By Sue Reisinger, From Corporate Counsel

The Florida Department of Transportation has removed an in-house litigation attorney who was publicly reprimanded and placed on probation Tuesday by the Florida Supreme Court.

Adam Ellis was disciplined for a series of personal misconduct actions, including domestic violence. Ellis had argued that personal acts that took place outside of work shouldn’t affect his fitness to practice law, but the court disagreed.

Ellis, a member of the bar since 2007, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

According to court documents, the Florida Bar sought to discipline Ellis over three separate incidents. The first occurred in Portland, Oregon, in April 2010 when Ellis was charged with a nine-count domestic violence complaint.

Under a deal, he pleaded no contest to two criminal misdemeanors of assault and harassment while the other counts were dropped. He was adjudicated guilty but the verdict was withheld, and he was placed on a year’s probation while receiving domestic violence intervention counseling.

Ellis satisfactorily completed his probation and the court dismissed the case in April 2011, records showed. In his answer to the Florida Bar complaint last year, Ellis said he is “completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever, and entered his plea merely as a ‘plea of convenience,’ not as an admission of guilt.”

However, as court documents showed, Ellis’ no-contest plea included a line stating: “I know that a no contest plea will result in a guilty finding regarding the charge(s).”

Ellis self-reported the case to the Florida Bar, which took no action on it at the time.

The second incident occurred in September 2011 when Ellis was an assistant public defender in Escambia County, in the Pensacola area.

During a gathering of public defenders and assistant state attorneys in a local bar and restaurant, Ellis displayed a photo of a female assistant state attorney that he had Photoshopped and “inserted an unclothed, sexual organ outside her mouth. [Ellis] went around the room laughing and showing the altered photo to other attorneys presenting it as a ‘joke,’” the complaint stated.

The ASA reported the incident to her supervisor and filed a complaint with the Florida Bar. Ellis was reassigned to a branch public defender’s office in Milton, Florida, and he wrote a letter apologizing for his “offensive” humor, the record showed.

In the third incident, in March 2012 Ellis was arrested and charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct following a noise complaint filed by his neighbor. According to the records, a deputy sheriff went to Ellis’ home and ordered him to turn down the loud music.

Ellis refused, but others present turned down the music and the deputy left. However, less than two hours later neighbors complained again, and the deputy returned to the house to find the music turned up even louder than before. This time Ellis was arrested.

Ellis accepted a deferred prosecution agreement in which he admitted the charge of disorderly conduct and he wrote an apology to the neighbor. The case was later dismissed.

But after this incident Ellis was dismissed from the Escambia County Public Defender’s Office, according to court records. He was later hired as a litigator in the Florida Department of Transportation in Tallahassee.

Last April, the Florida Bar packaged the three incidents into one complaint, accusing Ellis of violating various rules involving misconduct and criminal misconduct, and of committing “a criminal act that reflected adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer in other respects.”

In his reply to the complaint, Ellis insisted his conduct “had absolutely nothing to do with his status as a member of the legal profession.” He maintained his innocence in the Oregon matter, claimed his display of the dirty picture was protected under the First Amendment and denied any sexual harassment, and said he was “illegally arrested” by the deputy sheriff who “perjured himself.”

A court referee who reviewed the three incidents disagreed with Ellis, finding violations of Florida Bar rules. In addition to the public reprimand and three years’ probation, Ellis was ordered to enter into a contract with Florida Lawyer’s Assistance for anger management counseling.

Ellis signed a “conditional guilty plea for consent judgment,” accepting the terms of the discipline.

On March 31, the same day the court released news of his reprimand, Tom Thomas, general counsel of the state transportation department, emailed Ellis that his services were no longer needed and he was being removed from his position “effective immediately,” according to an article in the Tallahassee Democrat.

Ellis told the newspaper, regarding the Oregon incident, which is the only one it mentioned: “I entered a plea of no contest, not a plea of guilty, and I have always maintained my innocence regarding these charges.”

For more on this story go to: http://www.corpcounsel.com/id=1202722469401/Fla-InHouse-Litigator-Is-Fired-After-Reprimands#ixzz3WXE4fLbS