FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A South Florida attorney has been cleared of criminal charges in a November 2023 extortion case in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, his lawyers say.
David Weintraub, 64, who specializes in stockbroker litigation, had been accused of leaking information about a condominium board member’s past legal woes to ‘embarrass her’ into quitting.
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Prosecutors dropped the case Wednesday, Weintraub’s attorneys said.
In a statement posted to its website Wednesday, lawyers at Greenspoon Marder LLP said their longtime fellow litigator had a “great day in court,” calling the result “vindication.”
“We are grateful that ASA Rice considered our arguments and further investigated these absurd allegations,” Attorney Adriana Collado-Hudak said. “David Weintraub is an exceptional person, guardian ad litem, and advocate, and we are thrilled that he can move on from these unjustified accusations.”
The firm said its attorneys, who argued that the claims against Weintraub were false and malicious, “presented the State Attorney’s Office with information about the accuser’s background, witness statements and case law.”
Attorney David Kubiliun said, “Justice was done, and Mr. Weintraub’s well-earned reputation is preserved. This is the best result we could have hoped for.”
In a statement, the Broward Stat Attorney’s Office said:
“After further investigation, prosecutors determined there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction and dropped the criminal charge against David Weintraub in court today.”
In a closeout memo obtained by Local 10 News, prosecutors concluded that “it is not evident beyond a reasonable doubt” that Weintraub “indirectly communicated threats through messengers to injure the reputation or expose (the accuser) to disgrace if she did not resign from the board.”
Prosecutors also concluded that Weintraub’s attorneys had “multiple fronts to which to attack the credibility” of the accuser, the sole witness to the alleged threats.