Disbarred Boca lawyer accused of fraud

Ex-employer says he pocketed $193,000 in client checks.

WEST PALM BEACH — A disbarred Boca Raton attorney has been charged with fraud after his former employer claimed he pock- eted more than $193,000 in client checks that were supposed to go to the law firm.

Gary Kovacs, 54, is to be arraigned on the charge of organized scheme to defraud on Oct. 4. If con- victed, he faces a maximum 30-year prison sentence.

Kovacs on Mo n day declined to comment on the allegations. In Decem- ber, he agreed to voluntarily relinquish his law license amid mounting complaints filed against him with the Florida Bar.

In addition to be i ng accused of stealing money from his former employer, Frank, Weinberg & Black, he was accused of mishan- dling several legal matters, records show.

In accepting his resignation, the Florida Supreme Court noted that “disci- plinary revocation is tantamount to disbarment.”

In response to a civil lawsuit the firm filed against him in April, Kovacs turned the table on his accuser. He claimed the firm breached his employment contract.

Under the terms of the 2014 agreement, he said he was to receive a percent- age of the fees collected by the firm. He estimated it improperly withheld more than $100,000 he was to receive during the roughly two years he worked there. The lawsuit is still pending.

W hile working for another law firm in 2010, Kovacs snared headlines when he voluntarily represented quadriple g ic Heather Grossman in her long-running legal battle to pry her $1 million life insur- ance policy out of her husband’s hands. Even though Samuel Grossman was sen- tenced to life in prison after he was convicted of hiring a hit man to kill Heather in 1997 to collect the insur- ance money, he refused to turn over the policy.

After years of legal wrangling, a judge ordered it to be turned over to Heather Grossman to cover the round-the-clock care she needed after the hit man’s bullet severed her spine.