FL bar ramps up investigation into ex-Miami city attorney after ‘vile little man’ comment

The Florida Bar is ramping up its investigation into recently ousted Miami City Attorney Victoria Méndez, who was accused of misconduct for calling local filmmaker Billy Corben a “vile little man” during a live-broadcast City Commission meeting in January.

In his complaint , Corben accused Méndez of “embarrassingly unprofessional antics” and knowingly making false accusations during her public outburst by suggesting that he had been secretly paid to lobby the commission for her removal – an allegation Corben has repeatedly denied.

On April 26, following a preliminary fact-finding inquiry, the bar notified Méndez that the case had been transferred to its Miami branch office, where bar counsel will be assigned to conduct further investigation per the bar’s discipline process . The escalation suggests the regulatory body was not satisfied by Méndez’s written response, in which she dismissed Corben’s complaint as little more than “his latest effort to harass me.”

According to the bar website , most complaints are thrown out without discipline following a review of the accused attorney’s written response and the complainant’s rebuttal. The site noted that only one of every three complaints warrants further investigation, a step in the process handled by the branch office in the judicial circuit where the accused attorney practices.

Méndez was unapologetic in her written response , dated March 21, arguing her actions “do not rise to the level of a Florida Bar violation.” In her letter, Méndez said she takes “ethics and integrity seriously,” noting her tenure as city attorney and a dozen other professional accolades, including previously serving as chair of the Florida Bar Grievance Committee.

In his complaint, Corben said Méndez falsely accused him of secretly being paid to agitate for her removal by William Fuller, a Little Havana businessman who has been locked in litigation against the city for years. As city attorney, Corben said Méndez had been well aware of a sworn testimony in which Fuller denied those allegations.

But Méndez told the bar Corben misunderstood her meaning during the city meeting when she asked him to “represent, pursuant to the City Code, how he’s been paid to be here” and then tied the move to unseat her to an acquaintance of Fuller’s attorney — an effort she said Corben was “involved in personally.”

In her written response, Méndez said she was not accusing Corben of being paid by a “particular person,” but rather asking him “to disclose who was paying him to be there, based on his business model” of selling merchandise, blogging and posting content from the commission meetings to social media.

Read the complaint, response and rebuttal

Méndez did not dispute calling Corben names. But she told the bar her comments “cannot be read in a vacuum.” She accused Corben of years of harassment and defamation leading up to the commission meeting where he called for her removal and referred to her as a “mob lawyer” during public comment, provoking what she said was her first and only public reaction.

Méndez maintained that her comments were not inappropriate or disparaging and did not violate bar rules of decorum because she had “simply stated [Corben] was little and vile.” And, she argued, “each and every comment that he places about me or my husband or Cubans in general is vile.”

To underscore her point, Méndez attached exhibits showing memes posted to Corben’s social media accounts which depict her as Ursula from Disney’s The Little Mermaid , late-Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and sitting on the dais with “corrupt” stamped across the image, among other things. Méndez said in her response that her father was a political prisoner in Cuba.

Corben defended his actions in a rebuttal submitted to the bar on April 25, arguing the memes have the same constitutional protections as editorial cartoons printed in newspapers. Corben denied Méndez’s allegations of racism and xenophobia, saying his social media accounts are proof that he is “unabashedly an equal opportunity critic of Miami’s ruling class.” He accused Méndez of using “lies and smears … to distract the Bar from her own bad behavior.”

“But my conduct has no bearing on this matter,” Corben wrote in the rebuttal. “Unlike Ms. Méndez, I am not a member of the Florida Bar. I am, however, a citizen and a journalist who is unequivocally entitled to freedom of speech and press.”

‘Significant events’

Last month, Méndez was removed from her position as city attorney in a 4-1 vote after newly elected commissioner Damian Pardo voiced concerns over her behavior, which he described as “at times insubordinate and at times disrespectful.” Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela also questioned Méndez’s legal judgment in the various lawsuits facing the city, saying he didn’t trust her advice.

In his rebuttal, Corben included a transcript from the removal proceedings, saying that Méndez “reacted by essentially cross-examining her own client – Commissioner Pardo – as though he were a hostile witness in a courtroom.”

That was just one example, Corben wrote, of the “significant events warranting the Bar’s attention” that have occurred since the initial complaint was filed. He noted that Méndez also became “so combative” during a hearing in a civil case accusing Méndez of misusing her public office to benefit her husband’s house-flipping company that the judge “was forced to silence her microphone.” Méndez is facing a separate bar investigation over the allegations in that case.

While he admitted that his complaint might seem trivial, Corben said the “gravity of this matter goes far beyond Ms. Méndez hurling insults at a critic. “

“What should be of paramount concern to the Bar (and its members) is the fact that Ms. Méndez feels so emboldened and entitled to act the way she does in such public fashions and forums,” Corben wrote in his rebuttal. “This is even more true when considered in the context of her public disrespect for [the judge] and even her own clients, Commissioners Gabela and Pardo, during public proceedings.”

According to a spokesperson for the bar, open investigations can be expanded to include new allegations of potential violations beyond those mentioned in the original complaint. It’s unclear whether the bar is considering any new information presented in Corben’s rebuttal as the initial investigative process is confidential.

Méndez declined to comment on the investigation or the wide-ranging allegations in Corben’s rebuttal.

“I caution you on continuing to write about me, issuing misleading titles on your newspaper about me, and writing slanted articles,” Méndez told the reporter.

She called the reporting malicious and harassing.