Writer, Filmmaker, Lawyer (Whose license was stolen because she refused to accept the Bar's view of who she is--lesser than)
"I see the shadow of justice and feel its destructive blows to my disenchantment."
- Anne Telasco
Appellate Court Judgement
April 28th, 2021
On April 28th, the Appellate court entered a judgement affirming that Telasco's complaint is barred by Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity because the bar is "an official arm of the state." The judgement willfully ignored most of Anne's argument affirming her constitutional rights, and its own Judge's findings (Federal Judge Rodney Smith) that the Bar did in fact criminally manipulate court dockets, doctor documents, misrepresent facts, and fraudulently paint Telasco as a thief, deliberately ruining her career and life as an esteemed Civil Rights attorney.
I would upload the judgement as I have linked prior judgements, but interestingly enough, the appellate court has deliberately marked the judgement as [DO NOT PUBLISH]. However, you can find this publicly accessible information by pulling the case docket: 20-13272 (11th Appellate Circuit)
Telasco continues to persevere, and is working on filing a Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United States Supreme Court--just as she did over a decade ago.
We will see if the American Justice System will acknowledge and correct the injustices it has inflicted on one of its own officers and citizens.
Stay tuned.
Anngelica-Marie Eshesimua, Anne Telasco's Proud Daughter
Anne's Story
The Florida Bar, knowingly submitted false documents, improperly withheld material information, forged Anne's name on a post office return receipt card, concealed evidence, filed and buried documents that Anne filed in unrelated files, intercepted, backdated and improperly filed documents without Anne’s knowledge, and in the interim fabricated (5) five cases against her in order to secure an order of disbarment for theft against her.
I know, it is inconceivable that The Florida Bar would engage in such fraudulent conduct, but it did.
The facts and documents on this site will clearly show that The Florida Bar used the court to destroy Anne’s career and reputation, and severely hinder her future.
Click here to read the August 19th, 2020 Federal Judgment outlining full facts of the case and
clearing Anne's name
A Lawyer With a Heart
Anne is a Haitian immigrant and single parent of two. She started her law practice in 1993 within a year of graduation from The University of Miami School of Law, where she was also an adjunct professor. She practiced law with a concentration in civil rights litigation.
Her office catered to indigent clients and was located near Little Haiti, an impoverished section of Miami, almost wholly populated by poor immigrant Haitians. Not only did Anne provide free legal services to her clients that were totally unrelated to any pro bono program, it was also common for her to donate funds to clients and non-clients alike to help alleviate their need.
"Great lawyers have a love affair with humanity and a passion for justice" Anne Telasco
For example, she has given funds to cover funeral expenses for clients who did not have the means to bury their relatives, and provided funds to feed women who perform sex work on Biscayne Boulevard. By happenstance she found this original check which shows she gave $1,000.00 for funeral expenses to her client. The client gave her a check, but there were no funds to satisfy the loan. Anne never cashed it.
Between 1996 to 1999, Anne had given over $15,480.79 in credits to her clients.
Money was never a determining factor in whether or not Anne helped a client. Her objective was to make the legal system accessible to the poor. This included forcing state institutions to provide the needed medical care to those who needed it. Before Anne was forced to resign, her clientele comprised of people from all walks of life, national origin, religion and sexual orientation.
Anne's work led her to be one of forty attorneys world-wide invited to Oxford University's famous Round Table Forum in 2001. She declined the invitation to attend to her clients. Ironically during this same time, the Florida Bar was deep into its 28-month long attack on her, defaming her as a thief unfit to practice law because she was a clear and present danger to the public.
The Case that Started It All
In 1995, two years after opening her firm, Anne accepted a case from 8 Haitians who had been discriminated against by their employer, Sheraton Gateway Hotel. Before going to see Anne, the clients went to see Jonathan Wald and several other attorneys. No one wanted to take on the case. Anne was used to accepting these type of cases and had built a reputation on representing these types of clients. Anne was warned by her colleagues that “clients come and go but you will always have to deal with attorneys.” Therefore, she should not go against certain firms and attorneys because it is simply not worth the possible problem it will pose for her. In spite of this warning, her priorities were always her clients’ best interests.
She never compromised her duties to help and protect her clients even when it meant that she would make the powerful firms she fought against angry. Anne’s uncompromising spirit, competence and zeal in her quest for justice for her clients made her the subject of hatred by those who could not defeat her or cause her to surrender to their will. She was even called a “nuisance.”
When Anne accepted the eight cases, Sheraton retained the international firm of Holland & Knight to represent it. Anne was determined to help the clients in this matter because she believed they had been wronged. Five years into the Litigation, one case was dismissed after a full administrative evidentiary hearing and, in two other cases, jury trials resulted in a finding of discrimination but gave no monetary award. Before the start of the third trial, the parties to the Litigation settled all eight cases for $300,000, agreeing to a payment plan of six payments of $50,000 over the course of six months. , Anne's win changed how discrimination law was applied to Haitians doing essential work, as they were treated horribly in Miami at the time. The eight clients united and agreed that they would share any outcome equally among themselves.
After the agreement was signed, one of the clients decided he no longer wanted to join in the original agreement to share the outcome with the other 7. He went back to see Wald in an effort to back out of the agreement.
Wald advised Anne's clients not to pick up their settlement checks. He then demanded that Anne send him the confidential agreement signed by Sheraton and the 8 clients, originals of all of the expense receipts, checks reflecting payment of the costs AND the settlement money so that he could distribute the funds to the clients and determine Anne’s fees and expenses. Anne refused.
Perpetrators of
Injustice
*NOTE*
This page is filled with underlined words and phrases that are hyperlinked to dozens of pages of evidence verified as true by Federal Judge Smith's ruling.
The Florida Bar has not and cannot deny their validity.
The following men have played an active role in colluding to get Anne disbarred and branded a thief.
Jonathan D. Wald
The man who ignited the crusade against Anne. He initially turned down representing the Haitian employees thinking their case was not winnable--but Anne won.
On November 24th, 1999 Wald sent a request to The Bar to look into Anne’s practice. Wald’s claim was that Anne “failed to communicate her costs to her clients” AND “Anne’s costs were not real.”
The Bar refused to acknowledge the clients’ deposition testimony and its auditor’s report that Anne did communicate with the clients and her costs were incurred and paid for.
Wald is still practicing law
Randolph M. Brombacher
One hundred and seventy (170) days after The Florida Supreme Court permanently disbarred Anne for allegedly misappropriating the $49,147.70, The Florida Bar, through Brombacher Esq., Bar Counsel, released the $49,147.70 to Jonathan D. Wald, Esq. and his firm.
Read Brombacher's letter to Wald being "pleased to inform" Wald that he has authorized the funds they claim Anne stole to be forwarded to Wald for distribution to Anne's former clients who are now Wald's clients.
Brombacher is still practicing law
The stress of the investigation took its toll on Anne’s physical and emotional health and drained her finances. Anne realized that truth and justice had evaded The Bar's proceedings against her. She had no choice but to resign.
Anne resigned on October 30, 2001, shut down her practice on November 6, 2001, and uploaded a copy of her letter of resignation to her site on November 9, 2001.
Before Anne submitted her resignation, The Bar had prepared a boilerplate petition for disciplinary resignation and an affidavit for her signature. The Bar's boilerplate petition would have made Anne eligible to apply for readmission to the Bar after three or five years and would have allowed her to work as a paralegal in the interim.
Alternately, she was advised that if she did not sign the documents, The Bar would begin a new investigation and that the Bar would get the state attorney to file criminal charges against her. She was told:
“Think of your daughter.”
The "Honorable"
U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr.
Scola fraudulently delivered the blow that wrongfully branded Anne a thief.
Anne submitted $49,147.70 to the Court and Scola on November 6, 2001 via a cashier’s check for distribution to her clients.
The Florida Bar, through its attorneys, Randolph Max Brombacher and John Anthony Boggs, its executive director, John F. Harkness, Jr., and Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr. kept the cashiers’ check tendered to The Bar by Anne from November 6, 2001 and acted as if they never received the $49,147.70.
While holding the check, they fabricated the five (5) cases against Anne during an (8) eight month period to support their claim that Anne misappropriated the $49,147.70. They did not serve Anne or give her notice of any of the fabricated cases.
On April 19th, 2002, the same day that Judge Scola signed his report recommending that Anne be permanently disbarred for misappropriating the $49,147.70, he also signed another order directing Anne’s bank to reissue the $49,147.70 cashier’s check Anne had submitted to him six (6) months prior to his report!
The irony is that they had held on to this cashier’s check for so long,
it became stale dated.
Wald “supposedly” distributed the funds to Anne’s clients two (2) years after she submitted it to The Florida Bar and Judge Scola. In the meantime, The Florida Bar and Wald led Anne’s clients to believe that Anne had stolen the $49,147.70.
Having resigned some six (6) months before, The Bar no longer had jurisdiction over Anne. Given the size of The Bar’s membership, it is truly mind boggling that The Bar took such malicious steps to humiliate and destroy her reputation, especially since they had no grounds for doing so. The Florida Bar's deemed that Anne should be nothing more than a paralegal.
The overwhelmingly damaging case which The Florida Bar fabricated against Anne is case 2002-11-CA-01. The docket of this case FALSELY reflects that The Bar inventoried Anne’s files, Anne attended numerous hearings about the $49,147.70, and that she was finally forced to remit the $49,147.70 to the court after she was disbarred.
The
Aftermath
Labeled as a thief who stole from her own people, Anne had no job prospects and was publicly ridiculed and threatened in her neighborhood of Little Haiti.
She took out several lines of credit to support herself, her elderly mother, and children. The Bar wreaked havoc on Anne's career and reputation, but did not stop there.
They came for our home
7320 Biscayne LLC
The Carnage of Gentrification
Anne purchased 7320 Biscayne Blvd in 1995 as a home for a family and office for her practice. The property located in Little Haiti, Miami had a front and backyard filled with blooming flowers and plants; life that Anne tended to as she practiced law for the people, amongst the people. Currently, our former home is a lifeless, commercial shell.
ln 2012 after a long battle with the courts in hopes of saving her home from foreclosure (which included an appeal, a plea to the United States Supreme Court, and an attempt at filing bankruptcy), the court entered a judgment of foreclosure against Telasco on the $200,000.00 dollar loan she borrowed against her property even though Telasco presented evidence of fraud by her mortgage lender.
Our home was sold at a foreclosure sale on June 29th, 2012 for $103,000.00. The property at the time was valued at 1.3 million. It was sold to the bank officer's associate and friend, attorney Damian Matthew Narvaez. Mr. Narvaez was so confident that Telasco's home would become his that on March 9th, 2011, which is over one year before Anne's home was in foreclosure, he created an LLC named 7320 Biscayne LLC, a corporation that bears the address of Anne's home.
Read the full court filling with supporting evidence here.
Our home turned into a cold, commercial shell
Finding Refuge
The Stains of Disgrace
Anne moved to the inner city of Rochester, New York in 2007 with me in tow. She was hired as a secretary by a law firm in 2008. When her employer discovered the disbarment order, she was treated like a common thief, a leper, as she was asked for the keys to the office and escorted out. Anne realized she was un-hirable and had to live off the income from her rental properties. She currently makes under $20,000 a year.
When this happened, Anne realized that she had no choice but to face The Bar's fraudulent judgment and reclaim her name and reputation which The Bar and Judge Scola had stolen from her. This humiliation prompted Anne to file her petition to the United States Supreme Court. This is the type of hardship and humiliation The Florida Bar, who is entrusted with protecting rights, pursuing justice and promoting professionalism in the legal profession, has imposed upon her.
Anne's dismissed plea
to the United States
Supreme Court
In February 2009, Anne filed her petition and appendix with the United States Supreme Court. (See petition and appendix below). The Court did not accept Anne’s Petition, stating that Anne was late in filing her request, as 7 years had transpired since The Bar’s actions, therefore it had no jurisdiction to review her petition. In Anne’s case, the deadline would have been about 3 months after the judgment of permanent disbarment (and this judgement was hidden from her for years). Anne discovered The Bar's assault on her life in 2008 since the Bar had not given her any notice of the cases it fabricated against her. Anne was unable to find any lawyers willing to take on The Bar and doom their own future.
Anne’s priorities were to learn to cope with the fact that she had been ostracized from all that she was accustomed to without cause. She also realized that The Bar was too powerful to continue to engage in battle with it. Her only option was to retreat, try to find a way to continue to provide for and nurture her two minor children and her elderly mother while at the same time attempt to start over and rebuild a new life for herself and her family.
Anne's only request to The United States Supreme Court was for corrective relief in the form of clearing her name not so she could practice law again but so that she could remove the brand of dishonesty that The Bar wrongfully placed on her that has caused her and continues to cause her to be unemployable, mistreated and humiliated.
This type of request, where a person is seeking the aid of the court from devastating consequences caused by the fraudulent and unconstitutional acts of entities like The Florida Bar is not usually subject to time bars. However, since The United States Supreme Court has decided not to accept Anne's case after its deliberation. Anne had no way to legally reclaim her name, reputation and credibility, launching her into a 10 year long battle with depression.
Anne's story is being made public so that the Court of Public Opinion can restore her good name, as she has been unable to restore it through the traditional legal system.
The
Final Battle
Anne's defamation suit against The Florida Bar was closed on August 19th, 2020 after a several months long fight. She is currently appealing the ruling. The Florida Bar is represented by Greenburg Traurig, an international law firm with over 40 locations worldwide and one of 125 firms in the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance.
GT claims to commit to the rule of law and equality for all, yet defends an institution that has illegally defamed and destroyed the career and life of a Haitian attorney actually fighting for justice.
Below is a quote from their action plan on their commitment to fighting systemic racism
"More deeply than ever before, we join the voices against racism. We are listening. We see you. We are with you. As lawyers we have a responsibility to drive change, fight injustice, and advocate for justice."
"This is our time to listen. To have those uncomfortable conversations."
Read more about their action plan here
The team against Anne, who has filed and argued this suit by herself after 20 years out of practice, is led by Barry Richard. A shareholder of Greenburg Traurig, Barry represented George W. Bush in the 2000 Florida litigation that determined the presidency. In 2006 he was named as one of the "100 Most Influential Lawyers in America" and has served as litigation counsel for The Florida Bar for three decades.
At no point during the case did the Florida Bar deny or acknowledge their fraudulent actions against Anne. The federal court order clearing Anne's name concluded that Anne's un-refuted documentary evidence consisting of over 235 pages supports each and every statement of fact that she alleges in the 318-paragraph complaint. That is, that the Bar knowingly and fraudulently doctored and fabricated evidence of theft against Anne and proceeded to secure a judgment of disbarment for theft against her. Thus, the federal court found that The Bar distributed this defamatory judgment of theft against Anne for decades.
The Florida Bar cites that their immunity has afforded them "entitlement not to stand trial or face the other burdens of litigation” and "An order requiring mediation is inconsistent with the protections provided by the Eleventh Amendment."
The Florida Bar's official position on its refusal to acknowledge or compensate Anne for her 20+ years of anguish is as follows:
"The Florida Bar cannot now negotiate the disciplinary decision or Referee’s [Judge Scola] findings and will not negotiate damage settlements which purportedly flow from actions taken on disciplinary proceedings. Required mediation would serve only to impose unnecessary burdens and would not resolve this case."
- Karusha Y. Sharpe, Florida Bar Counsel
Read the Florida Bar's refusal to mediate here.