A Florida attorney used client money to pay a Mercedes dealer and LA Fitness, Bar says
AT&T, LA Fitness and a Mercedes dealership received money from a Longwood attorney before the clients to whom the money actually belonged, the Florida Bar said.
And, after a failed fight against the way the Bar got his law firm’s trust account and operating account records, 64-year-old Larry Powers Jr. gave up the fight altogether. Powers applied for disciplinary revocation, which was approved by the state Supreme Court in January.
“Disciplinary revocation is tantamount to disbarment,” the state Supreme Court says on all revocation approvals.
How disciplinary revocation works: The Bar discipline case goes away. In return, the attorney gets booted from the Bar for at least five years, usually with an allowance to reapply in five years. This has no effect on the criminal or civil cases arising from the attorney’s action investigated and prosecuted by the Bar.
Powers had been a Bar member since 1987. He’s received two reprimands in the 1990s, but no suspensions before the August emergency suspension after the Bar determined he misappropriated funds.
Powers, in an email to the Miami Herald, said he disagreed with the Bar auditor’s allegations and “No clients were harmed!”
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Where did the money go?
According to the Bar’s petition for emergency suspension, a July 2023 complaint by Florida Surgery Consultants (FSC) to the Bar claimed that Powers hadn’t sent payment for four clients’ medical treatments, though settlements had been reached. That October when the Bar reached out to Powers asking for the settlement, closing statements and his own trust account bank statements from July to October 2023.
Powers answered, “that he no longer had documents because the documents had been “purged,” after the files had been closed and the money had been disbursed in 2016 or earlier.”
But, the Bar said it found Powers filed the notice of voluntary dismissal — what’s filed when a case is settled — in October 2020 for a case involving one of the FSC patients, “J.O.” The Bar asked for that settlement’s paperwork on Jan. 17, 2024.
Powers emailed that “he did not deposit the settlement check in his trust account because the funds were minimal, and he provided the check directly to the client who was having financial problems,” the petition said. He “failed to provide any documentation regarding the settlement explanation.”
The Bar subpoenaed Powers trust account records from Jan. 1, 2020 through March 1, 2024 and on Regions Bank for his trust account records for the same period. Powers didn’t come across with former and the latter subpoena was what he later, unsuccessfully, argued against.
Florida Bar rules “authorized The Florida Bar to conduct a compliance audit. The subpoena in this case was signed by the chair of a grievance committee, and it stemmed from a report of trust account violations,” case referee, Judge William Loy Ruby wrote. “Furthermore, Rule Regulating Fla. Bar 3-7.11(d) authorizes the issuance of subpoenas for the production of documentary evidence.”
If Powers could’ve gotten the subpoena ruled illegal, the information in the bank records couldn’t be used to argue for his emergency suspension.
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The Bar said its audit of the bank records turned up a shortage of $49,714 that should’ve been held for three clients, J.O., “M.T.” and “T.S.”
The settlement check for J.O. that Powers described as being of “a minimal” amount was $100,000 and went into the trust account in October 2020. The only payment to J.O. was $25,000 that month.
Settlement checks worth $30,000 came for T.S. in October and December of 2020. No payments to T.S. were made through March 2021. The Bar petition said the same was true after settlement checks worth $20,000 came for M.T. came in December 2020.
“By March 19, 2021, the balance of the trust account was only $285.26,” the Bar petition said. “Almost the entire amount of the settlements [Powers] was required to be holding for clients J.O., T.S., and M.T. had left his trust account.”
When a bankruptcy judge ordered Powers to hand over M.T.’s $20,000 settlement check on Sept 23, 2021, the trust account balance was $8,788. A $20,000 cashier’s check from Powers’ wife went into the trust account on Oct. 7, the Bar petition said. The next day, M.T. got a $20,000 payment.
As of Apr. 6, 2023, Powers’ trust account balance was only $125.58. A $90,000 check from Powers’ wife’s account beefed up the trust account that day. T.S. got a $7,000 payment on July 24, 2023.
The Bar said Powers trust account records showed he “caused the shortage by making payments to unrelated clients and by withdrawing funds from the trust account, to which he was not entitled, and depositing them into his operating account.”
Highlighting a period from Mar. 4 to 19, 2021, the Bar said Powers “made seven withdrawals totaling $18,700 from the trust account and deposited the funds into his operating account to cover overdrafts, issue payroll checks, pay advertising expenses, pay AT&T, pay Mercedes-Benz of North Orlando, and pay LA Fitness.”
This story was originally published February 9, 2025 at 3:23 PM.
