Maite Diaz of Maite L. Diaz in Pembroke Pines. Photo: Melanie Bell/ALM.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John K. Olson has suspended an attorney from his court for two years and recommended disbarment after she allegedly filed numerous unsworn and unverified documents on behalf of clients.

The judge's 172-page order chastised Pembroke Pines solo practitioner Maite Diaz over her alleged “farcical attempt to avoid accountability” by initially failing to comply with a court order requesting certain case files and later providing incomplete records.

The failure to comply was “mind boggling” according to Olson, who wrote that Diaz's conduct throughout proceedings has “reeked of bad faith.”

Olson has recommended disbarment and referred Diaz's case to the Florida Bar, the Office of the U.S. Trustee, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and its Ad Hoc Committee on Attorney Admissions, Peer Review and Attorney Grievance.

The judge said he was forced to take extreme measures after finding a “multitude of extremely serious violations” when reviewing files Diaz submitted.

“Unfortunately, the court has opened Pandora's Jar,” Olson wrote, later adding, “Now that the court has looked, it cannot look away.”

Diaz, through her Miami attorney Ramon de la Cabada, declined to comment.

'Scattered and disorganized'

The probe stemmed from a May 2018 Chapter 7 bankruptcy case in which Diaz represented debtor Aldo Pina. Three months in, Chapter 7 trustee Leslie S. Osborne filed a complaint against Pina, alleging Pina had fraudulently withheld financial records and threatening to revoke the debtor's bankruptcy discharge.

Days later, Diaz moved to withdraw from the case and debtor Pina continued pro se, according to Olson's order. But when the debtor claimed he hadn't seen or signed particular schedules that had been filed, the trustee moved for sanctions against Diaz. The trustee also alleged that Diaz should have filed certain motions in the case and made changes to schedules.

Diaz responded by citing attorney-client confidentiality and arguing that the trustee painted her as “somehow derelict or deficient” without basing the motion on a rule violation.

Attorney Elias Dsouza began representing Pina pro bono, according to Olson's order, which said a subsequent hearing revealed that the debtor hadn't signed schedules and a statement of financial affairs that Diaz had filed on May 30, 2018, but had signed slightly different draft versions at a meeting three weeks earlier.

The court asked Diaz to provide certain documents, but to its “shock and dismay,” she instead filed a response to the court's order. In it, Diaz said she hoped to “save the court from performing a time-consuming review of over 100 filings.”

Diaz's motion conceded that she had submitted documents that weren't exactly the same as the ones her client signed because she didn't require clients to return to her office and resign documents unless changes were materially significant. Diaz admitted ignorance in the motion and said she had changed her practice in response to the inquiry.

But Olson wasn't having it.

“The court finds that this refusal to produce documents as directed, shrouded under the purported auspices of saving the court from the 'time consuming review of over 100 filings,' was a last-ditch effort to keep the lid on Pandora's Jar,” Olson's order said.

Diaz submitted a box of documents in response to a second order, but the contents were “absolutely appalling,” according to Olson, because she'd left out 17 cases he'd asked for and included 15 that he hadn't.

“Upon consideration, the court supposes that attorney Diaz may have purposefully omitted these files because they reflect especially poorly upon her, above and beyond the horrors produced in the banker's box,” Olson wrote.

In one of the missing cases, Diaz was suspended over repeated delays and had promised the court she would “clean up her practice and slow down,” according to the order. Of the 84 case files Diaz did submit, many were missing information and were apparently “scattered and disorganized.”

The alleged violations would have been more difficult with paper filings, but were possible through the CM/ECF filing system, the way Olson saw it, because the court's electronic system is ”dependent upon the integrity of the lawyers who file … using the system.”

Diaz's two-year suspension begins Aug. 1.

 

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