The Taser was the surest sign to attorney Megan K. Wells that things had gone completely awry.

In 2013, the Miami Lakes attorney was a rookie who'd passed the bar one year earlier. Fresh out of law school, she sometimes worked 12-hour days to build a fledgling solo practice, the Wells Law Firm. Wells handled foreclosure defense and family law, did contract work for three attorneys and accepted cases at discounted rates to grow her business. When a retiree she knew from a beauty salon they both patronized approached her about a child custody dispute, Wells took the case at $150 per hour.

That was a mistake—both in terms of the fee and the toll the case would take on her practice and personal life. What she thought would have been a simple assignment turned into a four-year ordeal. It led the young attorney to argue—solo—before a state appellate court; manage a web of litigation from which at least six judges recused themselves, some after only one hearing; and appear in multiple jurisdictions as her client's opponent filed suits in circuit courts across three counties.

The stun gun she purchased for protection was a symbol of how far off track the paternity case had detoured. And it came only after Wells had secured a permanent restraining order against the litigant, a man who swore to make her “pay” for being a corrupt attorney involved in an alleged far-reaching judicial conspiracy to “kidnap” his son.

“I feel like I've been up against the worst of the worst,” Wells said. “I have been harassed via litigation on levels that no other attorney has experienced.”

'They've Got My Boy'

The underlying suit stems from a dispute with between Joseph Manzaro and his mother, Linda D'Alessandro, over which family member should gain custody of Manzaro's seven-year-old son. D'Alessandro is Wells' client, and also has a permanent restraining order for stalking against her son.

Manzaro claimed his mother drugged and tricked him into signing documents that helped her gain custody of the child after his girlfriend died in Miami in April 2013. He has a pending wrongful death suit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court against the hospital where his partner died. His mother's attorney maintains Manzaro surrendered his parental rights but sought to undo the arrangement once he learned he had no legal standing to bring the wrongful death suit—but that his minor son did, and could do so through a personal representative or legal guardian.

Court records show D'Alessandro petitioned for temporary custody in January 2012, then filed an agreed final order that month claiming Manzaro consented to let the child live with the grandmother. But Manzaro claimed the timing showed his mother's intention to “kidnap” the child, more than a year before his partner's death. He and his lawyer, Palm Beach attorney Guillermo J. Farinas, accused the Broward judiciary and Clerk of Courts office of assisting D'Alessandro by tampering with records, committing other frauds and ignoring evidence.

“They've got my boy,” said Manzaro, who denied any wrongdoing. “This is how I've been treated here in Broward County. They're not going to give me my boy back.”

The father turned to the Palm Beach Circuit in 2016 to file a complaint for relief from the 2012 agreed final order in the Broward paternity case, claiming extrinsic fraud and lack of personal jurisdiction. He said Wells misrepresented herself and failed to disclose a long-term friendship with his mother and sister, who recruited her to fight him.

“She's an attorney I previously almost dated. She is a friend of my sister's, and I stood her up on a date. I've had nothing but revenge ever since,” Manzaro said. “These restraining orders are malicious, unwarranted and unsubstantiated by any facts.”

Wells denied knowing Manzaro before the start of litigation.

The dispute has yielded close to a dozen cases across South Florida since October 2013. On Nov. 1, the Fourth District Court of Appeal sanctioned Manzaro and Farinas for “frivolous and completely meritless” filings in the child custody case that jumped from Broward to Palm Beach County. The court held the client and attorney equally liable for an attorney fee award to D'Alessandro, and then took the additional step of making an allowance that could also make them responsible for future litigation expenses.

'Sometimes I'm Overwhelmed'

Wells said the situation became volatile when she successfully petitioned for a stalking injunction after Manzaro posted video on social media depicting himself banging on his mother's door. She said she'd disregarded multiple rude and unprofessional emails and phone calls from Manzaro and Farinas, but didn't become frightened for her safety until a series of disturbing incidents that led her boyfriend to insist on accompanying her to court. She filed for the order of protection for herself after Manzaro sent her an email early one Saturday morning containing six pictures of a cadaver. Wells' pleadings claim he had yelled at her in the past outside a courtroom, followed her around as she tried to avoid him and waited for her in the parking lot after the hearing. His behavior in the parking lot frightened her enough, Wells said, that she returned to the courthouse and alerted the bailiff, who then walked her to her car.

“When I tell people about this case, they don't understand why I stay on it. But at this point, it's more about the principal of it,” Wells said. “I'm not going to allow him to bully me or my client into doing something that neither of us wants to do.”

Gustavo Francis, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who represented D'Alessandro when she first obtained temporary custody, corroborated Wells' story. He claimed Manzaro confronted him after court, followed him and yelled as he walked away, and later filed multiple ethics complaints against him, which resulted in no disciplinary action.

“I have severe concerns about Mr. Manzaro. He and his lawyer are two peas in a pod,” Francis said. “Mr. Farinas has filed pleadings alleging that I am a member of a judicial conspiracy … to kidnap Mr. Manzaro's son. He's threatened (Broward Circuit) Judge (Andrea Ruth) Gundersen with a federal lawsuit. I really find it interesting that nobody picked up the case to review it at the bar level.”

As for Wells, she refuses to step down from the litigation but has since moved to an office with controlled access and password-protected entry codes.

“Sometimes I'm overwhelmed,” she said. “But I feel an obligation to protect this child.”