Legal Briefs (Tampa)

Legal Briefs (Tampa)

Mechanik Nuccio trial team

wins $1.2 million jury verdict

It took Lutz lawyer Meredith Wester more than six years to get a stock fraud claim before a jury, but her persistence paid off.

A federal jury awarded about $1.1 million in compensatory damages Feb. 24 to her long-time clients: two separate estate trusts established by Brandon dentists Dr. John Anderson and Dr. Neal Stubbs.

Now comes the hard part, says Wester, a shareholder at Mechanik Nuccio Williams Hearne & Wester PA. Besides the jury award, Wester wants co-defendants Boca Raton-based Axxsys International Inc., Adam Reiser and Deborah Austin Reiser to pay another $700,000 in attorneys' fees.

Wester convinced the jury that the Reisers, who are married but in the process of a divorce, conspired with Dominick F. Maggio to sell the two dentists slightly more than $1 million in unregistered stock in Axxsys. The jury agreed the Reisers and Maggio used a false offering memorandum to induce the dentists to invest in Axxsys, the parent company of Boca.net Corp.

Prior to trial, Wester says, Maggio agreed to a joint-and-several settlement of about $1 million. She also secured default judgments against co-defendants Hyperion Management Group Inc. and Internet Marketing Group Inc.

Mechanik Nuccio attorneys Richard Candelora and Arlene Acord assisted Wester during the weeklong trial in Tampa.

Jury awards $1.1 million

to employee-leasing firm

Nearly three years ago, the state Department of Insurance shut down Professional Employer Plans Inc. for a few days. Executives at the Tampa employee-leasing firm couldn't produce proof of workers' compensation insurance coverage, even though they had paid nearly $800,000 in premiums in just 15 days prior to the visit from state insurance officials.

It turns out the employee-leasing firm's insurance carrier, Princeton, N.J.-based Leading Edge Insurance Group Inc., repudiated the existence of any contracts.

Upset with that repudiation, executives at the employee-leasing firm retained Greg Slother, a shareholder at Tampa's Barr Murman Tonelli Slother & Sleet PA, to file a claim against the Princeton insurer in U.S. District Court, Tampa.

Earlier this month, Slother convinced a jury the Princeton insurer committed fraud against the employee-leasing firm. On March 10, the jury awarded $1.14 million in damages to the firm.

Stetson establishes center

for higher education law

The Stetson University College of Law has created a new opportunity for thosewho want to study higher-education law. It has created the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law & Public Policy with the help of law professors Robert Bickel and Peter Lake.

- David R. Corder