South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Judge and lawyer in heated legal battle
The pair trade accusations of blackmail and extortion over ‘intimate’ photos
A Palm Beach judge says a prominent lawyer once threatened to reveal intimate photos of her if she didn’t back off her demands in her divorce and child custody case, according to one lawsuit.
Years later, the judge retaliated by trying to extort the lawyer — demanding $10 million to stop her from exposing the blackmail attempt, according to another lawsuit.
Now, lawyers for Palm Beach County Judge Marni Bryson and the politically influential attorney William Scherer are bracing for a bruising legal battle, hurling allegations that read like the plot of a prime-time soap opera — one that legal observers say could result in anything from professional discipline to the end of legal careers.
“I could actually see everybody involved getting censured for not handling this in a way that doesn’t bring dishonor to the legal profession and the administration of justice in South Florida,” said Nova Southeastern University professor Bob Jarvis.
The judge’s account
Bryson filed her lawsuit in West Palm Beach on April 11, accusing Scherer of threatening to release the “intimate” photos in the fall of 2015. The election in Bryson’s bid for a second term as judge would take place the following year.
Bryson was divorced from her ex-husband, James Blake MacDiarmid, and the two were in the middle of a dispute over the custody agreement for their son, now about 5 years old.
Scherer, father of Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer, is one of the most politically connected Republican fundraisers in
South Florida. Co-founder of the prestigious Conrad & Scherer law firm, he was one of the attorneys representing George W. Bush on the presidential election recount of 2000 and was an adviser to Gov. Rick Scott during his successful run for the U.S. Senate.
According to Bryson’s lawsuit, Scherer sent an emissary to her court chambers in November 2015. “He revealed that Bill Scherer had sent him to convey a message,” the lawsuit alleges. “Unless Bryson acquiesced to her ex-husband’s demands in the child custody matter, intimate photos of the judge would be released publicly.”
Bryson later told her attorneys the only intimate photos she could think of were ones in which she chronicled her pregnancy.
Scherer was representing a woman who had been dating Bryson’s ex-husband after the divorce but did not want to testify in the childcustody proceedings.
Bryson agreed not to compel the woman to testify. “Bill Scherer won,” according to the lawsuit.
Ever since then, Bryson has been afraid to approach her ex-husband for help with expenses out of fear the threat to release the photographs would resurface. “She will no longer stand by, a victim,” her lawsuit states.
Her lawsuit seeks unspecified punitive damages for inflicting emotional distress.
The lawyer’s rebuttal
Before Bryson filed her lawsuit against Scherer, her lawyers tried to settle it,
sending an email on April 8 demanding $10 million in three days.
Scherer and his lawyers called it a shakedown attempt; three days after receiving the email, they beat their rivals to court by four hours with a lawsuit of their own — this one named Bryson’s lawyer, Paul D. Turner, and his firm, Bajandas, Yevoli & Albright, as defendants.
Bryson was not named. Scherer’s lawyer, Bruce Rogow, called the blackmail allegations “wholly unsubstantiated, blatantly false and maliciously alleged solely for the purpose of causing ridicule, contempt and injury to plaintiff ’s reputation and goodwill.”
He said Bryson’s deadline of three days was inadequate for Conrad & Scherer to investigate the claims that were being made.
“Defendants attempt to classify this three-day, $10 million payment as a ‘settlement demand,’ but the email and the complaint, with its bizarre allegations, bespeak extortion,” Rogow wrote in the Scherer lawsuit.
Rogow also accused Bryson’s lawyers of abusing the legal process.
“We stand by the allegations we made,” Turner said Friday. “We wouldn’t file suit if we didn’t.”
The stakes
South Florida lawyers
and experts said Friday that lawsuits could have longlasting ramifications.
“We’re not just talking about ethical complaints here,” said Fort Lauderdale civil and criminal lawyer Elias Hilal of Williams, Hilal and Wigand. “These are criminal allegations on both sides. If they can be proven, we’re looking at the possibility of Florida Bar complaints, a judicial ethics investigation, and possibly more.”
Jarvis, an NSU professor not involved in the case, called the situation “bizarre” but was unsure who may face the most legal or professional trouble. Scherer’s accusation about the $10 million settlement offer could be construed as a tough but legally permissible negotiation tactic, Jarvis said.
“I don’t think any lawyer is going to lose his license over playing hardball and saying ‘here’s our offer; take it or leave it,’” Jarvis said.
The threatened release of embarrassing photos, if proved, would be harder to justify. Still, he said, if Bryson believed in 2015 that an attorney was committing blackmail, she had an ethical duty to report him to the Florida Bar. “Why is this happening now, four years later?”
As of late Friday, no hearings had been scheduled in either case.
“These are criminal allegations on both sides. If they can be proven, we’re looking at the possibility of Florida Bar complaints, a judicial ethics investigation, and possibly more.” —Elias Hilal, Fort Lauderdale civil and criminal lawyer of Williams, Hilal and Wigand