 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Wayward lawyer leaves clients hanging
By ED QUIOCO, Times Staff Writer PALM HARBOR -- Dwain Lorditch paid a lawyer $4,000 to represent him in a slip-and-fall case against the Tampa Bay Lightning, but when Lorditch had a pretrial hearing last week, attorney Jeffrey E. Cosnow was nowhere to be found. "It's been a nightmare," said Lorditch, 41, who tried to find Cosnow for months without success. Without an attorney, Lorditch isn't sure what he will do next. Cosnow also owes him about $7,000 that was paid as part of a settlement by a second defendant in his lawsuit, he said. Lorditch filed a complaint with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating whether his claim amounts to grand theft, said Sheriff's Sgt. Greg Tita. If there are other clients who feel that Cosnow may have taken some of their money, "We would like to hear from them also," Tita said. As for Cosnow, 58, he's out of the legal profession. Contacted last week at his new job, running Whimsey's Coffee and Art Gallery in Palm Harbor, he declined to comment. "I'm not defending myself," he said. For the Florida Bar and the Florida Supreme Court, which investigate and discipline wayward lawyers, the problem was not that Cosnow decided to change careers. It was how he quit. In early December, Cosnow delivered 43 boxes to the Bar's office in Tampa. Inside were jumbled files for about 400 clients. Many of those clients had pending legal matters that needed immediate attention and were left to fend for themselves, according to the Bar. That prompted the state Supreme Court to take emergency action, suspending Cosnow until further notice. In a petition, the Bar said Cosnow "appears to be causing great public harm." He "provided no explanation for abandoning his clients in this manner, and attempts to communicate with (him) have been futile," according to the petition. Moreover, it adds that Cosnow "has provided no information regarding his client trust account, escrow accounts or safe deposit boxes, although a cursory review of the client files indicates a strong likelihood that (Cosnow) is holding client funds and/or property." Cosnow already was in trouble when he dropped off his files. In October, he received a 60-day suspension followed by a year's probation. In that case, the state Supreme Court ruled that Cosnow failed to provide competent representation and represented the adverse interests of a mother and her daughter in legal actions. A referee who heard the evidence recommended a lighter sentence, but the Bar noted that Cosnow had a prior disciplinary history and argued for a tougher punishment. Before facing the 60-day suspension, Cosnow served a 10-day suspension for unethical conduct and two public reprimands for other violations. In November, Cosnow wrote a letter to the Bar saying, "I wish to have no further relationship in which the Florida Bar has jurisdiction of myself. "My only two goals are the protection of my clients by having the Bar assume responsibility for the case files, and a complete termination of the supervision of the Florida Bar over myself," Cosnow said in the letter. A few weeks later, Bar attorneys tried to send Cosnow a petition for permanent resignation but couldn't contact him. That's when a Bar investigator went looking for Cosnow. Bar investigator Ernest Kirstein found Cosnow Dec. 4 at the coffee shop in a strip mall on Tampa Road and County Road 1. When Kirstein asked where the Bar could send Cosnow a petition for resignation, Cosnow stepped to within 4 or 5 inches of Kirstein's face and warned him not to show up at his home. "The investigator thereupon told Mr. Cosnow that his approaching and breathing his "bad breath' into the investigator's face is approaching an actual assault and that he should back off," the affidavit says. "He did back off and went into the store." Two days after the confrontation with the investigator, Cosnow delivered to the Bar the 43 boxes containing his case files. "The client files contain original wills, financial records, medical records, approximately 50 credit cards and other vital client information," according to the Bar's petition. Cosnow's former business partner and girlfriend, Mary Anne Schmidt, is surprised at the turn of events. She said she remembers Cosnow as a good attorney who "valued himself on his ethics." "It seems out of character for him," said Schmidt, 47. "The person I knew would not do those things." The emergency suspension, granted Dec. 21, lasts until further notice from the state Supreme Court. Cosnow is prohibited from accepting new clients and from touching any trust accounts, escrow accounts or safe deposit boxes which are related to his law practice. The landlord for Cosnow's former office on East Lake Road also is looking for him. Cosnow broke his lease and left without giving notice, said David Levy, an attorney for the building's management company. "The only way we found out was that the cleaning people told us it appeared he was in the process of moving out," Levy said.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times North Pinellas desks |
