Article Courtesy of The
Miami Herald
By David J. Neal
Published January 31, 2019
Though the last two discipline reports from the
Florida Bar included a relatively light combined total of 19 attorneys
combined, the stories behind the disbarments and suspensions have a
little more weight.
Lawyers victimized by fraud and lawyers who
participated in fraud. And attorneys who took the money and, if not ran,
disappeared, at least professionally.
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Golden Beach attorney Jeremy Alters,
admitted 1997 out of UM School of Law, jumped in the deep end of
trouble over improper transfers from Alters, Boldt, Brown, Rash and
Culmo’s trust account to the operating account. The Bar alleged that
forty-nine such transfers occurred, totaling approximately
$2,051,474.32, between September 2009 and December 2010. The Court
approved the Bar’s Petition for Emergency Suspension and suspended
Alters from the practice of law on December 28, 2011. The Referee
found that Alters should be reinstated because there was “no basis
to conclude that Alters had made or authorized the improper
transfers, and that no clients had been injured by the improper
transfers.” When the Florida Supreme Court reinstated Alters in
January 2012, the Bar filed another complaint alleging Alters
violated six Bar rules regarding the transfers. The Referee opined
that Alters not be further sanctioned, but that he pay the Bar’s
administrative costs ($1,250) while the Bar pays Alters’ legal
defense costs ($143,913.35). The Bar challenged everything in the
Referee’s Report but the ink and asked the State Supreme Court to
disbar Alters. The Court found the Referee improperly excluded
evidence that Alters lied about his personal tax status and called
the Referee’s Report “inadequate.” Not only did the Court find the
Referee came to “only the most basic conclusions from the summarized
testimony, and oftentimes has failed to make any findings regarding
undisputed evidence in the case,” but noted the findings of fact
were only four pages of the 71-page report. “It is inconceivable
that the facts of such a complicated case, which has taken years to
litigate and the record of which spans thousands of pages, could be
reduced to four pages.” The Court ultimately found that Alters
misappropriated client funds and “must be disbarred.”
The Bar’s auditor testified at the final hearing before the Referee
that in addition to funds slid straight to Alters, he used trust
fund money to cover firm expenses and overdrafts and personal
expenses. Among those personal expenses: Miami Heat tickets.
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Orlando’s Elizabeth Anderson, a Stetson
Law School graduate admitted in 2003, Stetson, has been suspended
since Nov. 7 for trust account shortages of $160,000, most of which
were in two accounts.
A bar audit found a shortage of $37,000 in the trust account at
Seaside Bank that The Anderson Law Group used for matters involving
Stoneybrook West Master Association.
“During her sworn statement on August 1, 2018, respondent admitted
to the shortage in her Seaside trust account and stated that she
would not have been able to pay the balances she owed to Stoneybrook
without obtaining either the loan from her parents or using funds
from her retirement account.” The Bar’s audit also revealed that
there was a shortage of at least $122,330.62 in another trust
account at Fairwinds Credit Union. From this account, the Bar says
in its Petition for Emergency Suspension, she used settlement funds
for a client to office rent, rent, herself, American Express, and
Florida Lawyers Mutual.
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