Calli Law Successfully Defends Lewis Tein PL Against Miccosukee Tribe

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke ordered Florida’s Miccosukee Tribe of Indians and their attorney to pay more than $1 million in sanctions on Friday, January 16, 2015. In the 27-page order granting Lewis Tein’s motion for Rule 11 sanctions against the tribe; their lawyer, Bernardo Roman, III; and his law firm, The Law Offices of Bernardo Roman III; Judge Cooke referred to Roman’s conduct in filing and prosecuting the lawsuit as “egregious and abhorrent.”

According to court documents, she ordered the sanctions against the tribe and Bernardo Roman III, who had accused the tribe’s former chairman Billy Cypress of embezzling tens of millions in tribal funds and accused the tribe’s former counsel Dexter Wayne Lehtinen and former outside counsel Guy Lewis and Michael Tein of Lewis Tein PL of overbilling and creating a “money laundering/kickback scheme.”

Judge Cooke stated in the order: “I recognize the monetary sanctions imposed are sizable. However, considering that upon a finding that a party filed a pleading that has no reasonable factual basis, which unreasonably and vexatiously multiplied the proceeding, an appropriate sanction may be the compensation of attorney’s fees incurred in combating the wrongful conduct. Here, the wrongful conduct is the filing of the complaints with no reasonable factual basis to support their allegations.”

She also ordered that Roman be referred to The Florida Bar and the Southern District of Florida professional committee for investigation and discipline.

Paul Calli and Chas Short have successfully defended Lewis Tein for over three years and exposed the falsity of the claims made by the Tribe and its former lawyers.

Learn more about the case by reading news articles from The Miami Daily Business Review and Law360 (subscription required).

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