Rape, shooting a brother and bungling AI among reasons Miami metro attorneys disciplined
Using AI ineptly, continuing to practice while on suspension and shooting a brother in the arm put attorneys from Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties on the Florida Bar’s monthly list of lawyers spanked by the state Supreme Court.
In alphabetical order:
Debbie Campbell, Coral Gables
To make its case for the disbarment of Coral Gables’ Debbie Campbell (admitted to the Bar in 2012), The Florida Bar showed the state Supreme Court screenshots of Sept. 5 WhatsApp messages from Campbell to Miami Cosmetics Trading Co.’s Nareman Daoud Ahmad Al Hindi: “We are in charge;” “We have your case until the very end;” “I will always be your lawyer;” and “I have never left the case.”
But Campbell couldn’t be Miami Cosmetics’ lawyer. She was suspended Aug. 1 for not answering Florida Bar inquiries concerning allegations of various ethical violation, including misappropriation of Svetlana Kozlovskaia’s funds.
READ MORE: A former judge, a Coral Gables attorney and a Broward thief among lawyers disciplined
Campbell sent Miami Cosmetics an invoice that included work done in August, while she was suspended. Also, she filed a brief in a case before the Third District Court of Appeal, a brief that had to be stricken when the court learned of Campbell’s suspension.
Flouting her suspension and still not answering the Bar inquiries in the Kozlovskaia matter added up to Campbell’s disbarment.
READ MORE: South Florida lawyers — young and old — honored for pro bono work
David Carnright, Coral Gables
David Carnright (admitted in 2011) worked out of Coral Gables, then Kendall, but his most recent filing came from Arcadia — at the Desoto Correctional Center. That’s where Carnright is serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted on one count of sexual battery.
READ MORE: An incarcerated Kendall attorney requests disbarment, but insists he didn’t rape anyone
Though Carnright maintains his innocence and says he’s trying to get a new trial, the jury conviction and the Third District Court upholding the verdict made the state Supreme Court’s next action predictable: disbarment.
Carnright petitioned for disciplinary revocation, “tantamout to disbarment” as the state Supreme Court says, with leave to apply for readmission in five years.
The court granted his petition.
John Fenner, Sunrise
The dispute for which Hamid and Carol Shariff and their company Digiplot hired Sunrise attorney John Fenner (admitted 1988) involved family — Carol’s brother Mark Yaralli — but not family court.
According to Fenner’s guilty plea for consent judgment, Yaralli had been an accountant in New York before moving to South Florida and buying 40% of Digiplot in 2004 to rescue the company from “economic hardship.”
Once Digiplot’s finances looked better, a schism formed between the Shariffs and Yaralli over how much the company was worth and whether or not to sell it. The intracompany Cold War included the Shariffs “freezing [Yaralli] out of the business and locking him out of the office.”
Yaralli sued. Before the trial, the court ruled Yaralli’s conviction on a felony in Arizona from the early 1990s, a complaint by his wife and his departure from Deloitte and Touche irrelevant and far too prejudicial to allow.
Fenner asked Yaralli during cross examination, “Sir, tell us, are you a convicted felon?”
In response to the felony situation, Judge Keathan Frink declared a mistrial and entered a default judgment against the Shariffs.
At a hearing to determine sanctions, Fenner blamed his attention deficit disorder, then said, “Focusing on my cross examination, I simply missed what I should have done, which is ask the Court, out of the presence of the jury, if I could ask that question.”
Fenner repeated the same thing to the Bar and also said surgeries have “impaired his “short-term memory and made (him) much slower mentally than usual.””
Fenner’s 90-day suspension starts Feb. 15.
Albert Medina, Boca Raton
As Albert Medina (admitted 2014) and his visiting brother hung out at Medina’s Boca Raton house on Oct. 9, 2022, Medina told his told his brother to get something out of Medina’s car. His brother said, no, so Medina went into his bedroom and came out with a .40 caliber Springfield XD, racked it and pointed it at his brother. Medina’s brother figured, like the 10 times or so in the past, that Medina was joking and the gun wasn’t loaded.
Medina was joking. But the gun was loaded. Medina messed around, pulled the trigger and found out that key fact.
Medina’s brother was shot in the arm. The police report said he didn’t want Medina prosecuted, but Medina did plead guilty to misdemeanor culpable negligence. His 12-month probation was ended after seven months.
This violates the Florida Bar rule: “A lawyer shall not commit a criminal action that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer in other respects.”
Medina’s 10-day suspension starts Saturday.
Thomas Neusom, Fort Lauderdale
In trying to get a case moved from state court to Fort Myers’ federal court in 2023, Thomas Neusom (admitted in 2007) made a series of inept filings.
The referee’s report said the court found one of Neusom’s arguments “contradicted by governing statutes and binding case law.” An amended supplementary removal filing “simply re-argued and re-stated the same grounds that the court had already deemed insufficient and deficient in the order to show cause.”
On Aug. 10, 2023, Magistrate Judge Nicholas Mizell referred Neusom to the Grievance Committee for Fort Myers federal court. Even so, after another judge remanded the case to state court, Neusom “ignored the court’s order and filed an amended complaint” three days later.
Meanwhile, the Grievance Committee, the referee’s report said, “researched the legal citations in [Neusom’s filing] and found that the pleading contained inaccurate citations and cited cases that were wholly fabricated.”
When the Grievance Committed asked Neusom about “inaccurate and fabricated citations,” he claimed he “used Westlaw and FastCase and may have used artificial intelligence to draft the filing(s) but was not able to check the excerpts and citations. [Neusom’s] written response to the committee did not address the fabricated citations.”
The federal court also said Neusom dealt with the other side’s lawyers in a “wholly inappropriate and unprofessional manner” that featured yelling, phone call hang-ups and refusing to “provide any response to a simple request for valid legal authority.
“This unprofessional conduct has resulted in the filing of racketeering charges against opposing counsel in additional frivolous filings with the court after proceedings were remanded.”
The Middle District of Florida federal court suspended Neusom for a year.
Also, in 2018, while representing Hialeah’s A Plus Lamination & Finishing as it was about to be evicted for missing a payment, Neusom filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition on behalf of A Plus owner Nubia Perez. The petition said Perez was a small business debtor who did business as “A Plus Lamination & Finishing” as a fictitious name.
But Neusom knew what state records state — A Plus is a registered Florida corporation, not a fictitious name. Perez, the individual, and A Plus, the corporation, are separate entities.
“Despite [Neusom] filing bankruptcy on behalf of Perez and NOT A Plus, [Neusom] contacted Desiree Lindsay, an employee of the Landlord, and Joseph Colletti, Counsel for Landlord, and advised them both that he had filed a bankruptcy petition on behalf of A Plus,” the referee’s report said.
This sent Colletti to the court handling the eviction, saying A Plus had filed for bankruptcy protection. The court put the eviction on hold.
At a meeting of creditors a month later, “Neusom and Perez admitted the bankruptcy petition was filed to stop the eviction action,” the referee’s report said. “[Neusom] knew or should have known that filing the petition as a delay tactic was improper.”
Neusom was suspended from U.S. bankruptcy courts for a year.
His two-year suspension from the Florida Bar starts Feb. 15.
Wesley Terry, Fort Lauderdale
Trying to keep his family being from being destroyed by a trio of crises occupied Fort Lauderdale’s Wesley Terry (admitted in 2005) in 2020, according to the mitigation part of his guilty plea for consent judgment.
During that time, Terry got paid $3,000 to handle a divorce, didn’t “take significant action” and left his client in the dark. After being tardy answering the client’s bar grievance, Terry refunded the $3,000.
Another client dropped a $900 deposit on Terry to deal with a student loan problem in the client’s bankruptcy. Again, Terry did little with the case and didn’t keep the client informed. He would be suspended for three days for contempt when he was late answering Bar questions.
Terry served a 20-day suspension that ended Jan. 16.
This story was originally published February 6, 2025 at 7:48 AM.
