Florida lawyer ghosted clients, including one in Miami. His license has been revoked

Something seemed off-kilter when a Florida defense lawyer asked a federal judge in Miami to delay his client’s sentencing the day before the hearing in a health-insurance fraud case.

The client showed up in court, but her lawyer didn’t.

Then, U.S. District Judge Donald Graham lost his cool when he discovered that Tampa attorney Benjamin Waldo Buck Jr. had abandoned her after an August 2022 criminal trial.

“Are you saying that since the trial ended you have not met with Mr. Buck regarding the Pre-sentence Investigation Report?” an incredulous Graham asked the defendant in late October.

“No, not at all,” Jaroslava Ruiz responded, saying she went through the process with the probation office on her own.

Graham instantly assigned a seasoned defense lawyer to her Miami case and threatened to hold the no-show Buck in contempt of court. What the judge didn’t know was that Buck had been ghosting clients like Ruiz all over the state, generating more than 30 complaints with the Florida Bar, including allegations of keeping clients’ fees after dropping them. Last Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court revoked Buck’s license for five years — after he had voluntary agreed to surrender it, but then withdrew his motion. The Florida Bar called his reversal “a blatant abuse of the legal process and misrepresentation to this court.”

On Tuesday, Graham finally held Ruiz’s sentencing hearing, giving her four years and four months in prison for conspiring with others at a Miami-area medical clinic that submitted tens of millions of dollars in false healthcare claims to private insurance companies.

But after the longtime federal judge dealt with her punishment, Graham considered whether to hold Buck, her former defense lawyer, in contempt for failing to show up at her original sentencing hearing last October. Graham, who has served on the federal bench in South Florida for 32 years, said he had never seen such misconduct by a lawyer in his courtroom. “Frankly, I was shocked that a lawyer didn’t appear for sentencing,” he told Buck.

Buck apologized profusely, saying he couldn’t attend Ruiz’s sentencing because he was representing another client in a criminal trial in another part of the state at the same time.

“I’m sorry again, your honor, for my failure to appear,” he said. “I should have been here.”

Rather than find Buck in contempt and possibly send him to jail, Graham instead ordered the disbarred lawyer to pay a $1,655.72 fine to Ruiz — representing the personal costs that she incurred while traveling to her original sentencing hearing from North Carolina, where she moved with her family.

After the contempt hearing Tuesday, Buck told the Miami Herald that he has been working as sole legal practitioner for seven years and took on too many clients all over Florida, creating scheduling conflicts that got him into trouble.

“I was never found to be ineffective,” Buck said in an interview. “I only had a problem with court dates on the calendar and having to be in different parts of the state.”

According to his listing on the Florida Bar web page, Buck graduated from Florida State University College of Law in 2015, obtained an advanced degree in taxation from the University of Miami School of Law, and was licensed to practice in state court, all three of Florida’s federal districts and the bankruptcy court in South Florida.

Buck represented Ruiz, a 51-year-old, former nurse in Cuba when she was charged with assisting a healthcare fraud scheme in 2021. The following year, she was convicted at trial of conspiring to commit healthcare and wire fraud at a local clinic that billed $34 million in false claims to private insurers such as Cigna and collected $7 million in profits between 2016 and 2020. Two other co-defendants pleaded guilty before trial, including one who testified against her.

At her sentencing on Tuesday, Ruiz’ new defense attorney, Frank Quintero, argued that she only participated for one year in the billing scheme for physical therapy and other services and made just $25,000 in profits, noting in court papers that “the only way for Ms. Ruiz to pay any restitution is for her to be gainfully employed as soon as possible.”

As a first offender, Ruiz faced a guideline sentence between five and six years, which was supported by Justice Department prosecutor Patrick Queenan, who called the clinic’s billing scheme “a sham, top to bottom.”

But Quintero strongly opposed that level of punishment. He asked Graham, the judge, to give Ruiz a sentence of two years and four months — the same as another convicted defendant who recruited her into the clinic. Another convicted defendant received about six years in prison. A fourth defendant is a fugitive who didn’t stand trial last year.

But Graham pointed out that the defendant who got the lesser sentence pleaded guilty and cooperated as a witness for the federal government.

Quintero also pointed out that Ruiz’s former attorney, Buck, gave her bad advice before trial, including telling her that as a naturalized U.S. citizen she could lose her citizenship if she pleaded guilty in a plea deal.

“It was complete misinformation,” Quintero said, noting that loss of citizenship only happens when someone is convicted of treason or lies about committing a crime on a naturalization application.

“He should have told her there was little to no chance that she would be denaturalized” if she pleaded guilty, Quintero told the judge, conceding that his argument was “accurate.”

Ruiz, a mother of two, apologized to the judge and her family, but she also faulted her former lawyer, Buck.

“I feel badly for being here and for not having an attorney who defended me,” she told Graham.

In court filings before Tuesday’s sentencing, Quintero attached copies of the Florida Bar and Supreme Court records showing their disciplinary actions against Buck, along with an online news story on his disbarment by First Coast News.

In a petition to revoke his law license, Florida Bar accused Buck of numerous violations in both state and federal courts, including failing to communicate with clients, represent defendants, pursue claims for plaintiffs, show up at court hearings and return clients’ fees after dropping them. Buck also was threatened with two contempt of court orders, including one from Graham, the federal judge in Ruiz’s case in Miami.

“Disciplinary revocation is tantamount to disbarment,” the Florida Supreme Court wrote in its five-year suspension order on Aug. 17, noting that it takes effect 30 days later “so that [Buck] can close out his practice and protect the interests of existing clients.”