Jacksonville law firm Kelly Mathis pushes $50M lawsuit after expenses dropped
A Jacksonville attorney sentenced to prison and then exonerated around his direction to net cafes will attempt Wednesday to revive his lawsuit from the former sheriff and prosecutors who set him in jail.
Kelly Mathis will convey to appeals court docket judges in Atlanta that a federal judge in Jacksonville was improper to dismiss his $50 million lawsuit against figures together with former Florida Legal professional Typical Pam Bondi.
But legal professionals answering his enchantment are standing agency on costs that a jury observed Mathis responsible of in 2013.
“There is persuasive evidence that Mathis is guilty as charged of violating Florida’s Racketeer Motivated and Corrupt Firm Act,” a law firm representing Bondi and statewide prosecutor Nicholas Cox told the U.S. 11th Circuit Court docket of Appeals in a transient last 12 months.
Mathis was arrested in a crackdown on what point out officials known as a $300 million racketeering scheme disguised as a charity assisting veterans.
Bondi known as Mathis the mastermind at the rear of the plan, but Mathis claimed he was just a lawyer advising the St. Augustine-centered business, which operated dozens of video game rooms in various counties, how to do small business legally.
Although a jury convicted him of 103 rates and he was sentenced to 6 several years in jail, Mathis under no circumstances backed down and never served time.
A point out appeals court docket concluded his demo decide had been erroneous in not allowing Mathis present evidence that the online cafes were being lawful and prosecutors eventually dropped the fees alternatively than taking Mathis to demo all over again.
The lawsuit Mathis submitted in 2019 in opposition to previous Seminole County Sheriff Donald Eslinger, Bondi and other people contended he had been wrongly prosecuted and was due payment for the damage the situation wreaked on his existence and law observe.
Mathis “was arrested solely for furnishing lawful illustration to his consumers steady with his oath of admission to the Florida Bar,” Mathis argued in a short to the 11th Circuit.
Despite the fact that U.S. District Decide Brian Davis experienced purchased his lawsuit forever dismissed in 2020, Mathis took his grievance to the Atlanta appeals courtroom to press his argument again.
“Attorneys danger self-control by the Florida Bar or getting matter to a lawful malpractice action less than selected circumstances,” Mathis wrote, “but need to not be issue to legal prosecution for working towards law and advocating for consumers when the regulation is not wholly settled.”