‘People who hated him loved him.’ Alex Michaels, combative Miami defense lawyer, dies at 71

Alexander Michaels was never afraid to challenge authority.

Born and raised in Romania, he was once jailed as an anti-Communist dissident. Years later in Miami, he forged a legacy as a combative defense attorney, irritating judges and prosecutors with snide comments and objections, mischievously winking at spectators in the gallery. His style sometimes got him into trouble. He was put on probation or jailed at least three times over the years because of courtroom confrontations.

But Michaels — who died Monday at age 71 of suspected heart failure — was known as a relentless fighter for his clients, many charged in violent crimes.

“His life was dedicated to the not-so-wealthy, to fight with everything he had for their freedom, and to make sure they got a fair shake,” said his longtime friend, lawyer Fred Moldovan. “Having been a political prisoner, it was important to him. He really believed in freedom and justice.”

Over the years, Michaels even befriended prosecutors he often sparred with in the courtroom.

“What made Alex such a good friend was beneath the bluster was an extraordinarily kindhearted and generous and decent man,” said attorney and friend Phil Reizenstein. “Legions of young lawyers who might be having a bad day in court, he would come up to them and whisper encouragement — and that includes prosecutors.”

Michaels was born Alexander Micalescu, on Aug. 18, 1950, in the mountain town of Sinaia, Romania. Raised in Bucharest, the country’s capital, Michaels earned a law degree but was later imprisoned under the Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu.

“I was such a pain in the neck, they took away my citizenship and gave me 30 days to leave,” Michaels would later tell the Herald.

Michaels eventually ended up in New York City in 1980, where he made ends meet by hustling — playing high-money games of chess and backgammon in parks. He also changed his last name to the similar sounding Michaels.

He earned a law degree at the University of Florida. In the early 1980s, then-Dade State Attorney Janet Reno hired him as a prosecutor. He impressed Ted Mastos, then a circuit court judge, who remembered presiding over a trial with Michaels.

“His accent was so heavy that the jurors asked the bailiff if we could get a Romanian interpreter,” Mastos said. “I told the jurors to do the best that they could — and he won the case.”

Michaels eventually went into private practice as a defense lawyer, all while dealing with personal tragedy. His wife, Diane Michaels, battled ovarian cancer — the family had no health insurance, and Michaels paid for her treatments. She died in 1996.

“My dad was working tirelessly to help. He wanted her to live,” said his son, Jacob Michaels, 31.

Over the years, Michaels worked at a frenetic pace, accepting cases big and small.

Among his high-profile clients: Andy Rodriguez, a Coral Gables High student who stabbed a classmate to death; and Baron Colon, a former MTV reality-show contestant accused of killing an artist during a robbery. Michaels lost the cases at trial.

But Michaels had many successes, many of them well before trial.

He represented Demarcus Alexander, who was accused of murdering a Florida corrections officers and her toddler son; prosecutors dropped the case. He also represented Marvin Rogers, who is a suspect in the murder of 8-year-old Jada Page; he hasn’t been charged in that case, but Michaels represented him for a separate attempted murder case that fizzled.

Michaels also represented Alex Paez, a bodybuilder who was accused of mistreating horses on his South Miami-Dade ranch. Michaels received threats from animal lovers all over the world, but wound up with a good result: Paez got probation in exchange for agreeing to give up owning horses.

“Shakespeare wrote: ‘A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!’ My client did just that — he gave up his kingdom for a horse,” Michaels said.

In trial, Michaels excelled at skewering witnesses. In a 2016 murder trial, Michaels was so relentless in cross-examining the key eyewitness that the man refused to answer any more questions on the stand — the judge wound up issuing an acquittal because of the incomplete testimony.

Karen Ruiz, an attorney who worked often with Michaels, recalled another murder trial in which a mistrial was declared after Michaels’ intense cross-examination of the chief eyewitness. The client, insisting he was innocent, rejected a generous plea offer — and prosecutors dropped the murder case.

“It was after he tore apart the testimony of the main witness they had, the state in good faith could not go and do another trial,” Ruiz said.

His penchant for theatrics — and confrontations — became lore at Miami’s Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building, where he was sometimes called “The Mad Romanian.”

In 1994, cops arrested him on disorderly conduct and “sanitary nuisance” charges. The reason: He smoked inside the building and left the butt in a coffee cup on the floor. Michaels was acquitted.

Six years later, Michaels earned an acquittal for a man accused of robbing an off-duty county police officer in Liberty City. But while his client walked out of jail free, Michaels lost — then-Circuit Judge Leslie Rothenberg became the third judge to find him guilty of contempt. He got six months of probation.

“He does damage to the case by blurting things he shouldn’t in trial,” Rothenberg said. “Every judge says it’s about time somebody did something. He’s got a problem.”

Michaels, for his part, didn’t back down.

“She told me, ‘I’m a bad boy.’ I told her, ‘You have a reputation, too — you’re biased, a prosecutor on the bench,’ ” Michaels told the Herald.

By 2003, Michaels found himself in jail, charged with a series of misdemeanors after cops said he threatened to break a prosecutor’s finger, threatened a Hialeah cop and called a witness a “bitch.” Michaels denied all the allegations — he insisted he called the witness “rich” — and got probation after being convicted of one count.

Michaels’ career, however, was derailed in 2013 after he was sentenced to two days for contempt of court for a series of tirades, including cursing in front of a judge in Romanian. After years of appeals and other legal wrangling, the Florida Supreme Court in 2019 wound up suspending Michaels for six months and ordering him to probation.

In recent years, he’d also been in poor health. Days before his death, he was admitted to a rehabilitation center to deal with weakness in his legs. He was later transferred to Aventura Hospital, where he died suddenly of suspected heart failure.

News of his death spread quickly in Miami-Dade courtrooms and on Miami’s Justice Blog. A jail inmate, crying hysterically, called Michaels’ office to say even people behind bars were shaken up, his son said.

“The whole entire justice system in Dade County was affected,” Jacob Michaels said. “People who hated him loved him because he was a fighter and he fought to the end.”

A viewing for Michaels will be held on Dec. 17 at Caballero Rivero Southern, 15011 W. Dixie Highway, between noon and 2 p.m. The funeral service will follow immediately.

This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 11:00 AM.