Law360 (August 8, 2024, 4:56 PM EDT) — A Florida state judge has thrown out a suit by a Palm Beach real estate developer’s daughter who alleges her father sexually abused her, ruling that her attorney’s misrepresentations about an expert and why he withdrew from the case are fraud against the court.

In an order filed Tuesday, Judge G. Joseph Curley of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit sanctioned Wendy Mendelsohn with dismissal and by striking her pleadings against her father, E. Llwyd Ecclestone Jr. The judge cited as cause her attorney’s statements concerning Dr. Richard Loewenstein and false motions that he said the attorney, Roderick Coleman of Coleman & Associates, knowingly filed that led to more than a year of delay in the trial.

Coleman told Law360 Thursday that he has been truthful in the case, and that the order has “no real basis.”

In the suit, first filed in 2018, Mendelsohn alleged that Ecclestone sexually abused her. Mendelsohn, who is suing with her husband as co-plaintiff, first disclosed Loewenstein as an expert witness in March 2022, when he offered an affidavit about dissociative amnesia, but that affidavit did not mention Mendelsohn or say that he’d given Mendelsohn a diagnosis or expressed any opinions about her, according to Tuesday’s order.

Judge Curley wrote that Coleman did not turn over Loewenstein’s complete file. Coleman also represented that Loewenstein had directed them not to accept service of a subpoena on his behalf — which the judge wrote was belied later, when Loewenstein said he had never even been asked about accepting service.

During deposition of the plaintiffs’ other expert, Steven Gold, Gold initially said he relied on Loewenstein’s “findings” before saying that Loewenstein had not examined Mendelsohn — only for Loewenstein in his own deposition to admit to conducting 16 hours of interviews with her as well as a battery of tests, according to the order.

None of the material surrounding that testing or any diagnoses were produced to Ecclestone before that deposition, and Ecclestone’s attorney called off the deposition, saying it was impossible to continue without those materials, the judge wrote. Loewenstein subsequently withdrew from the case.

The plaintiffs sought a continuance to seek a new expert and blamed defense counsel for Loewenstein’s withdrawal, according to the order. But, the order said, Loewenstein’s termination letter — later obtained by the court when his full file was finally produced — expressly said he was dropping the case because the plaintiffs’ counsel had made him “an agent of obstruction” and because they were “playing games with discovery materials” to deceive the court.

Judge Curley found that this letter and its contents were known to Mendelsohn and her attorneys before they filed the motion for a continuance, blaming Ecclestone’s attorney for Loewenstein’s withdrawal, according to the order. That motion was granted and delayed the trial by 13 months.

The judge noted that Ecclestone is “of advanced age” and has dementia in holding that the delay is “unfairly prejudicial.”

“Indeed,” the order stated, “it is possible defendant is now unable to testify due to competence or to meaningfully participate in the defense of the highly personal claims against him alleging actions of sexual abuse of more than 30 years ago.”

Even at the evidentiary hearing after the letter was disclosed, Coleman continued to misrepresent to the court that he didn’t know why Loewenstein withdrew and that he didn’t know Loewenstein was going to interview Mendelsohn, despite evidence that the interviews were coordinated by the plaintiffs’ counsel, the order said.

This obstruction, on top of a prior finding by the court that Mendelsohn’s counsel was using an illegally obtained recording of Ecclestone in its deposition, warranted dismissal of the case, the judge wrote, saying he retains jurisdiction to award attorney fees and costs as appropriate.

Roy Black of Black Srebnick, representing Ecclestone, called the judge’s order “courageous” and “absolutely the right decision.”

“Our judicial system cannot allow the type of misconduct, lack of candor, waste of judicial resources and manipulation committed by the plaintiffs and their lawyer in this case,” Black told Law360 on Thursday. “Thankfully, the judge’s decision puts a conclusive end to the many years of hardship Mr. Ecclestone has endured fighting to prove his innocence.”

Lance Shinder, also of Black Srebnick and representing Ecclestone, added, “We agree with the court’s very detailed and thorough decision and plan to seek all available remedies for the harm our client suffered to his reputation and dignity by this case. This will include seeking attorney’s fees and costs and pursuit of our counterclaim for extortion.”

Coleman said the plaintiffs plan to ask for reconsideration and to appeal if the judge doesn’t grant reconsideration.

Coleman told Law360 on Thursday that they had moved to recuse the judge years ago because he is biased toward Ecclestone. Coleman also said the order contained a number of misstatements.

“There’s no real basis for the order, other than suppositions by the defense, suppositions that the court accepted,” Coleman said.

Coleman maintained that he still did not know for certain why Loewenstein withdrew, and that he was being truthful when he filed the motion for continuance and told the court that Loewenstein left the case because of what happened at the deposition. Coleman characterized what happened as Black calling it off because Loewenstein’s testimony would have defeated a summary judgment motion.

Ecclestone is represented by Roy Black, Jackie Perczek, Maria D. Neyra, Lance W. Shinder and Kyle Johnson of Black Srebnick

Mendelsohn is represented by Roderick Coleman of Coleman & Associates.

The case is Mendelsohn et al. v. Ecclestone, case number 50-2017-CA-010386XXXXMB AI, in the Circuit Court of the Fifteenth Judicial Court in and for Palm Beach County, Florida.

–Editing by Amy French.

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the co-plaintiff. The error has been corrected.