Child porn, DUI, trust account shenanigans get Miami metro area lawyers in trouble
The monthly Florida Bar discipline report, which came out Thursday, contains only eight attorneys but five are from Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Before the listing of those lawyers, here’s something to explain the terminology used below for those unfamiliar with the process.
Attorney discipline cases aren’t criminal cases, but there are similarities.
The Florida Bar has a lawyer, just as prosecutors represent the state in a criminal case. The lawyer being accused of violating ethical rules usually is represented by a different attorney. The lawyer can enter a guilty plea, which often happens. If the lawyer doesn’t do that, the case might go to a trial-like event, but it’s more akin to a bench trial than of a jury trial. Each side will present testimony before a judge who is called “a referee.”
The referee will create a report that discusses the credibility of each witness, what charges have been proved, mitigating and aggravating factors in decided a recommended punishment and stating a recommended punishment. The state Supreme Court can accept or reject the report and/or the recommendations. The accused lawyer can challenge the referee’s report.
In alphabetical order...
Kevan Boyles, West Palm Beach
Kevin Boyles was admitted to the Bar in 1979 and got a year’s suspension in 2016, not for ambulance chasing but more grave hunting.
According to his guilty plea, in 2010, Boyles asked the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles for a list of all fatal crashes in 2009. Once he got the list, Boyles took note of which ones resulted in wrongful death lawsuits and/or if probate estates had been opened. If neither was the case, he got the traffic crash reports to learn whether or not such claims could be made.
“In such cases, he wrote to the various insurance companies that were set forth on the requested crash reports and requested insurance information...despite that he was not a claimant and did not represent a claimant,” his guilty plea said. “In these letters to the insurance companies, he included the following, “P.S. Please also advise if any claim has been made or paid as a result of the above referenced occurrence.””
After getting that information, Boyles garnered death certificates.
“Utilizing the information obtained from the crash reports and the death certificates, [Boyles] filed Petitions for Administration in 12 matters requesting he be appointed the Personal Representative, alleging he was an interested person pursuant to Florida Statute,” Boyles’ guilty plea said. “In 15 matters, [Boyle] filed complaints for wrongful death.”
But, Boyles “had no communications with the respective decedent’s survivors and no authority from them prior to filing these matters,” his guilty plea said.
Boyles said he just wanted to get the action going before any Statute of of Limitations runs out. But, his plea admitted, “In some of the wrongful death actions where he wasn’t the personal representative, he didn’t have a client but told the court he represented the personal representative.”
Boyles got suspended for a year on April 23, 2016. He opened a business while suspended in which he’s operate “in a fiduciary capacity as Trustee or Personal Representative,” the referee’s report said.
But when it came time for reinstatement, the Bar opposed it. Boyles had written checks from five trust accounts in violation of a rule that stated a suspended attorney couldn’t receive, disburse, or otherwise handle trust funds or property...”
The state Supreme Court denied Boyles’ reinstatement. But, the referee’s report said, Boyle kept doing what he was doing, writing over 50 checks.
On Dec. 17, 2019, the referee’s report said, Boyles wrote a pile of checks to himself, usually for “trustee fees and costs:” $3,452.09 from the Michael A. Jimenez Trust; $5,943.07 from the David L. Ellwood Special Needs Trust; $15,359.40 from the Alicia Van Auken Special Needs Trust; $1,457.65 from the Vera Ann Stuive Special Needs Trust; two checks, for $5,001.85 and $450 from the Bonita May Brozovsky Trust; and $1,577 from the John L. Dolphin Family Trust.
The referee, Broward County Court Judge Ellen Meg Feld, wrote that Boyles “issued checks for funds that did not belong to him. The funds were located in six separate trust accounts which belonged to six beneficiaries. At least two of the beneficiaries were his former clients when he was a lawyer in good standing.
“[Boyles] had absolute control of the funds as an authorized signer. Since the funds did not belong to [Boyles], the funds were in the form of trust funds and the rule prohibited [Boyles] from disbursing or otherwise handling the funds. The rule did not require that the funds be located in a lawyer’s trust account for the rule to apply.”
Boyles, Judge Feld said, also lied to the Bar earlier in the discipline process and stayed on that lie.
Boyles was disbarred on Nov. 14.
Michael Dolce, West Palm Beach
Online court dockets say Michael Dolce (admitted in 1995) will be sentenced Dec. 18 in West Palm Beach federal court after pleading guilty to what appears to be one count of sexual exploitation and other abuse of children. The criminal complaint charging Dolce, 54, with possession of child pornography accused him of having 2,000 videos and photos of child sexual abuse.
READ MORE: South Florida attorney who fought against sexual abuse caught with child porn, feds say
Five days before his Oct. 4 guilty plea, Dolce applied by disciplinary revocation without leave for readmission. Disciplinary revocation means the professional discipline case goes away and the attorney, essentially, is disbarred. Usually, lawyers apply for disciplinary revocation with leave for readmission in five years. Dolce’s not doing that.
John Jenkins, Fort Lauderdale
Jerry Kaplan, treasurer of Delray Beach company Stealth Supply, filed a complaint with the Florida Bar on March 15 that claimed he had “made numerous attempts to contact Mr. Jenkins in the last several months via telephone (both his Fort Lauderdale and New York City offices), email and text. I have left over 30 messages with his answering service, voicemail and receptionist. I have NOT received any response from Mr. Jenkins or anyone else from his office.
“Whereas, the case that Stealth Supply, Inc. hired Mr. Jenkins to handle is almost on the calendar for trial, Stealth Supply was forced to hire another attorney to represent us. Furthermore, our new counsel informed us that Mr. Jenkins filed the Complaint for an incorrect amount of money due from the Defendant.”
The Bar appeared to have the same trouble contacting Jenkins (admitted in 2012). An affidavit from Bar investigator John Berrena said other than a May 29 email from Jenkins, who is also called “Spencer,” asking Berrena to call the next day, Jenkins didn’t return messages or emails.
Jenkins didn’t respond to the Bar or to the notification that his ghosting of the Bar would be elevated to the Grievance Committee. Then again, he also didn’t respond to a March civil lawsuit in Broward County from former client Peter Mullins. Mullins said the Jenkins Law Firm kept him so in the dark about a case, he didn’t know a judgment had been entered against him until he went to finish a real estate deal and found a lien against the real estate.
A jury awarded Mullins $234,000 in September. He’s still licensed in New York, although he was supposed to re-register in June. No database shows Jenkins death, but the Florida Supreme Court has suspended him, making him dead as a lawyer until he answers the Bar.
Joseph Sorce, Coral Gables
Causing a head-on collision with a blood alcohol content almost twice the legal limit — and the ensuing guilty plea to four charges, including cocaine possession — got construction lawyer Joseph Sorce (admitted in 1984) suspended for two years.
READ MORE: Fort Lauderdale area DUI gets Miami area attorney suspended
Thomas Wenzel, Plantation
Thomas Wenzel (admitted in 2013) is hte managing attorney of Steinger, Greene and Feiner’s personal injury protection department.
“In four separate cases, [Wenzel] did not comply with court orders to mediate within 105 days,” Wenzel’s guilty plea says.
Wenzel will get a public reprimand. Also, he’ll be required to attend the Bar’s professionalism workshop and submit to a review by the Diversion/Discipline Consultation Service.
