Craig Sherman — who had constructed a profession as a dependable South Florida enterprise lawyer and claimed to have as soon as represented Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino — is dealing with eight felony counts of wire fraud stemming from a scheme that bilked hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from his shoppers, in response to court docket paperwork.
Federal prosecutors say Sherman defrauded two shoppers who entrusted their cash to him based mostly on his claims that he would make investments their funds in growth rights and funding packages tied to tasks in Bay Harbor Islands, an upscale group tucked between Bal Harbour and Biscayne Bay. Sherman concocted the investments, and he expended the shoppers’ cash “for his personal private use and profit, his regulation agency’s use and profit, and to maintain the fraud,” federal prosecutors allege.
The fraud allegations in opposition to Sherman got here to gentle in 2019 when New Times reported on a civil court docket case accusing Sherman of scamming a consumer, Barry Smith, out of $4.2 million.
Smith wired hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to Sherman between 2016 and 2019, beneath the impression he was funding growth loans for the Grand Beach Hotel and the Wharton Kane Concourse complicated, amongst different tasks. After periodic checks stopped arriving, Smith pushed Sherman for solutions, and the lawyer allegedly conceded, throughout a gathering at his regulation workplace, that he had fabricated the investments.
Sherman surrendered his regulation license at age 77 and consented to a remaining judgment in Smith’s lawsuit in opposition to him, although his court docket filings admit no wrongdoing.
Sherman had been working beneath a $7,900-a-month retainer in his publish as Bay Harbor Islands lawyer. The city advised New Times in 2019, through its new lawyer, that the funding offers touted by Sherman amounted to “non-public representations made to Smith, with no data from the city itself.”
When information broke of the allegations, Bay Harbor Islands introduced it was forwarding the matter to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for a possible prison investigation.
But because the years handed and Smith obtained writs of garnishments within the lawsuit, the prospect of prison prices in opposition to Sherman fell out of the general public eye, and it appeared just like the alleged scheme may stay a civil matter.
Sherman’s hopes of avoiding prison prices have been dashed on May 11 after a grand jury returned the indictment, laying out federal prices that carry a 20-year most sentence. The longtime Miami-area lawyer was taken into custody the next day. His arraignment is about for May 19.
The fraud counts with which Sherman is charged within the prison case reference $1.65 million in wires that Sherman allegedly accepted from two unnamed shoppers between June 2018 and May 2019. The alleged victims have been shut with Sherman, counting themselves as his pals and shoppers since 1986 and 2012, respectively.
Smith’s lawyer within the civil case, William Berger, declined to touch upon whether or not Smith is among the victims listed within the indictment.
When reached by New Times on May 15, one Fort Lauderdale lawyer who knew Sherman for years stated he was shocked by the allegations. He knew concerning the civil case however didn’t understand it had spilled into prison court docket.
“I by no means noticed this coming. I do know individuals who had handled him for years and by no means had any issues,” the lawyer stated.
Sherman’s disciplinary file seems to have been clear in Florida till the fraud claims arose in 2019.
His skilled profile says he served within the U.S. Air Force Illinois Air National Guard within the late Nineteen Sixties by means of 1973. He labored as an lawyer in Chicago within the Seventies earlier than shifting to Miami, the place he was a senior accomplice at Sherman & Fischman, his profile says, noting that he helped arrange the Dan Marino Charitable Foundation for autistic kids.