Lawyer Whose License Was Suspended After Father's Complaint Charged With His Murder
A Florida lawyer who was accused of stealing from his family’s trust fund is now charged with murder in connection with his father’s death.
Brandon Labiner, 34, was charged Monday with first-degree murder with a firearm in the death of his father, attorney Paul Labiner. Boca Raton police found Labiner’s body in the building where his law firm operated, according to a press release from the Boca Raton police department. Brandon Labiner has not yet entered a plea, and his lawyer did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Brandon Labiner is seen in court on Monday.
According to a heavily redacted probable cause statement obtained by HuffPost, the elder Labiner, 68, was found Saturday in a pool of blood in the stairwell of the building’s parking garage. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said that he sustained four gunshot wounds, one in his upper chest, two in his lower body, and one more in his head.
Video surveillance from inside the parking garage shows a man riding a bicycle, removing a gun from a drawstring backpack, and confronting the victim in a “scuffle” before leaving the frame, authorities said.
Police tracked down Brandon Labiner the following day. He was barricaded in a building about three miles from the crime scene.
Labiner, who had an active arrest warrant for DUI in a separate county, was taken into custody without incident after crisis negotiators spoke with his attorney.
During a search of his office, investigators found a drawstring backpack, a bicycle that matched the one in the surveillance footage, and a gun matching the one used to kill Paul Labiner, police said.
According to court documents filed with the Florida State Bar, Brandon Labiner was a personal injury attorney before his law license was suspended in April. He had in the past worked at his father’s law firm, and his father initiated the bar complaint, accusing him of misappropriating funds and altering documents.
Labiner is accused of stealing almost $450,000 from his family’s trust between June and August 2022 by allegedly forging bank documents to make it seem as though his father illegally transferred the money to the law firm’s account.
Paul Labiner also filed a lawsuit against his son over the alleged theft from the trust, according to WPTV.
Per WPTV, the 2022 suit alleged that Brandon Labiner had injured his father in a physical altercation at the law firm.
“Brandon’s poor work ethic and subpar performance as a plaintiff’s attorney caused the volume of cases to drastically dwindle to what Plaintiff believes is not more than a handful of viable cases,” the suit said.
Brandon Labiner appeared in court Monday. He was ordered to be held without bond and was told he could not have contact with the victim’s family, who are also his own family, WPTV reported.
