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http://www.northcountrygazette.org/contact.htmlOriginally Posted - December 4, 2005
Exclusive - Florida Bar Raises First Amendment Issue In Tampa Attorney Case
TAMPA---The Florida Bar Association and its counsel, a large campaign contributor to Sixth Judicial Circuit Court Judge George W. Greer and former Pinellas County Sheriff Everett Rice, appear to be attempting to disbar Tampa attorney Mark A. Adams for his exercise of First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and press.
Mark Adams, 41, a young attorney, married, with two children, is in the middle of one of the most egregious cases of legal abuse seen in Pinellas County and is obviously being penalized for having dared to utter the words "judicial corruption" and his attempt to effect much needed and long overdue changes in the judicial and legal system, not only in Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties, but throughout the United States.
He challenged the system----and the system retaliated.
And now the Florida Bar calls him a "danger to the public".
Adams stood trial last week before Hillsborough County Circuit Court Judge Gregory Holder, himself no stranger to controversy involving judicial corruption. Holder himself has dared to challenge the judicial system and has been faced with retaliation as a result. (see related story below)
Following two days of testimony last week, Holder reserved decision and said he would render it on Dec. 22.
Adams has been battling the politically-entrenched law firm of Battaglia, Ross, Dicus and Wein of St. Peterburg and claims that they say they can allegedly influence members of the Sixth Circuit Court's judiciary.
The Battaglia firm represented by Timothy W. Weber joined with Sixth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Crockett Farnell to bring contempt charges against Adams and to file the complaints against Adams with the Florida Bar which could result in Adams' disbarment.
Firm principal Anthony Battaglia, is a former member of the bar's Board of Governors and a former chairman of the Sixth Judicial Circuit Judicial Nomination Committee.
Adams openly admits that he has filed complaints with the Florida's Department of Law Enforcement and federal law enforcement agencies against the Battaglia firm and several judges including Farnell regarding improper influence and alleged judicial corruption in the Tampa Bay area, supported by documentary evidence.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/arti ... rSale.html Adams has also asked Chief Justice Barbara Pariente of the Florida Supreme Court to open an investigation into alleged judicial corruption in the court system.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/arti ... Probe.html The Tampa attorney says that based on a videotaped deposition of Farnell given under oath, that he will ask that the Pinellas County state attorney's office of Bernie McCabe criminally charge Farnell with perjury.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/arti ... orney.html Louis Kwall of the Clearwater firm Kwall, Showers and Coleman, served as trial counsel for the bar association. Adams says that at the pre-trial conference on Thursday, Kwall indicated that he had heard Adams' interview with Fintan Dunne
http://breakfornews.com/my/modules.php? ... =0&thold=0At the close of the trial, Adams says that Kwall indicated to the court that if Adams was found guilty, he was going to use the information that has been published on the Internet about the case including documents and other material.
Earlier in the week, contempt charges which had been brought against Adams by Judge Farnell and Weber were dismissed.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/arti ... issed.html The bar complaint filed against Adams was based on the same actions as those alleged in contempt charges against Adams which have now been dismissed by Judge Robert Beach. Beach held that the affidavit filed by Weber before Farnell was not sufficient to invoke the court's jurisdiction to issue an order to show cause initiating a contempt proceeding. This order to show cause was also used as evidence in the bar's case against Adams, and Weber testified it was dismissed on a technicality. Adams said the order to show cause was completely baseless.
Judge Farnell had also entered an order granting sanctions against Adams in the Smith vs. Corporate Sports Marketing Group case which was prepared by Weber, and this order granting sanctions also directed Weber to refer Adams to the Florida Bar for investigation. This order granting sanctions was entered against Adams over nine months after Judge Farnell approved Adams' withdrawal as the attorney for the Smiths without any reservation of jurisdiction, and it was based on a motion seeking sanctions against him filed by Weber over two months after Adams' withdrawal was approved.
The Bar also submitted Adams' motion to vacate the order granting sanctions, but the Bar did not produce any case to contradict the numerous cases that Adams had cited holding that such an order entered against someone who is not party to a proceeding is void nor did the Bar produce any case holding that a void order can be used as evidence that an attorney violated any rules. Adams said the Kwall did not spend any time presenting any evidence or case law showing that any claim that Adams raised for the Smiths was frivolous other than the order granting sanctions.
The Bar's only witness was Weber of the Battaglia firm. Adams says that "After approximately four hours of Weber's testimony where he repeatedly said that he thought that this and that were frivolous, I was able to cross examine him for approximately two and a half hours. When I asked Weber whether he had told his clients that he was connected and that he could improperly influence members of the judiciary, Stephen Wein of the Battaglia firm jumped up and objected based on attorney-client privilege, and Judge Holder reminded Wein that he was not a participant and told him not to disrupt the proceedings again. Weber then invoked the attorney client privilege to avoid answering this question.
"I believe that I raised substantial questions regarding Weber's credibility as a witness" Adams said, "and I pointed out that the Bar had failed to point to any evidence showing that I had violated any rule much less clear and convincing evidence. In addition, I submitted copies of the certified documents which I had obtained from the Second District Court of Appeal's files showing various improper actions, and I said that although I did not initially believe that Weber and the Battaglia firm could improperly influence members of the judiciary, I certainly believed that they could now".
Kwall has a long history with the good ole boy network in Pinellas County, having served as an assistant state attorney with current Pinellas County state attorney Bernie McCabe. Kwall was the head of the Office of Consumer Affairs for the state attorney's office who frequently handled complaints concerning the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.
When Kwall left the state attorney's office and went into private law practice with attorney Raymond O. Gross. In 1988, Kwall ran the successful campaign for Republican Everett Rice for sheriff of Pinellas County. From 1992 to 1994, Kwall was chairman of the Pinellas County Republican Party while Melvin Sembler, now ambassador to Italy, was treasurer for the state Republican Party. Battaglia served as a member of the Republican National Committee for Florida from 1956-1964. He served on the Board of Governors for the Florida Bar from 1993 to 1998 and is past member and chairman of the Grievance Committee, U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida.
Attorney Jean Kwall, Louis' wife, is the attorney for Rice and Gross is a judge in the Sixth Judicial Circuit.
Kwall was also involved in the controversy involving the allegations against Mel Sembler and his wife, Betty, in their operation of The Straights. Many people felt that Louis Kwall in his role at the state attorney's office should have recommended in 1983 that assistant state attorney James T. Russell indict Mel and Betty Sembler for their roles in Straight Inc., a drug rehabilitation program in Florida and allegations of child abuse.
But neither Kwall or Russell took action against the Semblers. In 1988, when Kwall had returned to private practice, and a Florida newspaper was advocating an investigation of the Coopers Point land deal involving George Greer, then serving as a Clearwater commissioner, Michael Kenten, the environmental management director for the city of Clearwater hired Kwall as his attorney. Ultimately no charges were brought against Kenton because Kwall's former associate at the state attorney's office decided that since Kenton had been a city employee at the time of the Cooper's Point deal, that he should be judged by the state Ethics Commission rather than criminally charged.
http://thestraights.com/articles/coopers-point.htm 12-04-05
June Maxam is the publisher of The North Country Gazette, co-publisher of The Empire Journal and co-managing editor, copy/layout editor of Diogenes, magazine of the National Judicial Conduct and Disability Law Project.
© 2005 North Country Gazette
The sadist cannot stand the separation of the public and the private; nor can he grant to others the mystery of their personality, the validity of their inner self...in order for him to feel his maximum power, he wants the world to be peopled with concrete manipulatable objects...
-- ERNEST BECKER, The Structure of Evil, 1968.
