Broward lawyer disbarred; seen as ‘uncurious’
Gilbert found guilty of professional misconduct.
TALLAHASSEE — Saying his case “gives new meaning to the phrase ‘turning a blind eye,’ ” the Florida Supreme Court disbarred a Broward County lawyer for failing to adequately supervise an employee who had previously embezzled more than $7 million.
Thursday’s unanimous decision in the case of attorney Randall Lawrence Gilbert came from a court that has demonstrated increasing intolerance for bad behavior from judges and lawyers.
In Gilbert’s case, the court rejected a referee’s recommendation of a two-year suspension and instead imposed the far-more stringent sanction of disbarment after finding Gilbert guilty of professional misconduct.
The case focused on Gilbert’s “failure to exercise any supervision” over Steven Sacks, hired by Gilbert in 2005 shortly after Sacks was released from federal prison, where he served time for wire fraud, according to court documents.
Gilbert hired Sacks even after the convicted felon’s probation officer warned the attorney that it was inappropriate for Sacks — who had been sentenced to 41 months in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $8 million in restitution — to work at a law firm.
Five months after Sacks went to work for the firm, he forged Gilbert’s signature on a check for more than $20,000 to pay for a girlfriend’s cosmetic surgery, according to the court records. Gilbert fired Sacks but later rehired him.
Gilbert eventually named Sacks chief financial officer for the law firm, which specialized in construction litigation. During the mortgage foreclosure crisis in 2008, Sacks became the chief real estate closer for Gilbert’s firm.
Over nearly five years, Sacks stole more than $5 million from Gilbert’s trust account, including more than $4 million he steered to a fake corporation, according to the court records.
During his job interview, Sacks told Gilbert that he was an accountant and a lawyer from New York, neither of which was true, according to Thursday’s 18-page order.
Gilbert was “curiously uncurious” about Sacks’ claims, and never bothered to check out his background, referee Leonard Hanser wrote last year.
“As one of the referee’s law professors might explain, dealing with Sacks was ‘like handling a rattlesnake wrapped in tissue paper.’ Unfortunately, respondent (Gilbert) was not up to the task,” Hanser wrote.
In a May document filed in the Supreme Court, Gilbert’s attorneys said Sacks pleaded guilty to wire fraud in federal court and was sentenced to 87 months in prison. The attorneys also said Gilbert quickly took action after the theft was discovered, trying to repay victims. Gilbert was “well-intentioned” but wrong to hire and rehire “a bad man who demonstrated he never deserved the goodness and kindness Mr. Gilbert exhibited,” Gilbert’s attorneys wrote.