Florida People

Highlights from the Florida Bar January 2024 discipline summaries

Jose Pete Font, 200 S. Andrews Ave., Suite 501, Ft. Lauderdale, suspended for three years effective 30 days from October 30 court order. (Admitted to practice: 2004) In his capacity as managing partner, Font authored motions to withdraw as counsel containing disparaging information about other attorneys, and subsequently authorized the filing of hundreds of those motions in various courts. (Case No. SC20-0693)

Mark Edwin Heimendinger, 1034 Long Branch Lane, Oviedo, suspended for two years effective immediately following December 21 court order. (Admitted to practice: 2016) On or about August 25, 2023, Heimendinger entered a plea of no contest to Aggravated Assault and Carrying Concealed Firearm, both third degree felonies, and Improper Exhibition of a Dangerous Weapon and Battery, both first degree misdemeanors. The trial court sentenced Heimendinger on the two felony counts to five years of probation and on the misdemeanor counts to two days of imprisonment with credit for two days time served. (Case No. SC23-1224)

William Power McCaughan, Jr., 55 Merrick Way, Suite 402, Coral Gables, disciplinary revocation with leave to seek readmission after five years, effective 30 days following a December 14 court order. (Admitted to practice: 2007) The court granted McCaughan’s petition for disciplinary revocation, which McCaughan tendered following his indictment on federal criminal charges. (Case No. SC23-1541)

Yahoo! News reported on the McCaughan matter

The court granted William McCaughan, Jr.’s request for disciplinary revocation, so, as of Jan. 13, the former attorney for Coral Gables’ The Morgan Group will be disbarred for at least five years. McCaughan, 41, can apply for Bar readmission on Jan. 14, 2028. In return, the Florida Bar’s professional discipline case against McCaughan stemming from the criminal case goes away.

This doesn’t affect the criminal charges, receipt of child pornography and attempted receipt of child pornography. A criminal complaint authored by FBI Special Agent Timothy Augustyniak said the trail to the door of McCaughan’s one-bedroom Key Biscayne apartment building started in Texas.

The criminal complaint says an FBI “Online Covert Employee” (OCE) began messaging with “caseyporter18” on Kik, a messaging app without parental controls that shows up regularly in child pornography cases. After that Kik user sent the OCE an explicit video of his 11-year-old niece, the complaint says, the FBI tracked the username to a “C.L.” in Texas. The complaint says C.L. told investigators he also sent that video to Kik user “wmccaugh.”

A check of C.L.’s phone, the complaint said, turned up conversations between C.L. and “wmccaugh” from Dec. 19, 2022 to Jan. 20, 2023 and indications C.L. had sent “wmccaugh” child sex abuse material.

The complaint said “wmccaugh” told C.L., “I liked that video of that girl grinding on the edge of the bathtub. How old do you think she was?…She looked like she was 11-13” and “I delete everything after a day or two. I get paranoid about my phone getting lost and someone looking through it or something like that.”

The complaint also said “wmccaugh’ “listed a variety of sexual acts he wanted to perform on C.L.’s niece.”

Later, in online conversation with another OCE on Kik, the complaint says “wmccaugh” accepted an offer of “mega links” to “yung naked pics and vids.” The OCE sent a link to filenames that indicate child sex abuse of 3-year-olds, but give error messages when clicked upon by a user.

The complaint says “wmccaugh” said the links didn’t work and they were out of his age range, which he later clarified as “8 and up.” He later told the OCE, the complaint says, that he’d be happy with an invitation to one of the Kik groups with people who exchange child sex abuse material and “if you get any 8-14, I’d appreciate any of it.”

Finding “wmccaugh”

A subpoena served on MediaLab, Kik’s owner, turned up records that said “wmccaugh” was registered to user “L S” and email address kbnddc@yahoo.com. Another subpoena, the complaint said, found records saying “John Smith” was that account’s registered user.

’‘The subpoena results also provided several IP addresses associated with the “wmccaugh’‘ Kik account,” the complaint said.

Subpoening AT&T for subscriber information on the accounts, the complaint said, turned up subscriber information for one of the IP addresses. The address was used “almost daily” by the “wmccaugh” Kik account during the conversations with C.L. and during the conversations with the two OCEs until May 23.

The AT&T subscriber information said the service address was an apartment in a Key Biscayne condominium building, the same address that had been on McCaughan’s driver’s license since at least April 2018. Investigators say they saw McCaughan answer the door there on June 1 and, when they hit the place with search warrants on July 28, he said he was the lone resident.

Henry Neil Portner, 5256 S. Mission Road, Suite 203, Bonsall, CA, permanent disciplinary revocation effective 30 days following a December 21 court order. (Admitted to practice: 1991) Portner was affiliated with different entities representing consumers seeking to end their timeshare contracts. Fees were taken for services that proved to be unsuccessful on a large-scale basis. These attempts were also challenged by the timeshare entities, which brought litigation in various courts throughout the country, as well as investigations done by government agencies into the practices of the entities. Portner and the entities entered into various stipulations to cease their practices in the pending litigations. Portner did not comply with the stipulations. (Case No. SC23-1227)

A reciprocal matter from Ohio

Brittany D. O’Diam, 8039 Washington Village Drive, Suite 110, Centerville, OH, public reprimand and ordered to attend a professionalism workshop and ethics school effective January 14, 2024. (Admitted to practice: 2011)  This is a reciprocal discipline. O’Diam was hired to represent the executrix in a probate matter. One of the beneficiaries to the estate expressed concerns about the judge assigned to the case at a public commissioner meeting. In response, O’Diam berated the beneficiary in open court. The judge assigned to the case was O’Diam’s father. (Case No. SC23-1300)

(Mike Frisch)