J.B. HARRIS, ESQ. An army of one: How I helped disbar and indict a psychopath
Legal Newswire
Apr 24, 2023
J.B. Harris Esq.
All too often when we read or listen to the daily news, we are bombarded with stories of rampant financial fraud and other illegal schemes. Whether it is bank fraud, market manipulation, internet fraud, identity theft, romance scams, Medicare fraud, attempts to swindle the elderly, or grifters of every type trying to separate us from our money or property, the endless array of cons seems to merge into an epidemic of corruption.
And while such crimes are not uncommon in the headlines, thankfully they remain a relative rarity among members of the Bar. Most lawyers are honest, hardworking professionals. Nevertheless, there will always be exceptions to the rule that demand our attention. The case of disbarred and indicted former Tallahassee lawyer, Phillip Timothy Howard, and how I helped bring him to justice, is one of those.
A Psychopathic Lawyer
There are two types of psychopaths in this world, one who will steal your life and the other who will steal your money. Tim Howard is among the latter. I never in a million years dreamed that during my professional career I would be drawn into the orbit of a true psychopath. For those who know him, the degree of Howard’s narcissistic personality disorder almost defies belief, making him a poster child for a psychopath.
Howard also is a charlatan; someone who loves to spout bible verses while systematically stealing from the most vulnerable among us.
While the full scope of Howard’s malfeasance dates to the early 2000s, my involvement with Howard began in November 2016.
How I Became an Unwitting Mark
As a solo practitioner handling plaintiffs’ tobacco litigation against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Philip Morris USA, Inc. since 2007, I grew tired of the extreme highs and lows caused by my practice’s cash flow fluctuations. Exhausted by the constant battle to balance my income and expenses, I decided to sell my practice, which included hundreds of tobacco claims.
After putting the word out among my colleagues in the tobacco Bar, a few firms approached me with offers to pay referral fees for my book of business. Needing a steady paycheck with benefits, however, I declined. Around this time, Howard, whom I had never met, also sent me an email offering in principle to give me what I was looking for.
After three months of negotiations, I signed with Howard as co-counsel a Joint Prosecution and Fee Sharing Agreement (JPA). Under the terms of the JPA Howard promised to pay part of the litigation expenses, along with other co-counsel who were involved in litigating “activated” cases. Howard also agreed to provide me with support staff and to pay me a comfortable six-figure salary with benefits. In exchange, I promised to reduce my legals fees in favor of Howard for activated cases that were tried and ultimately paid out. The JPA’s term was to last ten years.
At the time, the offer sounded reasonably sound for someone with my years of professional experience, as well as the number of years I had been involved in trying complex tobacco litigation. In other words, the offer did not sound “too good to be true,” as those who become victims of financial fraud often lament after it’s too late.
After consulting with my lawyer, Miquel Maspons, who had negotiated and drafted the iron clad JPA, I concluded what’s the worst that could happen. Unfortunately, I mistook Howard for an honest lawyer.
In January 2017, after signing the JPA and receiving a signing bonus as agreed, I moved from Miami to Ft. Lauderdale, where I worked from a Howard & Associates satellite office staffed by another attorney and two staff people. As promised, I brought with me a portfolio of 150 individual Engle tobacco cases and over 1,000 Broin flight attendant, secondhand smoking cases.
It did not take long for the sense of safety associated with the move to fall into an abyss. Howard missed the very first payroll deposit for me and all his other employees. And that was just the beginning.
Every time I spoke with Howard about payroll, he assured me, “the money is coming, the money is coming,” like some latter-day Paul Revere.
At one point he even bragged to me by claiming he was about to receive an infusion of $10 million in operating capital from his “partners” at Virage Capital Management LP, a litigation finance hedge fund headquartered in Houston, and afterwards everything would be just fine. Indeed, with $10 million in capital Howard could have operated a firm his size for years.
After receipt of the funds, Howard was late paying everyone once again. When I confronted him about the situation, he said “the money was gone.” My head exploded.
Howard Messed with the Wrong Marine
In late 2017, after months of missed payrolls and even a bounced paycheck while I was in a tobacco trial in Escambia County, I filed complaints against Howard with the Florida Bar, FBI, SEC and IRS.
Based on everything I saw and heard from my colleagues, I realized I had unwittingly stepped into the mire of a criminal enterprise and was certain Howard was engaged in racketeering and money laundering.
Perhaps the most suspicious example at the time, aside from his consistently missing payroll, was that Howard was compensating all his employees as independent contractors through Mehta Consulting, a consulting firm established and operated by his then deputy Ankur Mehta.
Later I learned that instead of using the money from Virage to operate a legitimate law firm, Howard was investing in cockamamie schemes like a 3D virtual reality game, a movie production company and a real estate development company.
I also discovered from Kimberly Poling, a 28-year-old bookkeeper in our office, that Howard was using IOTA funds to pay the firm’s operating expenses, including payroll.
The final straw, however, came when I later learned that Howard had surreptitiously used my Engle and Broin tobacco cases as collateral for a $30 million line of credit from Virage, which Virage had extended from the original $10 million, without my knowledge or consent.
It was this epiphany that hit me like a head-on collision with an eighteen-wheeler. Howard merely saw me as a mark. But Howard messed with the wrong Marine. I vowed not to become a victim. I resolved then and there to make it my mission to bring Howard to justice.
I learned that Howard had secured this massive line of credit from Virage with his 200-plus NFL concussion cases, which Virage CEO Ed Ondarza claimed were worth over $60 million.
The use of my Engle and Broin cases to backstop the security of Virage’s debt, without my ever signing a single note or security agreement in favor of Virage, would later result in litigation in Texas in 2019, between Howard and Virage on one side and me on the other.
Howard’s Ponzi Scheme
By 2018, I learned that Howard was already under investigation by the FBI and the SEC, both of which had commenced probes into a Ponzi scheme Howard was operating through a hedge fund he controlled known as Cambridge Capital.
With Howard illegally acting as banker, broker and lawyer for his clients, Howard’s Ponzi scheme targeted over 220 former NFL players seeking compensation from the $1 billion NFL concussion settlement fund.
Most of Howard’s NFL clients were suffering from the ravages of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). According to the Mayo Clinic, CTE drives those afflicted mad with memory loss, impulsive behavior, aggression, depression, suicidal thoughts, parkinsonism and progressive dementia.
Shamefully, while our gridiron heroes were dying, Howard was stealing their money. Millions of dollars in fact.
As part of his Ponzi scheme, Howard also convinced many of his NFL clients to move their retirement funds from highly secure NFL pension plans to his Cambridge hedge fund, by promising them higher rates of returns on their investments.
Howard then encouraged existing investors to recruit new investors to do the same, so Howard could drain old accounts for his own benefit while replenishing them with additional money from new accounts. Howard used the stolen funds to purchase expensive homes, luxury cars and take exotic vacations.
According to a 2022 unsealed indictment, charging Howard with racketeering under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute (RICO), the purpose of his criminal enterprise described a laundry list of illegal activities, including:
“providing legal representation [through Howard & Associates to injured NFL clients] in class action and personal injury litigation [against the NFL], managing investment securities and funds [for his NFL clients], soliciting investors to whom interests in securities and investment funds were sold, engaging in wire fraud to obtain investment proceeds from The Cambridge Entities’ investors, and to lull investors into a sense of security and prevent action which might have interfered with the criminal activities of the Enterprise; engaging in wire fraud to obtain [NFL] settlement advance[s] and litigation expense loan proceeds from third-party lenders, engaging in transactions to spend the proceeds of wire fraud concealing and perpetuating the wire fraud, and increasing the revenue of the Enterprise, and, in turn, enriching [Howard] and associates of the Enterprise.”
Prior to the court unsealing the indictment, Co-NFL-Class Counsel Chris Seeger of the Seeger Weiss law firm, divulged many of the factual findings that would later prove to form the basis for the indictment. This occurred during a hearing on a Motion to Compel financial discovery from Howard, heard by presiding Judge Anita Brody of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Thereafter, following a court ordered audit by Seeger of Howard’s financial operations, Seeger circulated a client letter dated August 16, 2018, describing what he had uncovered. Of the millions of dollars Howard had stolen, “there is not much cash in the accounts – $237.00 in Cambridge Capital Partners and $998.00 in Cambridge Capital Equity Options,” wrote Seeger, much to the dismay of Howard’s clients. In the end, Seeger could only advise Howard’s victims to report their losses to the authorities.
As Howard dug his fingers deeper into the NFL settlement process, his greed and malevolence knew no bounds.
While Seeger was conducting his audit of Howard’s operations, the NFL Claims Administrator, Brown Greer PLC, commenced its own investigation. Brown Greer then referred its findings to Special Masters David A. Hoffman and Jo-Ann M. Verrier for their review and recommendations.
Based on Brown Greer’s findings the Special Masters’ report revealed, in part, that during the medical evaluation process supporting the claims of the injured players Howard had employed one Dr. Edwardo Williams, a Tallahassee neurologist whose medical license had been revoked by Florida Board of Medicine after Williams had sexually assaulted a female patient.
To perpetrate a scam against the fund, Howard paid Williams a premium to conduct fraudulent psychological evaluations of some of the retired players to overstate their claims for damages. This resulted in an “eighty percent” rate of “Qualifying Diagnoses,” a ratio that “was dramatically higher than typically observed by the [Settlement] Program,” according to the Special Masters report.
On June 22, 2021, the Special Masters submitted their Rule 27 Decision on the Report of Adverse Findings Pertaining to Howard & Associates. The Special Masters determined that:
“Howard & Associates misrepresented, omitted, or concealed material facts in connection with claims that may have been submitted to the Claims Administrator. In fact, it is precisely material facts that Howard & Associates went to tremendous lengths to alter. The facts here show that Howard & Associates directed doctors to falsely report Players’ [mental impairment] scores and functional impairment, changed provider names and evaluation dates on medical records such that the reports wrongly appeared to have been performed by doctors with the certifications required by the Settlement, and fabricated medical records in their entirety, each a material breach of the Settlement’s requirements. …
“Howard & Associates engaged in a wide-ranging, long-standing, and brazen pattern and practice of manufacturing evidence for submission to the Settlement Program. … And it submitted Claims to the Program –and sought reimbursement for that work—during the very time that this behavior was ongoing.”
In short, Howard had done everything in his power to try to disrupt and pilfer millions of dollars from the NFL concussion settlement fund, while depriving those who needed it most, the sick and dying retired players.
At the conclusion of their report, the Special Masters wrote, “Given the substantial amount of resources dedicated to this Audit Proceeding, including significant financial costs to both the NFL Parties and the Claims Administrator, the Claims Administrator will share this Decision, along with the full Record of the Audit Proceeding, with federal criminal authorities.” These findings also became additional supporting evidence for the indictment.
Following submission of the Special Masters’ report, the court banned Howard from further participation in the claims process. Thereafter, Virage turned with fangs dripping to my cases for repayment of its $30 million loan to Howard.
Of course, Howard was never a one-man-band in orchestrating his various schemes. A supporting cast of unindicted co-conspirators surrounded him and helped operate his enterprise at Howard’s behest. Those whose names I cannot disclose here. Suffice it to say other indictments may be forthcoming.
The Battle Lines with Virage are Drawn
By January 2018, Howard & Associates was all but out of business. Howard’s lawyers had fled the firm, leaving behind only two or three employees in Howard’s main Tallahassee office.
As for me, I was stranded in Ft. Lauderdale. Howard had not paid me in months, so I did not have the money to move back to Miami to be with my children. Nor could I find work elsewhere given that Howard and Virage had tied up my cases. During this time, I literally had to rely on the kindness of strangers just to eat. I borrowed small sums of money from friends and family to buy groceries, gas and to pay my electric bill.
Had it not been for the generosity of an older gentleman who ran a mom-and-pop café in the building where Howard’s Ft. Lauderdale offices were located, I might have gone days without food. He allowed me to buy my lunch on credit and made sure I had enough left over for dinner. Thanks to Howard, at the age of 60, I was a poor man in a suit.
By refusing to pay me, Howard not only was stealing money from me, he also was taking food from the mouths of my children. I would not allow this to stand.
Then, on April 5, 2018, out of the blue Howard told me that I should look for work elsewhere, because he could not predict when another round of funding would come from Virage. This, after months of Howard and Virage promising I would receive my money “any day.”
In response, I sent a demand letter via email to the principals of Virage, Ondarza and his deputy Marty Shellist, and to Howard demanding payment within 48 hours. I proclaimed in no uncertain terms that I would sue all of them for fraud and for misappropriating my portfolio of tobacco cases; file a complaint against Virage with the SEC, which is a SEC regulated corporation; and file a Bar complaint against Shellist, who had assured me every Friday for three months that my money was coming.
That got their attention.
The next afternoon Ondarza , who was in Miami from Houston, visited me in Ft. Lauderdale. We sat down for nearly five hours at a Starbucks on Broward Boulevard.
I explained to him what the last two years with Howard had been like. That Howard was using his law firm as a front for money laundering and stealing money from clients and that Howard had stolen my case list and pledged it as collateral for Virage’s $30 million line of credit.
None of that seemed to phase Ondarza one bit. Not surprising in retrospect given Virage’s reputation for lending millions of dollars to disgraced lawyers, like $11.3 million to indicted California lawyer Tom Girardi. And $69 million to the infamous, right-wing mouthpiece John Pierce, who allegedly is under investigation by the California Bar for mishandling $2 million in bond money for Kyle Rittenhouse, as well as for other ethical breaches involving other clients.
By the end of the day on April 6, 2018, Ondarza, Howard and I had cranked out a Confidential Settlement Agreement (CSA), wherein Virage agreed to pay me most of my backpay and place me on a salary with benefits for one year if I continued to work on my tobacco cases as I’d done under the JPA. Virage would book the money paid to me as a loan to Howard.
Acting as a Confidential Informant for the FBI
Earlier that year, the FBI contacted me to ask if I would be willing to act as a confidential informant for the Bureau, which was investigating Howard’s use of his law firm as a front for laundering money and to engage in criminal fraud against the NFL settlement program. I jumped at the opportunity. Thereafter, the Agent in Charge called to introduce himself.
Initially, I mostly shared with the AIC anecdotal evidence of Howard’s illicit activities, as well as hundreds of internal emails and Bar complaints filed against Howard, which were readily accessible. Later I would have access to a deluge of documents.
Virage Picks a Fight With the Wrong Lawyer
A year after signing the CSA, when Virage stopped paying me, I declared my obligations under the contract over. Howard and Virage, in turn, filed a declaratory action against me in Houston, asking a judge to interpret the CSA to mean Howard would have an interest in my fees from my tobacco cases in perpetuity. A notion I found to be abhorrent, especially since I would not be getting paid.
In the declaratory action, Howard was the plaintiff and Virage was the intervenor.
It was then that things got interesting. Discovery in the case generated 21,957 documents, which I immediately handed over to the FBI after receiving a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Florida. Those documents did not include the thousands of pages of deposition testimony given by the parties and witnesses in the case.
While the Texas litigation was stalled for nearly two years due to the Covid shutdown, the FBI continued its investigation of Howard.
During this time, the FBI began interviewing former employees of Howard, all of whom were more than willing to speak with the authorities about what they had witnessed.
One of Howards Closest Associates Commits Suicide
One of Howard’s long-time employees, Tom Woods, whose official title was Director of Claims Administration hoped to cut a deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He agreed to testify against Howard if the government would grant him immunity. Unfortunately, Wood’s timing was premature; the U.S. Attorney was not interested in cutting any deals at that time and refused Wood’s request.
Tragically, Woods spiraled into a deep depression. Howard, having duped him out of his life savings in some ridiculous investment scheme and feeling there was no way to avoid prison, Woods committed suicide, leaving behind an ex-wife and adult children to grieve. Just more collateral damage churned up in Howard’s wake.
Considering Wood’s suicide, a friend asked me whether I believed my safety to be at risk. Since Howard had already stolen what he wanted from me and his crew was closer to The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight than John Gotti’s thugs, I never felt threatened by them.
However, on January 28, 2020, Virage’s Chief Compliance Officer, Russian speaking lawyer Burke McDavid, an alum of DC’s powerhouse Akin Gump who had done two tours of duty in Moscow, sent a memo to all Virage Investors accusing me of “orchestrating” a press attack against Virage, following the publication of an article by Bill Myers titled, Lawyer goes sideways in NFL, drags hedge fund into spotlight.
Given what Ondarza revealed during his deposition, that Virage funnels money from anonymous, non-U.S. investors into its limited partnerships through the Cayman Islands, I absolutely considered my safety to be at risk after reading McDavid’s letter, and still do. But this apprehension has only caused me to redouble my effort in my fight for justice.
The Florida Supreme Court Disbars Howard
In the meantime, The Florida Bar was also slowly but surely moving forward with its prosecution of Howard on two complaints filed against him. Following a court appointed referee’s Report and Recommendation submitted on April 15, 2021, the Referee declared that the Bar should permanently disbar Howard. Thereafter, on March 24, 2022, the Florida Supreme Court officially disbarred Howard forever.
In January 2023, the federal court in the Northern District of Florida unsealed the indictment charging Howard with Racketeering, including money laundering, wire fraud and operating a Ponzi scheme under RICO. By then, the SEC had banned Howard from further participating in the securities industry and fined him nearly $400,000 in restitution, which would partially be used to reimburse his defrauded clients.
The Trial
In June 2022, four years after Howard and Virage filed the declaratory action against me, the case was finally heard before a state court judge in Houston.
One issue was whether, under the CSA signed by the parties in April 2018, Howard was entitled to a percentage of legal fees from my Engle and Broin cases in perpetuity, even though Howard was disbarred by then and could no longer represent any client on any matter going forward.
My counterclaim raised another issue, was I entitled to $10 million in unpaid salary under the JPA, which Howard breached, and Virage backstopped by signing the CSA.
I flew to Houston to prepare for the trial. I was represented by attorney Eric Lipper of the 100-year-old Hirsch & Westheimer firm.
Quite frankly, Lipper is a legal genius of towering proportions and one of the wiliest commercial litigators I have ever met in my 38 years of practice; the quickest draw in the West as the locals say. And his partner retired Judge Jeff Shadwick is a close second.
Howard chose to appear via Zoom. He was in San Diego with his new Mexican bride 16-years his junior. Howard was represented by Houston attorney Ashish Mahendru, whose legal fees were paid by Virage.
Virage, on the other hand, was represented by Houston lawyer Geoffrey Harrison of Big Law’s Sussman Godfrey. With at least 10 associates and staff, both in court and watching on livestream back at the office, Harrison came loaded for bear for a simple declaratory action.
Virage had assembled a paddock full of witnesses aligned against me. During opening statements, Lipper suggested to the judge that he did not need to take testimony from any witnesses for a straightforward interpretation of a contract claim. The judge agreed. So, the experts were sent packing, as were all the other witnesses waiting to testify.
During the four-day trial, the judge seemed to enjoy immensely taking Harrison to the woodshed daily, much to my amusement and that of my trial team and every other litigator in town watching on the internet.
Since there was a prevailing party attorney’s attorneys’ fees provision in the contract, each side had to produce their time records. When the judge heard that Harrison’s team had billed Virage more than $1 million for a glorified summary judgement proceeding, he went ballistic. By contrast, my attorneys’ fees were approximately $275,000.
Weeks later, the judge delivered a shameful, shocking, scandalous, disgraceful victory in favor of Howard and Virage, allowing both to take a percentage of my Engle and Broin fees forever, in deliberate disregard for every law and ethical rule in the country prohibiting the sharing of unearned legal fees with disbarred lawyers and corporate entities.
Talk about getting “hometowned”!
Luckily, for me, my lawyers and I filed a notice of appeal before the ink on the final judgment was dry, hoping to overturn this travesty of justice expeditiously.
While the full story has yet to be told, the most important lessons I have learned to date are simple but important ones. There are three sacrosanct rules lawyers must follow: first, always maintain candor with the court; second, always play by the rules; and third, report wrongdoing when you see it. Failing to report misconduct is itself an ethical violation, which could implicate a lawyer who witnesses it but fails or refuses to report it to the proper authorities.
Although I had to dig down deep to persevere, rallying others to help bring Howard to justice and witnessing their bravery in doing so, gave me the courage to carry on.
Heroes like 28-year-old bookkeeper Kim Poling, who blew the whistle on Howard for misusing his IOTA funds to pay operating expenses; Margaret Peggy Harris whose case against the tobacco companies languished because Howard had no clue how to try it, while her husband lay dying awaiting trial; Dana Hall and Sandra Fulup whose money Howard stole from their deceased husband’s and son’s estate, after he was killed in a motorcycle accident; Jasminka Ilich-Ernst, an elderly retired FSU professor who lost her life savings in a Howard-run real estate scam; and, of course, the NFL players who Howard left destitute while dying of a horrible disease.
These folks along with so many other victims, who were not only willing to file Bar complaints against Howard, but also eager to speak with the FBI, are all models of courage in my book. As is my closest friend and brother in arms attorney Rick Diaz, who always had my
six.
Likewise for the individuals I came to know in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI and the Florida Bar, who worked tirelessly to bring Howard to justice, all have earned my highest admiration. Especially, individuals like the FBI’s Agents in Charge who I came to know, and Shanee Hinson, the Bar’s Chief Prosecutor and her staff of investigators.
As a social justice warrior who has dedicated much of my professional career to suing the cigarette industry and other corrupt organizations, I realized the mission I was on to bring Howard to Justice may be the most important professional accomplishment of my career, and it is not over yet.
Tim Howard
About J.B. Harris
Practice Areas
Products liability specifically focused on suing cigarette manufacturers on behalf of Florida Engle-progeny clients, who became sick or died from their addiction to cigarettes containing nicotine.
Education
Master of Arts, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Relations, Washington, DC, 1994
Juris Doctor, Emory University School of Law, Atlanta, GA, 1984
Bachelor of Arts, Drew University, Madison, NJ, 1981
Honors
The National Trial Lawyers – Top 100, 2020-2021
Smith v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Top 100 Products Liability Verdicts 2012
Florida Bar Journal Annual Writing Award, August 1, 2010
Professional Memberships
The Florida Bar Association
The District of Columbia Bar Association
The U.S. District Courts for the Southern District of Florida
The U.S. District Courts for the Northern District of Florida
Publications
J.B. Harris, Engle v. Liggett: Has Big Tobacco Finally Met Its Match? 86 Fla Bar J. 16 (Nov. 2012).
J.B. Harris, Riding the Red Rocket: Amendment 7 and the End to Discovery Immunity of Adverse Medical Incidents in the State of Florida, 83 Fla. Bar J. 20 (March 2009).
J.B. Harris, Column: Trial Lawyers Forum: The Limits of Ex Parte Communications With a Plaintiff’s Treating Physicians Under Florida Law, 70 Fla. Bar J. 57 (Nov. 1996).
Hobbies
Trekking to Mt. Everest base camp
Hiking 100 miles across the steppes of Mongolia to Khüiten Peak base camp in the Altai Mountain Range on the tri-border of Mongolia, Russia and China
Hiking 100 miles through Yellowstone National Park
Trekking part of the Cordillera Blanca in Peru
Favorite Quote
“I have not yet begun to fight” – Captain John Paul Jones
“Never, never, never give up.” – Winston Churchill
“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.” – Gen. George S. Patton
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