Asbestos Clients Sue Florida Bar for Millions
Thousands of Former Asbestos Clients
Who Claim Their Disbarred Miami Lawyer Stole
Millions of Dollars from Them Have Sued the Florida Bar

By Jay Weaver
Miami Herald
January 11, 2006

More than 4,000 people ailing from asbestos exposure sued the Florida Bar on Tuesday to recover $13.5 million in damage settlements allegedly pilfered by a disbarred Miami lawyer.

The proposed class action by the asbestos victims once represented by former attorney Louis Robles sought civil relief in Miami federal court after the Bar refused to pay any of the misappropriated settlements from a special fund.

''This lawyer stole $13.5 million from ill and elderly victims, and no one gives a damn,'' said lawyer Thomas Tew, whose firm, Tew Cardenas, is representing the nationwide group of Robles' former asbestos clients. In early 2003, Tew was assigned by the Miami-Dade Circuit Court to sort out thousands of asbestos claims left in limbo after Robles -- once dubbed the King of Torts -- shut down his firm, dumping client files, including X-rays, on the floor of a West Miami-Dade warehouse.

Tew, himself a member of the Florida Bar, said he has tried in vain to compel the organization to use money collected from 70,000 member lawyers who contribute to a client security fund to compensate victims such as those wronged by Robles.

The Florida Bar, which has mandatory membership and regulates its own lawyers, declined to comment.

But spokeswoman Francine Walker said the Bar has never been sued by a group of people who have suffered losses because of their attorney's misconduct. She said the Bar's security fund program is designed to compensate individuals victimized by their lawyers.

She said the Florida Bar's Board of Governors reviews each claim on its merits, drawing from a security fund with about $3 million this fiscal year. The Bar has authorized about $532,000 in compensation to victims.

''The client security fund is a remedy, but not a solution,'' Walker said. ``It's a goodwill fund that the Florida Bar set up to try to help people.''

Robles could not be reached Tuesday. The law office of Roy Black, his criminal attorney, declined to comment. His civil lawyer, Alan Dimond, a past president of the Florida Bar, said he has ``great confidence in Mr. Robles.''

''I haven't seen seen any indication that Mr. Robles did anything that was inappropriate or wrong,'' Dimond said, disputing the allegations in Tew's lawsuit.

Among the proposed class representatives is Jerry Fredrickson of Wisconsin, a commercial carpenter who was forced to retire in 1990 because of longtime exposure to asbestos. After a medical diagnosis five years later, he asked Robles to represent him in a lawsuit.

Fredrickson said he never talked directly with Robles, even after reaching settlements totaling $16,000 with several asbestos manufacturers. He was supposed to get two-thirds, and Robles one-third of the payout.

''Every time I called Robles about my money, they said I would get my money when all the other asbestos clients got their money,'' said Fredrickson, 69, who has pulmonary fibrosis. ``I never got a penny. . . . I believe all that he's gotten is a slap on the wrist.''

Robles, who once lived in a Key Biscayne waterfront mansion, shut down his legal empire in October 2002 because he said he could no longer carry the long-term costs of handling thousands of asbestos, pharmaceutical, breast-implant and other personal-injury cases.

According to the lawsuit filed Tuesday, Robles orchestrated a 'bold but fraudulent scheme to steal millions of dollars from over 4,000 asbestos clients . . . to support his flagrant lifestyle and his production of a series of `B' movies.''

After he closed his law practice, a Florida Bar complaint alleged that he overcharged his asbestos clients and misappropriated about $803,000 from about 300 of them. The Florida Bar took away his license in May 2003. But the Bar's investigation was only a snapshot of Robles' misconduct, according to Tew, who brought in accountants to analyze Robles' computer records.

Tew's firm then brought in another lawyer, James Ferraro of Coral Gables, who specializes in asbestos litigation, to represent Robles' former clients in their remaining claims.

Meanwhile, in the latest lawsuit, Tew's firm alleged that after Robles reached settlements with asbestos manufacturers, he would deposit the payouts in his trust account and then steal them, instead of mailing them to his clients as promised.

'Now, it is clear that The Florida Bar intended to victimize the class members for a third time by refusing to pay their claims from the clients' security fund,'' the suit says.

''To further underscore the lack of justice for class members, Robles has not been prosecuted by any state or federal agency for his outrageous criminal conduct, even though it rivals in both scope and heinousness the conduct of attorney Jack Abramoff's theft from his Native American clients,'' according to the suit.

The final reference was to the disgraced Washington lobbyist who pleaded guilty last week in federal court to corruption charges, including tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent charges to his Indian tribal clients that own gambling casinos.

In Miami, a federal grand jury is still reviewing evidence in the Robles case, but prosecutors declined to comment.

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