Lawyers

Judge: Permanently disbar all three lawyers involved in DUI setup

By Elaine Silvestrini

Three lawyers who orchestrated the DUI arrest of an adversary should receive a professional death sentence - permanent disbarment, a judge recommended Thursday.
“This malicious tampering with another person’s personal life and career was not only unprofessional, it was inexcusable,” Judge W. Douglas Baird wrote in his withering opinion, capping a scandal that titillated Tampa with a flirtatious paralegal and outrageous radio personalities whose bombast and shock value were eclipsed by the behavior of lawyers.
Baird recommended that the state Supreme Court find lawyers Stephen Diaco, Robert Adams and Adam Filthaut guilty of numerous ethical violations that amounted to “a deliberate and malicious effort to put a heavy finger on the scale of justice” in connection with the January 2013 arrest of opposing attorney C. Philip Campbell.
At the time, Campbell was representing radio personality Todd “MJ” Schnitt in his ultimately unsuccessful slander lawsuit against Bubba the Love Sponge Clem, who was represented in court by the Adams and Diaco law firm.
Campbell’s lawyer, John Fitzgibbons, called the opinion “a devastating condemnation of the despicable and unethical conduct of Stephen Diaco, Robert Adams and Adam Filthaut. They will never see the inside of a courtroom again as lawyers.”
Lawyer Greg Kehoe represented all three men in the bar hearing.
“We’re very disappointed and we, of course disagree with the factual recitation” in Baird’s report, Kehoe said. “It’s unfortunate none of the mitigating factors were taken into account. We plan on appealing to the Supreme Court.”
Kehoe didn’t want to address the specifics of the judge’s report. But, he said, “People should know these three men have done outstanding things for this community, legally and socially and have been great individuals for the community. And I think people should understand that and respect that and hopefully come to appreciate that.”
Baird said in a 72-page opinion that the three lawyers participated in a “pattern of intentional conduct,” trying to manipulate Campbell’s arrest beginning 60 days before the lawyer was jailed in the middle of the radio DJs’ trial. In addition to permanent disbarment, the judge recommended each of the three men be required to pay more than $14,000 for the costs of the proceedings.
Baird’s recommendation exceeds the request from the bar, which asked him to recommend permanent disbarment only for Diaco. The bar asked that Adams and Filthaut be disbarred and allowed to apply for reinstatement to the profession in five years.
Baird is serving as a referee in the Florida Bar’s case against the three attorneys. His findings will be sent to the state Supreme Court, which will decide what, if any, punishment the three lawyers deserve.
According to Baird’s opinion, in November 2012, Filthaut called his close friend, Raymond Fernandez, who headed the Tampa police DUI unit, and told him about a lawyer who worked in the same building who “gets drunk all the time” and “drives home drunk.” Filthaut gave Campbell’s name to Fernandez but didn’t tell him Campbell was the lead attorney in a five-year-long civil action being defended by the law firm that employed Filthaut.
Fernandez dispatched an officer to stake out Malio’s Steakhouse, across the street from the Bank of America building where the opposing law firms were headquartered and a favorite hangout of Campbell’s. But Campbell wasn’t seen that night and wasn’t arrested, Baird noted.
Then on Jan. 23, 2013, in the midst of the radio personalities’ lawsuit trial, Campbell walked from his office to meet his trial partner at Malio’s, which was within walking distance to Campbell’s downtown condo, according to evidence in the case.
The two lawyers encountered Melissa Personius, a paralegal for the Adams and Diaco law firm, who lied to Campbell about where she worked. She contacted, Adams, her boss, who notified Diaco that Campbell was drinking in the bar. Adams also called Filthaut, Baird wrote.
Filthaut called his friend, Fernandez, and encouraged him to initiate another stakeout at Malio’s, again without telling him that Campbell was opposing his law firm in a high-profile trial.
While Fernandez was setting up the stakeout, Personius took a seat next to Campbell at the bar and “openly and obviously flirted with Mr. Campbell, encouraged him to drink, and bought him drinks herself,” Baird wrote.
At the same time, she “managed to carry on a steady series of cell phone calls and texts” with Diaco, Adams and Filthaut, Baird wrote.
By the end of the evening, Personius was visibly intoxicated and was encouraged to call a cab by her friend, Baird said. Campbell offered to summon a taxi, but Personius said she needed to get her car from the valet.
Campbell confirmed with the valet that Personius could leave her car there overnight, but she refused to leave the vehicle and insisted it had to be in a nearby public parking lot, Baird wrote. Campbell tried to persuade her to leave the car, but when she refused, he became frustrated and agreed to move it, Baird wrote.
Campbell “fully admitted that she never asked him directly to drive her car,” the opinion states. “He chose instead to run the risk of a two-minute drive as a favor to someone who appeared too impaired to drive safely.”
As Campbell pulled Personius’ car out of the Malio’s lot, Adams, Diaco, Filthaut and Personius “knew that the trap was set,” Baird wrote.
After Campbell was arrested by Fernandez, Personius arranged through her contact with her bosses to have another lawyer from their firm pick her up and take her home. The fact she didn’t do that before Campbell “drove into the waiting police stakeout,” Baird wrote, “is further confirmation of their intent to effect his arrest.”
Afterward, when court resumed, Baird wrote, the lawyers were evasive, pleading the Fifth Amendment or lack of memory about what happened the night of the arrest.
But in March 2013, Diaco’s “memory improved,” and he filed an affidavit claiming his only involvement the night of the arrest was to respond to requests by the police for information. “That statement is so misleading and so far from the truth regarding the known events of that night that it amounts to deliberate falsehood,” Baird wrote. Adams was the only one of the three lawyers to testify at the bar disciplinary trial. Baird said Adams’ testimony “was crafted to admit those facts that he knew from discovery he could not deny and to present a set of circumstances that put him in the most favorable light possible.” The “less-than-credible testimony given at the eleventh hour did nothing to aid his defense,” Baird wrote.
The judge concluded that Filthaut’s friendship with Fernandez was “the most important single factor that allowed” the three lawyers “to plot the arrest of Mr. Campbell. Without the trust and long years friendship that existed between ... Filthaut and Sgt. Fernandez, it seems doubtful that the Tampa Police Department would have devoted the resources to spend the better part of three hours staking out a bar for one potentially impaired driver on the unverified ‘tip’ of one citizen.”
Fernandez ultimately lost his job as a result of the scandal, which also sparked a shakeup in the Tampa Police DUI unit and the dismissal of at least a dozen DUI cases in which Fernandez was involved.
Baird said Filthaut’s “willingness to betray a 15-year friendship and sacrifice the career and personal freedom of a fellow attorney for the sake of some potential advantage in an ongoing trial remains stunning.”
Filthaut’s lawyer argued during the bar trial that Filthaut was a low-level employee at the firm who only followed directions from his superiors, Adams and Diaco.
“That variation of the Nuremberg Defense is only available when the conduct ordered is ‘in accordance with a supervisory lawyer’s reasonable resolution of an arguable question of professional duty,’ “ Baird wrote. “Using a nonlawyer employee to set up an opposing attorney for arrest in a multi-million dollar, high profile jury trial doesn’t conceivably fall within that exception.”
Baird also hammered Diaco for statements he made to the media when the Schnitt vs. Clem trial was briefly interrupted following Campbell’s arrest.
Diaco told reporters the disruption and arrest made him “shocked and “embarrassed to be an attorney.” Baird concluded that Diaco made the statements in an attempt to gain an advantage in the trial by influencing jurors who might see them.
The lawyers presented testimony during the bar hearing suggesting they were motivated by a strong desire to keep drunk drivers off the road. That, Baird wrote, “would seem more plausible if had not been the” three lawyers’ “own employee buying Mr. Campbell drinks and presenting him with an automobile to drive.”
The lawyers also argued that no one forced Campbell to drive drunk that night. But Baird said the fact that Campbell drove drunk is irrelevant to what the lawyers did.
“If Mr. Campbell had walked away from Malio’s valet that night and left Ms. Personius to her own devices,” the three lawyers’ “actions would have been just as unethical and egregious.”