Why were these South Florida attorneys disbarred? Reasons include ignoring a suspension
Two disbarments and two suspensions of South Florida attorneys dot the most recent Florida Bar report of attorneys disciplined by the state Supreme Court.
In alphabetical order...
Andrean Eaton, North Miami Beach
Eaton (admitted to the Florida Bar in 1995) originally got suspended after bouncing a check from her law firm’s trust account and being tardy with the documentation when the Bar requested it. Her guilty plea said she “accidentally issued a check from the wrong checkbook (the trust account), triggering the overdraft.”
Between Eaton’s health issues and that she wasn’t trying to flim-flam anyone, the referee, 11th Judicial Circuit Judge Marcia Caballero, recommended a 10-day suspension. That was on March 21, 2019. On July 10, 2019, the state Supreme Court rejected Caballero’s report, disqualified her and kicked it back to the 11th Circuit for a new referee. It was assigned to Judge Ed Newman.
Newman recommended a 90-day suspension with six months’ probation, and the state Supreme Court went with that. During Eaton’s probation, a certified public accountant was to go over her firm’s trust account and report whether or not it complied with the rules governing such accounts.
When an attorney gets suspended, all clients, opposing counsel and tribunals need to be given a copy of the suspension order and the Bar gets a sworn affidavit with the names of and addresses of everyone who got a copy of that order.
The Bar said Eaton didn’t submit the contact information for the people and entities she contacted nor did she submit the CPA reports. It asked for another suspension, this one of 91 days. The state Supreme Court gave as asked.
Eaton’s 91-day suspension started Sept. 5.
Frederick Keitel III, Palm Beach
Most referee reports on a discipline case detail charges against an attorney; summarize the testimony; state the verdict; state case law precedents; state factors of recommended discipline; and recommend discipline, all in 10 to 15 pages.
Keitel’s referee report is 75 pages.
Keitel made sweeping allegations of case fixing, corruption and conspiracy involving judges, opposing parties, their lawyers and clients. The Bar accused him of “incivility and unprofessionalism by asking questions intended to humiliate and embarrass” a former business partner in a deposition. And, the Bar said, Keitel engaged in obstructionist behavior by thwarting, hindering and delaying discovery efforts” during depositions of his former bookkeeper.
Also, the Bar accused Keitel of recording a phone conversation without the other party’s consent (a violation of Florida law), then ignoring a bankruptcy court’s order not to spread the words said on that call.
Referees came and went on this case like “Law & Order” cast members. Judge Sandra Perlman voluntarily recused herself on July 19, 2018, three months after being appointed, eight days after Keitel filed his answer to the Bar accusations. Judge Mindy Solomon recused herself on Oct. 23, 2018, two weeks after appointment, when Keitel made a verbal motion to disqualify.
Judge Michele Towbin Singer recommended in an April 2, 2019, report that Keitel should be suspended until he complied with her March 2019 order that he get a mental health evaluation. On May 7, 2020, the state Supreme Court kicked the case back to Towbin Singer asking for findings of fact, guilt, acquittal and punitive suggestions within 90 days. Keitel made a motion to disqualify Towbin Singer and she recused herself on June 5, 2020.
Judge John J. Murphy III took over and was the referee for the five-day hearing last September.
Murphy found Keitel’s testimony “not credible” and opined that the lawyer “resorts to speculation and conjecture to convince [Murphy] that every adverse ruling was part of a conspiracy to sabotage him.”
▪ Keitel’s main target was the late Meenu Sasser, a judge in Florida’s 15th Judicial Circuit, who died of esophageal cancer in 2019.
“The evidence shows that [Keitel] filed 14 pleadings containing false, defamatory, reckless and disparaging accusations against Judge Meenu Sasser, accusing her of lying, case fixing, corruption and criminal conduct,” Murphy’s report said.
Murphy noted that Keitel never filed complaints with the state’s Judicial Qualifications Commission, the place to go if you believe there’s been judicial misconduct to a criminal level. Murphy ruled that Keitel’s accusations and “frivolous motions and lawsuits ... were designed to harass and intimidate judges who ruled unfavorably against him.”
▪ As to Keitel’s questions during the deposition of a former business partner, Murphy agreed with the Bar — a deposition about a case about foreclosure of notes shouldn’t include questions such as “Isn’t it true that you bring hookers in your wife’s bed when she’s out of town?”
▪ Keitel “assumed representation” of his former bookkeeper when she was subpoenaed in a case in which he was defendant, an obvious conflict of interest, and advised her against appearing for her depositions or bringing the requested documents.
▪ After Keitel illegally recorded a conversation with a former attorney without the attorney’s consent, a federal bankruptcy court ordered Keitel — twice — to keep those recordings to himself. Instead, he sent the recordings to two transcription services and quoted the records in motions and filings.
▪ When Keitel wasn’t happy with bankruptcy court rulings, he accused his former attorney, bankruptcy court judges, state court judges, lawyers, the Chapter 7 trustee and others of a “massive conspiracy” to “attack and discredit him and block “an investigation into threats, extortion, case fixing and corruption.”
The referee recommended “permanent disbarment.” The state Supreme Court disbarred Keitel on Aug. 12.
Roger Rathbun, Plantation
Back on Jan. 9, 2020, the state Supreme Court told Rathbun (admitted to practice in 2000) that on Feb. 8, 2020, he would start a three-year suspension for behavior toward opposing counsel that the referee in that case found threatening and/or vengeful.
So, what was Rathbun doing filing a charging lien notice on Feb. 26, 2020, and signing his name “Roger S. Rathbun, Esq.” with his Florida Bar number? Or acting as attorney while covering a mediation for attorney Dana Trowers on March 13, 2020?
That’s what the Bar wanted to know. It filed a petition for contempt.
According to the report by case referee, Florida 15th Circuit Judge Dina Keever-Agrama, Rathbun said he signed the charging lien, but said he did it “to protect possible creditor claims in his pending bankruptcy.” As for the mediation, he “claimed that he was “more of an interpreter” and that Trowers knew he was suspended.
Also, Rathbun told the referee, he didn’t knowingly practice law when he wasn’t supposed to. Besides, the attorney who represented him in the previous disciplinary hearing “advised him that he was allowed to practice law while a motion for rehearing of the suspension order was pending.”
The referee’s analysis of answers began with “The Referee finds that Respondent has not been candid in these disciplinary proceedings...”
Taking the last part first, Keever-Agrama pointed out that underlined in the state Supreme Court’s two-page suspension order is “The filing of a motion for rehearing shall not alter the effective date of this suspension.” So, for Rathbun to claim ignorance or that his attorney advised him him the flat-out opposite was true didn’t fly across the table.
As for the mediation, the referee’s report said, affidavits from the attorney for whom Rathbun was substituting and opposing counsel said Rathbun acted as an attorney, “held himself out as an attorney at the mediation” and he didn’t tell them about his suspension.
Taking into account that Rathbun had been suspended and she believed he flouted that suspension, then lied about doing so to her, Keever-Agrama recommended Rathbun be disbarred.
The state Supreme Court agreed. Rathbun has been disbarred since Aug. 12.
Peter Yanowitch, Coral Gables
According to Yanowitch’s guilty plea, Tatiana Ezhukova came to Yanowitch (admitted to the BAr in 1982) looking for someone to coordinate getting her piece of the marital asset pie in a divorce from “a well-financed and sophisticated international businessman.” Parts of that pie: a Canadian gold mine; pieces of Ecuadorian real estate; and a yacht, smaller boat and a Rolls Royce in Miami.”
Ezhukova paid Yanowitch $100,000 and wanted $15,000 applied to costs. Then, she paid another $20,000. Yanowitch was supposed to provide Ezhukova monthly invoices and she’d add to the retainer once $60,000 of the original $100,000 had been billed against.
Yanowitch “admits that he did not maintain the $15,000 earmarked for costs in trust. Instead, [Yanowitch] applied it to fees after [Yanowitch] asserts he learned that the Ecuadorian judgment obtained by the client was defective and incapable of being enforced in the United States.”
Also, Yanowitch’s guilty plea said he did other legal tasks to help with the Ecuadorian and Canadian parts of the divorce, but “admits that he did not provide monthly invoices; only one 35-page invoice was provided at the conclusion of the representation.”
Ezhukova thought Yanowitch’s charged an excessive fee and said if she’d been invoiced monthly, she’d have cut things off sooner. Yanowitch’s guilty plea said he only did the work that Ezhuokova and her Ecuadorian attorney asked and he warned her how hard and expensive his task was.
Still, Yanowitch admitted he violated Bar rules regarding complying with reasonable requests for information, explaining matters to a client, excessive fees, putting non-refundable free agreements in writing and application of trust funds for a specific purpose.
Yanowitch’s 90-day suspension began Sept. 4. He’s also ordered to repay Ezhukova $100,000 restitution.
