Time and time again, residents of the state of Florida have experienced frustration and disappointment with the Florida Bar. My first experience with the Florida Bar proved that the organization is fraught with good-ol’-boy politics where “who you know” is more important than judicial integrity.

Our introduction to the Florida Bar began in 2004, when our neighbor, Dr. Ronald Owens, attempted to obtain a permit for a lighted airport runway that would run beside our rural property line. It turned into a contentious battle. After I cited several safety issues at a Highlands County Board of Adjustment meeting, which were backed up by the Federal Aviation Administration, his permit was denied.

Two weeks later, the Highlands County Sheriff’s Department arrested me for cutting a fence (and allegedly letting cows out) that suddenly appeared across the deeded access road to my property (see “Our Family Story” on this website). I cut the fence to allow my wife and mother-in-law to pass through the gate with a car full of groceries. We had been using that access road unobstructed for many years.

At the advice of Alister Ibrahim of Gator Title, I hired the firm Keough & DuBose, P.A.. Attorney Keogh convinced me that the charge was a serious federal offense, and I could spend a year in prison. Because we were financially strapped due to extensive medical bills resulting from our son’s serious injuries from a bullying incident at the Highlands County Middle School, we were forced to put a 10- and 5-acre parcel of our land on the market.

Initially, the law firm convinced us to sign a promissory note for the entire property, including the house. But we found out that the note was misleading, and we demanded to have it annulled.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ibrahim, Sheriff Susan Benton’s granddaughter, and the daughter of former code enforcer Gary Laurey all offered low bids on the 10-acre parcel. We finally sold it to a local doctor, Dr. Kevin Roberts, who turned out to be a friend of Ibrahim’s. The 5-acre parcel was put up for auction and sold to a relative of Dr. Ronald Owens, the neighbor who was denied a runway permit.

I never thought someone would take advantage of a family with burgeoning medical bills and an ongoing crisis with their son. But Keough & DuBose convinced me that the fence-cutting offense was so serious that we ended up paying $15,000 to them to keep me out of jail for an offense that we later found out, according to Florida state records, was a mere $125 bail. It was the same bail paid for selling fish and frogs without a license. We managed to keep our house, but after all of the legal bills, we lost 15 prime acres. We also found out from someone who had worked for over 15 years at the Animal Control Department for Highland’s County that no one, other than myself, had ever been arrested for cutting a fence and letting cows out during that time. She had dealt with a whopping 75,000 “cow out” calls.

Several years later, before I realized what had happened, I tried to hire Keough & DuBose again to look into the questionable manner in which the Sheriff’s Department and Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) handled our son’s bullying case. They refused to take the case, citing a conflict of interest.  How could Keough & DuBose handle my bogus arrest by the Sheriff’s Department several years earlier, but not represent us in a probe into the same department’s handling of our son’s bullying case?

In a letter dated Oct. 4, 2007, fax #3197, to Bobbie and Marilyn Bean, Attorney John DuBose stated: “As we discussed with you on Tuesday, we have an ongoing relationship with the State of Florida and represented various state agencies through State risk management program. In that regard, we routinely represent various state attorneys offices, public defenders offices, and other constitutional officers. Therefore, we would have a conflict of interest bringing any action against an officer or employees of the State of Florida, including officers or employees of the Highlands County Sheriffs Office or officers or employees of the State Attorneys Office for the the Tenth Judicial Circuit, and we must decline to represent your interests in any such action.”

If Keough & DuBose couldn’t represent me because of a conflict of interest, then they shouldn’t have represented me in the fence episode. They failed to disclose their relationship with state agencies to me at that time. In fact, they should have declined representation at that time based on their relationship with any state agencies. One can conclude that it was an orchestrated sceme.

When I sent two complaint letters to the Florida Bar regarding the questionable response by Keough & DuBose, they refused to address the clear conflict of interest. It became clear that the deck was stacked against us from the very beginning. A group of high-placed individuals within the community set us up and tried to steal our house and property right out from under us. But I held the Ace of Diamonds, because in the end, I managed to clearly expose the corruption and favoritism within the Florida Bar. If I’m elected to office, I will again.