Florida Supreme Court disbars ex-Miami-Dade judge accusing him of ‘fundamental dishonesty’

MIAMI – The site for InterGlobal Legal, a company registered in Florida out of Ramrod Key, an island in the lower Florida Keys, described a disgraced former Miami-Dade County Circuit judge on Friday as “an experienced Miami business lawyer.”

Mike Mirabal’s judicial career was short-lived. His legal career wasn’t. Dec. 13 will be the 20th anniversary of his admission to the Florida Bar. But the lawyer — also known as Mike Mirabal and Miguel F. Mirabal-Serna — will likely not be celebrating.

The Florida Supreme Court disbarred Mirabal on Thursday and the opinion described him as someone who had demonstrated a “deliberate pattern of dishonesty” and “exhibited basic, fundamental dishonesty.”

The Florida Bar’s public membership profile shows the Barry University Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law 2000 graduate’s disbarment stems from a case related to his “attempts to obtain a seat” on the county judiciary.

According to a 13-page complaint by the Florida Bar, Mirabal filed in 2017 to run for county judge in group 43 in 2018. The Florida Bar found that he reported raising over $110,000 during his campaign when he had raised a little over $28,335.

Mirabal, fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, applied in 2019 to fill a vacancy and ran again in 2020. He was accused of not including a Monroe County 2008 foreclosure for nearly $532,100 in his 2019 and 2020 financial disclosures.

Mirabal paid a fine to the Florida Elections Commission. He was elected judge on Aug. 18, 2020; and assumed office on Jan. 5, 2021; but the case prompted his resignation from the bench on April 20, 2021. The Florida Bar filed a complaint with the Florida Supreme Court on Oct. 26, 2021, and Mirabal’s defense filed a conditional guilty plea on Sept. 16, 2022.

During the process, Mirabal admitted that he made “mistakes” and maintained that his conduct was “entirely unintentional.” His attorney argued disbarment, a “career death sentence,” was too harsh a sanction, and that if any disciplinary action was warranted against him for “negligent misconduct,” it should have been no more than a lengthy suspension.

According to the Florida Supreme Court’s 37-page opinion released on Thursday, Mirabal was guilty of professional misconduct for repeatedly certifying as correct campaign finance reports he knew were false, making material misrepresentations and omissions in his application to fill a judicial vacancy, and for his misconduct during the disciplinary proceedings.