Silence, stolen money and illegally imported drugs get Florida attorneys disciplined
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Crime, possible crime and quiet — too quiet — dominate this month’s Florida Bar list of attorneys disciplined by the state Supreme Court.
In alphabetical order:
Despite getting a couple of extensions, Hollywood’s Ben Ira Farbstein (admitted to the Florida Bar in 1982) didn’t answer Bar inquiries about a grievance, inquiries dated March 18, 2020, and May 15, 2020, May 27, 2020, or July 7, 2020.
The Seventh Judicial Circuit Grievance Committee “found that respondent failed to show good cause for failing to respond to the official Bar inquiries and that the noncompliance was willful.”
Farbstein was found in contempt and received a public reprimand on April 12.
As noted in last month’s attorney discipline report, Boca Raton’s Colleen Huott (admitted in 2005) hasn’t answered any of the eight grievances pending against her, two of which involve trust account overdraft notices. After another six trust account overdraft notices, the Bar tracked down her personal AOL email and sent a subpoena for her trust account records.
The Bar says Huott is up to 10 grievances and 10 trust account overdraft notices.
“[Huott] has impeded the bar’s investigation in to whether she has misappropriated funds belonging to her clients or others,” the Florida Bar said. “[Huott] has recently received two additional grievances, which she has failed to respond to, which may require the filing of a third petition for contempt soon. [Her] actions have become a drain on the bar and this Court’s resources during a pandemic in which our administration is already working under dire circumstances and limited resources.”
For her silence, Huott has been disbarred.
Boca Raton’s Erica Kobloth (admitted to the Bar in 2012) ghosted the Florida Bar and the disciplinary process after a grievance was filed in 2018. So she got suspended for contempt in 2019. By November, her snail mail and email addresses didn’t work. Because the Bar doesn’t know that Kobloth notified relevant parties of her suspension, she got hit with a year’s suspension in November that’s now up to a three-year suspension.
St. Petersburg’s Beverly Shaw (admitted to practice in 1998) has received a public reprimand for not answering two official bar inquiries.
Cocoa Beach’s James Heyward Silcox III (admitted in 2018) applied for and received disciplinary revocation, essentially being disbarred, for five years. Silcox can then apply for readmission to the Bar By then, he’ll be finished with the three years probation to which he was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty to three counts of importing a schedule IV substance.
Disciplinary revocation makes the Bar discipline part of the problem disappear. Any criminal or civil charges remain.
The indictment in Oakland federal court says in July 2019, customs found a package addressed to Silcox’s post office box in Alameda, California, with 865 grams of Tramadol from Delta Shipping of Singapore. The indictment calls Delta Shipping “a repeat seizure violator identified with over 300 seizures of narcotics.”
And, the indictment says, seven other packages from Germany and Singapore with Tramadol, Modafinil or cocaine were snagged on their way to Silcox-owned P.O. boxes in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“The forms of ID used were Silcox’s current drivers license and his military-issued benefits number,” the indictment said.
But Silcox was charged only with importing Tramadol in July, August and September of 2019.
This story was originally published June 2, 2021 at 12:22 PM with the headline "Silence, stolen money and illegally imported drugs get Florida attorneys disciplined."
