Here’s why a Florida personal injury attorney with 7 Bar complaints chose disbarment
JULY 20 UPDATE: Gus Soto gives an explanation for his disciplinary revocation application.
A Tallahassee personal injury attorney already under emergency suspension for not turning over records of his trust account as the Florida Bar investigated client grievances decided to give up his law license.
But the Soto Injury Law Firm’s Gus Soto, a 65-year-old from Miami who was admitted to the Bar in 1984, said his application for disciplinary revocation without leave to seek readmission doesn’t mean he’s acknowledging any misconduct.
As the state Supreme Court states, “disciplinary revocation is tantamount to disbarment.” The attorney petitions for the action, either with leave to reapply in five years or without leave to reapply in five years. As far as professional discipline, the pending discipline cases disappear. Disciplinary revocation has no effect, however, on any civil or criminal matters borne from the attorney’s actions.
READ MORE: A Miami and Orlando attorney suspended after clients say he misappropriated $57,000
Soto’s application, which was accepted by the state Supreme Court, also says he’ll give up $396,931 in restitution to five clients who allege Soto misappropriated their settlement funds: $86,500.00 to David Wofford; $20,000.00 to Tevin McCollough on behalf of Velma Bickers’ estate; $146,189.63 to James Surber; $137,875.00 to Daniel Hirsh; and $6,367.00 to William Nealy.
In a phone call to the Miami Herald, Soto said he didn’t like the word “restitution” because it smacked of misappropriated funds. He said most of those clients already had received their money at the time of his application and the rest of the settlement funds in his professional trust account and Medicare set-aside accounts, in accordance with federal law.
None of the money, Soto said, had been stolen, misused or withdrawn for personal use.
Soto says said he’d done little related to work since a serious downward turn in health during March 2021 left him almost incapacitated by July 2021. His wife shut down his office and moved everything, including the office’s computer servers, into storage.
Soto said he didn’t get the grievances either by post office mail or email (he said his official Bar email address is an old one).
The Bar’s application for an emergency suspension includes a grievance committee’s finding of non-compliance, which said a subpoena for records was hand delivered to Soto on Dec. 9, 2021. After Soto didn’t come across with any records by Jan. 18, he requested an extension which was granted. The grievance committee said he was given until Jan. 21 to turn over bank records and QuickBooks printouts, but everything else had to be in their hands on Jan. 19.
The grievance committee said Soto didn’t turn over what he was supposed to on Jan. 19. After getting another extension to Jan. 26 for the bank records and QuickBooks printouts, Soto blamed printer problems for his inability to produce the printouts. The grievance committee said Soto didn’t answer an offer for the Bar investigator to come to him and get bank records and QuickBooks records on a thumb drive.
The grievance committee said at 9:59 p.m. on Jan. 26 and throughout Jan. 27, Soto sent information from Bank of America, Hancock Bank and Prime Meridian Bank, but nothing from Regions Bank.
The state Supreme Court suspended Soto in May after Bar subpoenas for records from Jan. 1, 2018 through Aug. 31, 2021 didn’t produce “records for [Soto’s] Regions Bank trust account, closing statements, settlement agreements, client ledgers and documentation evidencing the whereabouts of remaining balances of clients’ settlement funds.”
Because both age and health made continuing to practice unlikely, Soto said, fighting some of the grievances was pointless. So, he decided to go for disciplinary revocation and give up his license.
This story was originally published July 10, 2022 at 2:18 PM with the headline "Here’s why a Florida personal injury attorney with 7 Bar complaints chose disbarment."
