discovered until it was mentioned by defense counsel on Nov. 7, 2022,” Stultz wrote. “Since that date, we have made multiple attempts via email and phone calls. We even stopped by his office In an attempt to retrieve these funds that are due to Mr. Perez. We sought court intervention; however, Mr, Herman did not respond to the court’s order requiring him to provide our firm with the $10,000 due to Mr. Perez, Mr. Herman was ordered to appear and Show Cause on Jan. 27, 2023, but did not appear for the hearing on April 5, 2023.”
The Bar said Herman hasn’t responded to anything about this grievance, so he’s suspended for this contempt of court also.
John Spencer Jenkins, Fort Lauderdale
No one knows the whereabouts of John Jenkins, aka Spencer Jenkins, who worked out of Fort Lauderdale and Wilton Manors.
Not the Florida Bar, which didn’t get an answer from Jenkins to any of the below grievances that were filed.
Not Peter Mullins, who got a $235,600 malpractice verdict against Jenkins for malpractice after Jenkins abandoned a federal court case in which Mullins was a defendant.
Mullins said Jenkins was recommended to him by Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis, who said he knew Jenkins for about 10 years. Trantalis told the Miami Herald he probably recommended other attorneys, too, but definitely had recommended Jenkins to several people. “Spencer was an excellent, rising attorney. I thought he would be an important part of our community. I didn’t know about any of this until I read the story yesterday.”
Nobody in the family of William Walters, whose estate Jenkins misappropriated to the tune of $612,507, knows where Jenkins is, either.
READ MORE: He misappropriated $612,000, owes another former client $235,000 and has disappeared
Wherever Jenkins is, he’s permanently disbarred.
Miguel Mirabal, Coral Gables
Coral Gables attorney Miguel Mirabal, aka Mike Mirabal, a member of the Florida Bar since 2004 with a clean record, badly wanted to be a judge.
Mirabal ran for a Miami-Dade court seat in 2018, applied to the Judicial Nominating Committee to fill a Miami-Dade court vacancy in 2019 and ran again to be a County Court judge in 2020. Mirabal triumphed in that last election, was sworn in Jan 4, 2021, but resigned April 20, 2021, after a Judicial Qualifying Commission began an investigation.
“In each of his three attempts to join the judiciary, [Mirabal] reported inaccurate information and/or made omissions, under oath, in the papers he submitted,” Mirabal’s guilty plea for consent judgment said. He did so, “specifically, in his judicial application, his financial disclosures and/or his certified monthly campaign finance reports.”
The consent judgment proposed a 90-day suspension followed by 18 months of probation. The referee, Judge Daniel Casey, influenced by Mirabal’s resignation, accepted the proposed punishment, though he said he “struggled with the propriety of the proposed resolution of this matter, given the multiple, serious and continuous actions alleged...”
What Casey struggled to accept, the state Supreme Court had no problem rejecting. The court kicked the case back to Casey.
Casey’s amended report recommended disbarment.
Casey wrote after the rejection: “I have held a full hearing in this matter, which has revealed the full nature of [Mirabal’s] conduct, causing me to change my recommendation.”
Mirabal’s misconduct, Casey wrote, “maintained a consistent pattern of disregarding honesty and integrity in ways that [Mirabal] believed would be to his benefit.”
Also, Mirabal was accused of threatening a grievance against Miami-Dade County Judge Milena Abreu, who made the original complaint, “in an attempt to intimidate and silence her,” the Bar said.
In a June 2023 brief, Mirabal’s lawyers, Kevin Tynan and Herman Russomanno, argued Casey’s disbarment recommendation wasn’t “supported by the record,” especially Mirabal’s “lack of a prior disciplinary record, overwhelming character testimony, the imposition of other penalties (including resigning from the bench), and his deep remorse for his actions.”
They argued a one-year suspension would fit, three years at the maximum.
The state Supreme Court chose a different maximum and accepted the disbarment recommendation.
Frank Noska, Palm Beach
According to the first Bar grievance filed against Palm Beach’s Frank Noska, Noska brought in attorney Cris Boyar to help with Chris Thompson’s lawsuit against Geico. But Noska said he’d handle all communication with Thompson.
Geico won the case and was awarded attorney’s fees. After the decision on attorney’s fees, Boyar tried to reach Noska with no success.
“Mr. Boyar then contacted Mr. Thompson, who advised that not only had he not heard from [Noska], but he did not recall giving [Noska] authorization to litigate the case and had no knowledge of the status of the case,” the Bar complaint said.
Boyar also filed a grievance against Noska, a member of the Bar since 1982. Noska responded to neither grievance, got suspended in July 2023 and, now, is disbarred.
Brooks Siegel, North Miami Beach
Brooks Siegel, who is also a member of the Arizona Bar, is the registered agent for Lemon Law Group Partners, Jason Hedgedus’ law firm that operates out of North Miami Beach. What follows occurred in 2021 during the same month Siegel got a public reprimand for similar treatment of a Lemon Law Group client.
READ MORE: Stealing money, ignoring clients and other misdeeds by Miami area attorneys
Siegel’s guilty plea says when Arizona resident Brenda Arechiga called Siegel for a Lemon Law claim, she got a staffer in Florida. A fee agreement was signed without speaking to Siegel or any attorney, but an Aug. 20, 2021, email to Arechiga said Siegel was her attorney.
Without Siegel or anyone else speaking to Arechiga about case goals or a demand letter, a legal assistant sent an Aug. 31, 2021, email to Dodge Motors for Arechiga that offered to settle the case if Dodge bought the car back and paid attorneys fees and costs.
Arechiga asked for a case update on Sept. 7 and got a Sept. 9 response from staff member “Maria” that Dodge Motors had “finally responded.” On Oct. 13, 2021, Arechiga asked what was happening, as she hadn’t heard anything in six weeks.
Dodge Motors offered, on Oct. 26, 2021, to settle for $4,000. “Maria” told Arechiga if she accepted the offer, she’d get $1,000 and the firm would get $3,000. Arechiga rejected that idea and fired the firm “without ever speaking with [Siegel] or any lawyer.”
This violated Florida Bar rules of competence; diligence; communication; and “responsibilities regarding nonlawyer assistants.”
Siegel got a reprimand in Arizona and agreed on Jan. 25, 2023, to refrain from practicing there for two years. In Florida, on June 27, Siegel got a public reprimand and an order to attend ethics school before Dec. 27.
This story was originally published August 7, 2024 at 11:22 AM.
