May 3, 2009
His defense of a young mother charged with killing her toddler has transformed José Ángel Baez into one of the best-known lawyers in America. For eight years after he graduated from law school, however, the board that screens prospective attorneys in Florida would not let him practice law.
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The Florida Supreme Court agreed with the decision, issuing an order in 2000 that cataloged unpaid bills, extravagant spending and other "financial irresponsibility" up to that time. Justices reserved their strongest condemnation for his failure to stay current on support payments for his only child.
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His overall behavior, they wrote, showed "a total lack of respect for the rights of others and a total lack of respect for the legal system, which is absolutely inconsistent with the character and fitness qualities required of those seeking to be afforded the highest position of trust and confidence recognized by our system of law."
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He worked instead as a paralegal for the Miami-Dade public defender and then taught Internet research to lawyers and started four business ventures, including two bikini companies. Before Florida Bar officials admitted him in 2005, he had to demonstrate that he had rehabilitated himself...
...Born in Puerto Rico in 1969, Baez told reporters he grew up in the Bronx and South Florida with his mother, a single parent. He dropped out of Homestead High School in ninth grade. He married at 17, became a father, earned a GED diploma and joined the Navy in 1986. According to his résumé, Baez spent three years assigned to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Norfolk, Va., trained as an intelligence analyst with what he described as a "Cosmic Top Secret" security clearance...
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In the next six years, Baez divorced, attended Miami-Dade Community College and graduated from Florida State University. A black belt in tae kwon do...
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After graduating in 1997 from St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami, Baez applied to become a lawyer...
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According to the Supreme Court summary of the case, the Board of Bar Examiners filed formal allegations against J.A.B. in September 1998. In addition to unpaid child support, a personal bankruptcy and default on a student loan, the investigators said he left out parts of his history, including that he wrote a bad check and entered a pretrial program to avoid conviction.
....Investigators also found fault with J.A.B.'s participation in a foreign-studies program in summer 1995 and his leasing of a Mazda Miata in Miami — unnecessary expenses when he owed money to others, they said. After a formal hearing, the board found the allegations proven and recommended that he not be admitted to the Bar."...
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Many details in the order can be confirmed in public records for José Baez:
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Miami-Dade Circuit Court records show that Baez failed repeatedly to pay his $200-a-month child support after his 1993 divorce...
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In April 1998 — the same month that the Bar examiners held their investigative hearing into J.A.B.'s qualifications as a lawyer — the Miami-Dade Public Defender's Office reassigned José Ángel Baez to tasks that did not require a law degree...he resigned in September 1999.
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The following year, in June 2000, the Supreme Court issued its findings Florida Board of Bar Examiners RE: J.A.B.: "Accordingly, we approve the Board's recommendation that J.A.B. not be admitted to the Florida Bar at this time."
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Turned down by the Bar, Baez started a series of businesses. They included Bon Bon Bikinis and Brazilian-Bikinis.Com to sell bathing suits, corporate records show. He also applied for a real-estate license and created two companies selling computer know-how: LawStudentWebsites.Com and LawyerConcepts.
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From 2000 to 2005, according to his spokeswoman, Baez worked for LexisNexis, the information company...Records show that a court in Miami docked $550 a month from his LexisNexis paycheck in 2004 to pay child support to his first wife...
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Baez launched two community-service ventures during his time away from the law. In 2001, according to state records, Baez created a nonprofit group, the Miami Domestic Violence Project. It dissolved two years later.
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In 2004, Baez created another nonprofit in Miami, Miracles for Children Foundation Corp., according to state records. It continued until Sept. 16, 2005.
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The following week, Sept. 22, Baez was admitted to practice law...
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Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
May 4, 2009
May 4, 2009
Casey Anthony is not the first murder suspect Jose Baez has defended; but representing her has brought him more public attention, scrutiny and controversy than any other case since he became a lawyer four years ago...
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He has bristled at suggestions that his trial experience is limited and at questions about how he is paying for the expensive legal team he has assembled...but still doesn't provide an answer.
He was a low-profile local attorney, however, until he started working for Anthony, the 23-year-old mother accused of killing her toddler daughter, Caylee...
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Along with the celebrity have come insinuations that Baez is over his head in the Anthony case — sometimes from a law professor or someone such as former prosecutor Nancy Grace of Headline News.
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Nancy Grace...now don't get me wrong, I watch every evening, but I really think she needs a frontal lobotomy. She seems to have a real personality disorder. Yells and screams every night and often gets the facts wrong, then dripping in sarcasm, insults her "expert guests" and victims of crime and their families.
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Baez, 40, would not be interviewed for this story...
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Since he became a lawyer, Baez has been involved in several money disputes. They are mostly small compared with the bankruptcy, bad debts and other financial issues that prompted the Florida Board of Bar Examiners to refuse his application to the Bar after he graduated from law school in 1997. He was not admitted to practice law until 2005.
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Darlene Bryant, a court reporter in North Carolina, said she spent six months in 2007 trying to get Baez to honor a $275 bill for work she did for him. "He finally paid after I got the state Bar Association involved," she said.
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Baez also ended up being sued in April 2007 over an $837.62 bill for 1,000 of his plastic business cards, which are decorated with a golden crest. Sir Speedy Printing went to court and won after Baez refused an offer from the Orange County Bar Association to mediate.
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And in January 2007, four months before he bought a $670,000 waterfront home in a country-club community on East Lake Tohopekaliga, Baez was held in contempt of court for failing to pay $4,000 in child support, according to Miami-Dade Clerk of Court records...
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"... Right off the bat, you have to say this is a guy who is very cocky or who is really naive," said Robert M Jarvis. Baez does his own speaking in court, where he has annoyed state prosecutors with his motions...
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A continuing controversy stems from the question of how Anthony, who had no assets when arrested in July, is paying for her defense, including the hiring of nationally recognized expert witnesses. One of them, pathologist Dr. Henry Lee, testified for O.J. Simpson at his murder trial.
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Ah, the OJ trial. Where OJ's blood is at the crime scene, Ron Goldmans blood was on OJ's socks on the floor of his bedroom, and the bloody glove with blood from both victims and OJ. And Henry Lee supported the defense theory of racism, police corruption and 'some other dude did it'.
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Then, there is Dr. Henry Lee's cutesy performance in the first murder trial of Phil Spector.
He and Spector's defense team, in an attempt to discredit the official crime scene investigation, made statements claiming to have found a piece of Lana Clarkson's fingernail, which had supposedly been blasted across the room landing on the staircase and had been missed by CSI. When Judge Fidler demanded that "whatever" they had be turned in as evidence, Mr. Lee said he 'lost' it. The judge had to notify the jury and bluntly told them that Lee's entire testimony was questionable and why.
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In March, prosecutors asked Circuit Judge Stan Strickland to investigate whether Baez was playing two potentially conflicting roles for Anthony: defense lawyer and story agent...He further speculated whether Baez could be managing both her assets and her defense...[having] been allegedly paid "licensing fees" for videos and photos...
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Under the spotlight of the Anthony case, Baez had to retract a claim on his Web site that he won 32 out of 34 jury trials after starting work in 1995 with the Miami-Dade Public Defender's Office...
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Baez has characterized the scrutiny and criticism he faces as an unavoidable consequence of his job. He also describes himself as a standard-bearer for future Hispanic lawyers." And I will not embarrass those that come after me by doing something as foolish and as unethical as what ... I've been accused of," he said outside the courthouse in January.
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