Misused money and child sex abuse material charges get Miami metro attorneys disciplined
Misappropriated funds, a misplaced rant, child sex abuse material accusations and no response to client accusations put Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Coral Gables lawyers on the monthly Florida Bar list of attorneys disciplined by the state Supreme Court.
In alphabetical order...
Hector Acosta Carillo, Jr., Miami
A Miami Herald story from Wednesday described why a Florida Bar auditor thinks Hector Acosta (admitted to the Florida Bar in 2019) misappropriated $10,040 and used the money ”for his personal benefit.”
Acosta has been put under emergency suspension.
READ MORE: Miami attorney suspended after a Florida Bar auditor says $10,000 was misappropriated
Jose Font, Fort Lauderdale
Most attorney motions to withdraw from a case come in under five pages. Motions to withdraw from Jose Font, the first name in Fort Lauderdale’s Font & Nelson, took 189 pages — 13 pages of motion and 176 pages of attachments. And, the report from Judge Melanie Surber says, Font filed those motions in about 700 cases around the state involving Southern Fidelity Property & Casualty.
In the motions, Font accused three attorneys of various conspiracies against him and the insurance industry.
Font referred to “[a] group of lawyers (“Conspirators”) that represent insureds (who often time have prearranged referral agreements with large scale criminal enterprises that they maintain a business relationship with) in claims that almost invariably proved frivolous and/or fraudulent, and therefore sought to gain an unfair, deceptive, immoral and/or unethical advantage by way of misconduct…”
Font also included attachments about those lawyers and other lawyers from their firms, even if those attorneys had nothing to with that particular case.
Font’s 189-page motion to withdraw from Broward County case Estil vs. Southern Fidelity Property & Casualty included the request by a lawyer unaffiliated with the case for a temporary restraining order against Font.
That same attorney testified to Surber that after Font subpoenaed her for a hearing on a case she had nothing to do with, “she did not get called to the stand until the second day of the hearing and, after five minutes, the judge questioned why she was there...”
Surber found Font guilty of attorney acts that are “unlawful or contrary to honesty and justice;” “prejudicial to the administration of justice;” that “embarrass, delay or burden a third person;” of making claims that aren’t “meritorious;” making a frivolous pretrial discovery request; and violating the rules of professional conduct.
Surber recommended a two-year suspension. The state Supreme Court disagreed and sidelined Font for three years.
Font’s suspended until Nov. 29, 2026.
Pedro A Gonzalez, Miami
A grievance committee finding of contempt shows an April 12, 2023, Florida Bar letter to SMGQ founding partner Pedro “Peter” Gonzalez (admitted in 1994) notifying Gonzalez of a Bar complaint filed against him by a former client. The Bar wanted Gonzalez’s answer by April 27. After not getting what it wanted, the Bar sent a second letter to Gonzalez on May 3 that demanded an answer by May 15.
On that day, Gonzalez emailed the Bar that he’d come back to Miami from a trip out of state to learn of the Bar complaint. He requested and received a 10-day extension.
“Once the facts missing from the Bar complaint are provided to the Bar, I am confident the Bar will dismiss this frivolous complaint and take no further action,” Gonzalez wrote in the May 15 email.
But, come May 25, Gonzalez emailed that he needed at least another 20 days after a COVID-19 infection left him “unable to do much, including return to my office to review this file to prepare a response” and a lawyer he was considering hiring hadn’t been able to meet with him about the matter.
Again, Gonzalez claimed his coming reply, “will refute the alleged facts asserted in the complaint, provide additional facts that are deliberately missing from the complaint, and provide the rest of the story and the context needed for the Bar to dismiss the complaint and take no further action in this matter.”
Alas, Gonzalez filed no reply at all. Well, no reply to the actual complaint. To the Bar, after a June 28 letter requesting a response by July 10, Gonzalez asked for and got another extension on July 11 “based on your representations that on or about June 22, 2023, you injured your knee and then had to have surgery.”
The docket on Gonzalez’s discipline case shows no response by Dec. 12, which is when the state Supreme Court ruled him in contempt. Unless Gonzalez files a full response to the Bar complaint, his suspension will start Thursday and will last until he files that response.
James Leano, Miami
Last week, a Miami Herald article detailed the case of James Leano (admitted in 1998), under emergency suspension since Nov. 30 after a Florida Bar auditor’s investigation said he misappropriated over $26,500 of a client’s settlement.
READ MORE: A Miami attorney ‘misappropriated’ $26,500 of a client’s settlement, Florida Bar says
William McCaughan, Coral Gables
William McCaughan (admitted in 2007), formerly of Coral Gables’ The Morgan Group, pulled the disciplinary revocation lever after being indicted on receipt of child pornography and attempted receipt of child pornography charges in Miami federal court.
Disciplinary revocation, “tantamount to disbarment” as the state Supreme Court says, means the Bar discipline case goes away and the lawyer is no longer a member of the Bar for at least five years. It has no effect on any criminal or civil cases.
If McCaughan isn’t convicted, he can reapply for Bar membership on Jan. 14, 2028.
READ MORE: Key Biscayne resident asked to be disbarred while facing child porn charges
Paul Silverberg, Fort Lauderdale
Paul Silverberg (admitted in 1998) got a 91-day suspension in 2020 for lying to a court about his availability for hearings and loose staff supervision.
While Silverberg was suspended, a former client desiring a fee refund went back and forth via email with Silverberg over the refund and a release. Silverberg also exchanged emails with his former law firm about communication with that client.
Doing that while suspended counts as violating the suspension, which Silverberg admitted in his guilty plea.
Also, Silverberg admitted a trust account problem from before he was suspended. During a business purchase by a client, he held $23,000 of client funds in escrow in a SunTrust trust account in April 2016. But when the matter was settled in April 2018 and Silverberg wrote his client the check for $21,221.22 (the escrow funds minus fees), he did so from the Citibank operating account.
The SunTrust trust account should’ve had at least $23,000 from April 2016 until April 2018. But a Bar review, Silverberg’s guilty plea said, “revealed that for a period of time in 2017, the SunTrust trust account did not have the full $23,000 deposited.”
Silverberg says he made the mistake of thinking he’d put the escrow funds in the firm’s Citibank trust account “which had significant trust account balances at all times material.”
Silverberg agreed to a 91-day suspension, which will end on March 13.
