Fraud and double-dipping among discipline problems for lawyers from Miami to Palm Beach

Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties contribute four of the nine lawyers on the Florida Bar’s monthly list of attorneys disciplined by the state Supreme Court.

With two of the four petitioning for disciplinary revocation, a review of those rules: Disciplinary revocation does nothing to any criminal or civil cases arising from the attorney’s misconduct. The Bar discipline case, however, goes away. So does the attorney’s ability to practice law. In the words of the state Supreme Court, “Disciplinary revocation is tantamount to disbarment.”

Usually, the attorney can apply for readmission in five years.

In alphabetical order:

Derek Acree, Palm Beach Gardens

Derek Acree, admitted to practice in 2002, went for disciplinary revocation after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Acree is now in federal prison, scheduled to be released Jan. 9, 2025. He can apply for readmission to the Florida Bar on April 27, 2028.

READ MORE: A Florida lawyer spent part of a $1.6 million fraud on a jet, house and a Trump golf club

Stephen Bander, Miami

Stephen Bander works with the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, but hasn’t been following rules.

The EB-5 program creates a way for foreign investors, spouses and their children under 21 to become Green Card-holding permanent U.S. residents if they, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration says, make a qualifying investment in a U.S. “commercial enterprise” or “plan to create or preserve 10 permanent full-time jobs for qualified U.S. workers.”

As the referee’s report on Bander’s discipline case points out, Bander and his father, Michael Bander, first ran into trouble in 2015, when they advised that clients participate in the EB-5 program at a regional center and helped the trades happen. They got legal fees from the clients and a commission from the regional center.

But that made them unregistered broker-dealers, something the Securities and Exchange Commission pointed out to father and son. The Banders had to pay disgorgement, interest and penalties totaling $273,184. On behalf of his father and Bander Law Firm, Stephen Bander signed a cease-and-desist order as well as paperwork showing he knew “the firm is not to receive any commissions or compensations in connection to the EB-5 program.”

That was in 2015. In 2017, the SEC cast its eye at Stephen Bander (Michael Bander had retired). The SEC saw $90,000 in payments to the Bander Law Firm from an EB-5 Regional Center, Miami Metropolitan Regional Center. The referee’s report said Bander told investigators the $90,000 was a reimbursement of clients’ legal fees.

But Bander also told the SEC that he didn’t keep the money in a trust account, as an attorney should with client funds; he didn’t tell the clients about the money for up to a year; and he used the cash to pay down the firm’s credit line and pay the company American Express card bill.

In addition to those rule violations, Bander billed his clients and they paid him — double-dipping.

Bander first explained his actions as holding on to the money as a potential retainer, in case his clients needed him for anything else. Then he tried to say the Miami Metro center was paying his clients legal fees directly. The referee, Florida 11th District Circuit Court Judge Carlos Lopez, pointed out the evidence contradicted each reason.

Judge Lopez recommended Bander, admitted to the Bar in 1999, be disbarred. Bander asked the state Supreme Court to review Lopez’s report. After review, the court decided Bander’s disbarment begins Saturday.

Dick Lee, Hollywood

Dick Lee, 68, was admitted to the Bar in 1988 and has a clean discipline record. Lee was accused of “misappropriating” client funds and other violations involving his trust account.

“There is evidence of complete restitution to the one client,” Lee’s petition for disciplinary revocation said.

The state Supreme Court accepted the application. As of June 24, Lee will be dumped from the Bar with permission to apply for readmission on June 24, 2028.

Mark Kamilar, Miami

Mark Kamliar’s guilty plea for consent judgment says he was retained by Scot Strems and The Strems Law Firm to represent the firm’s attorneys in Florida Bar matters from 2012 to 2020. Kamilar’s guilty plea isn’t related to Scot Strems’ December disbarment.

READ MORE: Coral Gables attorney suspended in 2020, disbarred in 2022 wants to be back on June 9

(Strems’ request for the court to rehear his case and have his suspension cut to ending June 9 was denied by unanimous vote of the participating justices).

Kamilar began representing Strems Law Firm’s Christopher Aguirre in 2016 and remained the attorney of record in those Bar matters after Aguirre left the firm in 2018. When Strems Law Firm tried to get attorney’s fees for an Aguirre case later in 2018, the firm asked Kamilar to get Aguirre to sign and complete a fees affidavit.

Aguirre didn’t answer emails in December 2018 or on Jan. 16, 2019. So on Jan. 29, 2019, Kamilar sent an email that opened, “I write this email as a last effort to attempt to resolve this before it moves in unfortunate directions” and included, “In the absence of hearing from you before the end of the week, The Strems Law Firm will be left with no choice but to pursue other options against you accordingly.”

Aguirre refused to sign, calling the email “false” and “inflammatory” and finding Kamilar’s email a threat “to secure false testimony.” Even if he had signed, Kamilar was still his attorney of record in the Bar proceedings.

That conflict of interest earned Kamilar a public reprimand.