Miami Divorce Attorney – Andrew Boros, Esq

In a legal drama that is delaying a dozen criminal trials — including two Death Penalty cases — a Miami-Dade court reporter was ordered arrested Wednesday after she failed to appear in court to explain why her firm can’t transcribe a slew of depositions.

The court reporter: Roseann McMahon, whose company had been employed from 2008 to 2011 to digitally record depositions for a state-funded law firm representing poor clients.

McMahon, of Fort Lauderdale, had been ordered to court three times over the past month, each time to no avail.

“I need to know a reason why Ms. McMahon is not here,” Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Bertila Soto, the chief criminal administrative judge, told her lawyer Wednesday. “The court is beginning to think she is never coming in and she is wasting everyone’s time. Has she considered that there are defendants who are sitting in custody because they can’t get transcripts?”

Soto ordered a “writ of bodily attachment” against McMahon, which allows Miami-Dade police officers to arrest her and bring her before the court. As of Wednesday night, McMahon was not in custody.

McMahon’s attorney, Albert Cartenuto, told

Read More...
Article source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/01/2619810/a-miami-dade-court-reporter-was.html

An electronic digest of media coverage of interest to members of The Florida Bar compiled each workday by the Public Information and Bar Services Department. Electronic links are only active in today’s edition. For information on previous articles, please contact the publishing newspaper directly.

Feb. 1, 2012

–The Florida Bar–

SUPREME COURT DISCIPLINES 31 ATTORNEYS– The Florida Bar, press release, http://www.floridabar.org, Jan. 31, 2012.
 The Florida Bar, the state’s guardian for the integrity of the legal profession, announces that the Florida Supreme Court, in court orders issued between Sept. 7 and Dec. 22, 2011, disciplined 31 attorneys, disbarring 12 and suspending 15. Some attorneys received more than one form of discipline. One attorney was placed on probation; four attorneys were publicly reprimanded and two attorneys were ordered to pay restitution.

–Judiciary–

FLAGLER BEACH RESIDENT REAPPOINTED AS JUDGE OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION CLAIMS– Daytona Beach News-Journal, http://www.news-journalonline.com, Feb. 1, 2012.
Judge Thomas G. Portuallo of Flagler Beach was reappointed Tuesday [Jan. 31] as a judge of compensation claims by Gov. Rick Scott. Portuallo, 50, has been a judge of workers’ compensation claims for the Daytona Beach region since 1996. “With 25 years’ experience in

Read More...
Article source: http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/PI/PINewsSummary.nsf/FV/6CD670E17818F44785257997005506A6

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – The U.S. Court of Appeals on 1/25/12 affirmed a lower court ruling on behalf of several Venezuelan government officials and businessmen accused of violating the U.S. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

“The appellate court determined that the allegations in the complaint, which alleged conduct occurring almost entirely in Venezuela, did not trigger U.S. jurisdiction,” said Miami attorney Michael Diaz, Jr. managing partner of the global law firm of Diaz Reus and Targ, LLP. Diaz led the firm’s defense team including partners Carlos F. Gonzalez and Gary Davidson.  

“This case was important because it tested the outer limits of a federal court’s jurisdiction to hear a RICO case based on conduct occurring almost entirely outside of the U.S.,” added Gonzalez.      

Gonzalez, who heads up the firm’s appellate practice, presented oral argument to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in December in the case filed by plaintiff Read More...
Article source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-court-of-appeals-affirms-dismissal-of-case-against-venezuelan-government-officials-and-businessmen-accused-of-violating-us-rico-statutes-138438449.html

An electronic digest of media coverage of interest to members of The Florida Bar compiled each workday by the Public Information and Bar Services Department. Electronic links are only active in today’s edition. For information on previous articles, please contact the publishing newspaper directly.

Jan. 31, 2012

–Legal Profession–

TAKE ‘ONE’ CHALLENGE TO ASSIST A CHILD– Jacksonville Daily Record, column, http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com, Jan. 30, 2012.
The guest column by Jacksonville Bar Association Adoption Section Co-chairperson Hope Iseley states: “The. . . ‘ONE’ [campaign] challenges each attorney to take one pro bono case to assist those in need . . . . As an attorney practicing in child-related matters, I observe on a daily basis that a large number of children are missing basic needs. . . . In routine dependency proceedings attorneys are present in court for the Department of Children and Families, the Guardian ad Litem and each parent. However, children are rarely ever represented by attorneys or given voices in court for themselves. If you are like me and your New Year’s resolution was a bust before the first week of the new year came to an end, then please join me in making

Read More...
Article source: http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/PI/PINewsSummary.nsf/FV/159715923F2BF91E8525799600545663

NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (WSVN) — New details have been released in the case of a child who was found by police naked and malnourished.

In court Monday, a Juvenile Court judge gave a verbal lashing to the Department of Children and Family for supposedly not catching the signs of abuse in the case of a 9-year-old boy.

Representatives with DCF spoke out Tuesday, defending their department, saying the 9-year-old boy has mental health problems and said a lot of his weight loss occurred in the last two weeks. “I’m in the process now of making sure that we know exactly what happened to this child,” said DCF spokesperon Esther Jacobo.

Photos were released in court of the boy, who weighed about 35 pounds. Police said they found him wandering the streets naked and his body covered in bruises.

In December, DCF said, they were called to a house in North Miami Beach to provide mental health services for the family. “The testimony in court was that the weight loss began about two weeks ago, after we were in the home,” said Jacobo.

Juvenile Court Judge Cindy Lederman called it an obvious sign of abuse. “This is like a neon sign

Read More...
Article source: http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/21006575217574/

Arturo Marrero, a Broward real estate developer, was acquitted by a federal judge Monday of conspiring to smuggle cigarettes from Miami to Europe without paying millions of dollars in customs duties.

Marrero, who had two jury trials in Miami federal court, called his experience a “legal nightmare.” One day after his uncommon victory, Marrero said he believes the U.S. attorney’s office and Immigration and Customs Enforcement tried to railroad him.

“How the government assumed that I was a co-conspirator is beyond me,” Marrero, 48, of Davie, said in a statement. “The sad part is that they will go on with their lives as if nothing happened, and my life has been turned upside down because the U.S. government made a mistake.”

In September, Marrero was charged with the smuggling conspiracy and later with money laundering.

The indictment accused him of trying to “enrich himself” by buying cigarettes overseas and hiding the cartons inside textiles and furniture stored in cargo containers at the Port of Miami before shipping them to Portugal, Ireland and Germany. He was further accused of falsifying records to conceal the cigarette shipments and

Read More...
Article source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/30/2616218/broward-businessman-cleared-of.html

An electronic digest of media coverage of interest to members of The Florida Bar compiled each workday by the Public Information and Bar Services Department. Electronic links are only active in today’s edition. For information on previous articles, please contact the publishing newspaper directly.

Jan. 30, 2012

–Legislature–

STORMS DEMANDS UNIFORMITY IN STATEWIDE COURT E-FILING– The Florida Bar News, http://www.floridabar.org, Feb. 1, 2012.
“I don’t drag my clothes out to a stream and beat them on a rock. I use a washing machine,” Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Brandon, told those gathered Jan. 12 at the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations. “We have to maximize the technology available to us,” said Storms, an attorney and teacher, when talking about e-filing. Just the day before, she said, clerks’ employees visited her office with complaints that e-filing is not going smoothly, and all 67 counties should get on the same page. Fred Baggett, general counsel of the Florida Association of Court Clerks, defended the progress made and the $3 million spent over the past two years to build the e-filing system for court documents. State Courts Administrator Lisa Goodner assured Storms that the Florida Court Technology

Read More...
Article source: http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/PI/PINewsSummary.nsf/FV/31C9D61EDF7101D88525799500556CF8