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Florida disbars F. Lee Bailey
By JULIE HAUSERMAN
In an event that may end his storied legal career, the Florida Supreme Court disbarred Bailey for the way he handled a client's stock that was worth nearly $6-million. One of the prosecutors in the case, David Ristoff, said Wednesday that Bailey pocketed $3.5-million of the money and used some of it to finance the defense of O.J. Simpson in California. The unanimous Supreme Court opinion was blistering, saying "Bailey has committed some of the most egregious rules violations possible, evidencing a complete disregard for the rules governing attorneys." "Bailey's self-dealing and willingness to compromise client confidences are especially disturbing . . . ," the court found. "Such misconduct strikes at the very center of the professional ethic of an attorney and cannot be tolerated." The court ruled that Bailey had offered false testimony, talked to a judge improperly, violated his client's confidences and misappropriated money. In one letter to a federal judge, Bailey called his client a "multimillionaire druggie," the court's opinion noted. At one point, Bailey claimed that the money in question was his rightful fee. Bailey could not be reached for comment Wednesday. One of his defense lawyers, Beverly Pohl, had no comment. Bailey, 68, has 30 days to close his Florida office, and he has to pay $24,418 to cover the costs that the Florida Bar incurred in prosecuting the case. Bailey still has a license to practice law in Massachusetts, but Debbie Davis, an attorney for the Florida Bar in Tampa, said the Florida disbarment could jeopardize that. "This will be the basis for the Massachusetts Bar bringing a case against him," Davis said. Bailey lives in the exclusive community of Manalapan in Palm Beach County. The disbarment stems from a 1994 case Bailey took on shortly before the O.J. Simpson trial. Bailey represented international drug smuggler Claude Duboc. Bailey worked out a deal with prosecutors in which his client would plead guilty and forfeit his assets to the federal government. Bailey agreed to keep $6-million of Duboc's stock in trust and borrow against it to maintain Duboc's properties until the government could dispose of them. But, prosecutors said, Bailey immediately put $3.5-million into his own accounts. ". . . from the day it was transferred to him, Bailey treated the money as his own," the Supreme Court justices wrote. A judge found Bailey in contempt of court in 1996, and Bailey spent 43 days in the Federal Detention Center in Tallahassee. Bailey eventually paid his way out of jail, turning over his yacht and millions in stock. Bailey later tried to get some of the money back from the federal government. He asked the government to pay for flights to Europe on the Concorde, meals at five-star European restaurants and first-class travel between the O.J. Simpson trial in Los Angeles and Florida. U.S. District Judge Maurice Paul ruled that many of the expenses were out of bounds. Among them: $56,312 that Bailey said he had spent on Duboc, his jailed client. The charges included a place setting of dishes (service for four), lavish seafood and beef meals, live lobster, jumbo shrimp, swordfish steak and 51 orders of sushi delivered to Duboc at the Levy County Jail for $1,370.96. Instead of getting money back from the government, Paul ruled that Bailey had to pay the government an extra $423,737. Duboc remains in jail. Bailey can reapply for a license to practice law in Florida in five years, but he'll have to take the Florida Bar examination again, go through a background check and demonstrate "knowledge of the rules of professional conduct required of all new admittees," the high court ruled.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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From the Times state desk
From the state wire
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