Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Clerk files complaint against lawyer
Attorney tried to take her picture in hallway
Broward Clerk of Courts Brenda Forman wants to be addressed formally, doesn’t want her picture taken in the courthouse hallways, and is taking legal action against a lawyer who has decided to cross her path.
Forman filed a Florida Bar complaint and tried to get a restraining order after attorney William Gelin, a blogger, tried to take her picture in a public hallway.
It’s the latest conflict faced by Forman, the public face of a usually anonymous office who was elected in 2016 largely on the
name and popularity of her predecessor and then-husband, Howard Forman. The clash pits the lawyer’s right to take Forman’s picture against her complaints that she’s in fear for her safety and entitled to some measure of privacy, even when out in public on the job.
But Forman’s complaints are on shaky legal ground, said Elias Hilal, a lawyer who has represented several clients in freespeech cases.
“Any public official should be aware that a photographer who’s not breaking any ordinances, laws or rules has the right to take her picture in a public setting,” said Hilal, of the Wiliams, Hilal, Wigand & Grande firm, who isn’t involved in the complaint.
The dispute began in October, when Gelin referred to the clerk as “Brenda” during a conversation about one of his clients. Forman insisted on being addressed as “Ms. Forman” or “Clerk Forman,” according to the Bar complaint.
Gelin bristled at the insistence on formality and decided to write about Forman’s reaction. Things escalated when he tried to take her picture with his cellphone on several occasions to accompany his article.
Forman responded by lobbing an array of complaints, one with the Bar and another with the domestic violence division of the courthouse, saying Gelin was stalking her and placing her in fear for her life. She got deputies to talk to Gelin, though they didn’t order him to put his phone away and they didn’t arrest him.
Gelin’s “constant harassment towards me in my place of business has become annoying frustrating and threatening my life,” Forman wrote in one of her formal complaints. “Mr. Gelin has gotten into my face on several occasions trying to intimidate me and provoke me into violence. He has no respect for anyone.”
Forman later claimed in an email to the South Florida Sun Sentinel that an article about the dispute would unfairly incite “racism, hate and bigotry toward me and my employees.” She asserted that the information in her domestic violence complaint is “confidential” and “protected.” The complaint can be accessed by any member of the public on computers located on the first floor of the Broward courthouse. She did not return a phone call and email seeking comment.
Her attorney, Thomas Loffredo, said he is not authorized to discuss the case.
Forman came to prominence in 2016 when she ran for office with no prior political experience and no college degree. She did have experience selling real estate, which she touted during the 2016 campaign as a background in management. But even after she won, she credited her husband’s name, not her political or management credentials, with putting her over the top.
Within months of her taking office, she drew headlines by claiming her husband was mentally incapacitated a day after he filed for divorce.
That dispute ended with Broward Circuit Judge Mark Speiser ruling that she acted in “bad faith” when she filed in claim about her husband’s mental capacity.
She’s acting in bad faith again, said Gelin, who runs JAABlog, a courthouse news and gossip site.
“I’m looking forward to the hearing to see if she’s really going to raise her right hand before a judge and swear to these baseless allegations,” said Gelin, who acknowledges trying to take her picture and following her from a hallway to her office and into the courthouse parking lot, but denies doing anything to place Forman in fear for her safety. “I think she’s going to have a lot more scrutiny than she ever bargained for. She should have just let me take her picture.”
On at least two occasions, Forman or her staffers asked court deputies to step in while Gelin had his camera out. Deputies talked to Gelin but took no action against him in any of the incidents.
“This is not a stalking case,” said Gelin’s lawyer, Ed Hoeg. “There’s no violence. There’s no threat of violence. You serve the public and you’re in a public place. Instead of responding, she files a stalking lawsuit, something designed for victims of domestic violence? It’s insane.”
Forman’s complaints included supporting statements from staff members who accused Gelin of getting in Forman’s “personal space” and pointing his cellphone camera “in her face.”
Most of the stories reported on JAABlog may be of little interest outside the courthouse, but some have attracted countywide and national attention, including the dragging of a mentally ill inmate through the hallways by her hair. In that incident, Gelin witnessed the dragging and pulled out his cellphone to record part of it — the deputy involved and others who witnessed it did not order him to put his phone away.
As a blogger, Gelin straddles the line between attorneys and media — court administrators have rules that govern how media can report the news in the building, but those rules are focused on maintaining order in courtrooms and in hallways when multiple cameras are on site for the same event. The rules do not address anyone’s use of a cellphone to photograph or record a spontaneous event.
Blogs do not qualify as media under the rules. Gelin said his rights belong to the general public, not just the media.
But Forman insisted Gelin’s behavior, which included following her on the bridge from the courthouse to the parking garage with his phone out, went beyond the acceptable boundaries of the media and legal professions.
A Broward judge rejected Forman’s application for a temporary restraining order, and another judge recused himself from hearing the case. Late last week, Chief Administrative Judge Jack Tuter recused the entire circuit from hearing the case — the Florida Supreme Court appointed Miami-Dade County Court Judge William Altfield to oversee the case. No hearings have been set.