Florida Roundup

The Florida Bar News has its May 2017 discipline summaries that includes a sanction for misconduct in the attorney’s divorce

Gregory Alan Crutchfield, 5575 U.S. Highway 1, Rockledge, suspended for 30 days, effective February 11, following a February 2 court order. (Admitted to practice: 1994) Further, Crutchfield is ordered to attend ethics school. Crutchfield filed a motion in his marital dissolution proceeding making allegations about his former wife. Crutchfield was later called as a witness in an unrelated matter involving the former wife and questioned about the allegations. He testified that they were “overstated and misguided.” Crutchfield denied intentionally making false statements and blamed his perception on stress, heartbreak, and lack of sleep. In a second matter, Crutchfield made inappropriate and unprofessional comments to a client, while representing her in a serious criminal matter. (Case No. SC16-1655)

And 

Marlon Alphanso Smikle, 709 Secret Harbor Lane, Unit 307, Lake Mary, disbarred effective immediately, following a February 9 court order. (Admitted to practice: 2014) Smikle pleaded no contest in circuit court to practicing law without a license, a felony. He had been suspended previously in October 2015 for three years for his plea of no contest to the third-degree felony of conspiracy to introduce contraband into a county correctional facility. (Case Nos. SC15-2317 & SC16-949)

The Orlando Sentinel reported on the contraband case. 

Smikle was arrested March 13, two weeks after he bought an iPhone 6 at a Sanford AT&T store and later that day went to the Seminole County Jail and spent seven minutes with client Donald Heflin Mitchell Jr., 38, a longtime con man from Jacksonville, according to court records.

The phone Smikle bought had the same serial number as an iPhone 6 that county corrections officers found Mitchell clutching in his armpit as they searched him March 6.

A week before Smikle bought the phone, jail authorities recorded a phone call between him and Mitchell in which the inmate told Smikle, “You have to listen, we need a no-contract six,” according to court records.

During the call, Mitchell also said he needed a phone charger, records show. When officers searched him and his cell, they also found an iPhone charger inside a sock, a Bluetooth ear device inside a pair of thermal leggings and a multiphone charger.

The Florida Record reports on some of the dispositions in depth

Teddy Sliwinski, a Florida licensed attorney practicing in Cleveland, Ohio, has been disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court. 

The order was a result of the attorney’s alleged frequent misappropriation of client funds and usage of those funds to pay for his personal expenses. 

Sliwinski stole money through a trust he set up under false pretenses and created several phony corporations to make payments to out of his client’s estates to give the illusion he was handling their affairs, according to Florida Supreme Court documents. When questioned about the nature of the trust, Sliwinski allegedly claimed that the funds were all “donations” from clients. 

Sliwinski used the stolen money to pay for upgrades to his farmhouse and to a Florida condo, the Cleveland.com report states. The attorney exercised power of attorney to steal “$150,000 from the estate of Jane Awin, a deceased Polish immigrant, and $90,000 from Edward Cook, a disabled Korean War veteran who lived off his military pension,” according to the report.

A criminal court in Ohio convicted Sliwinski to over two years in prison. He was also ordered to pay $327,000 in restitution to the clients or their estates.

Sliwinski was admitted to the Ohio State Bar in 1976 and was admitted to the Florida State Bar in October 2003. He is a graduate of Cleveland State University Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. He has been disciplined several times in Ohio but has no prior record in Florida. Sliwinski has resigned from the practice of law in Ohio. The attorney was once a candidate to be the United States Ambassador to Poland but did not get the nomination. 

Also this case

The Florida Supreme Court recently ruled to publicly reprimand Fort Lauderdale attorney Anthony Joseph Alfero in light of the disparaging remarks he made to opposing counsel in a divorce proceeding. 

Over the course of the proceedings, Alfero sent several pleadings and correspondence to opposing counsel which contained statements meant to “embarrass, belittle and humiliate” her, according to the court’s consent judgement. The document lists examples of the harassment and specified two instances in April 2015 and May 2015 when he allegedly told the woman that she was “ignorant” and advised her to “get a dictionary.” Alfero also criticized her legal abilities and called the attorney “a liar.”

(Mike Frisch)