Fort Myers mod lawyer goes missing, and so does money in his care

Fort Myers News-Press

Last summer, it became clear to Brett and Nancy Pezzella they could no longer make the $1,900 mortgage payments on their Lehigh Acres home.

Nancy had lost her job. They just couldn’t afford it.

After getting a referral from another law firm, Brett contacted Fort Myers attorney Joseph Troiano.

Troiano said that for a $3,000 fee, which Pezzella paid over three months, he could get the bank to modify the Pezzellas’ mortgage. He started working on their case last June but didn’t make much progress.

“It seemed like (Troiano was) always losing our paperwork,” Brett Pezzella said.

Then the situation got worse. Troiano wouldn’t respond to calls or e-mails.

When the Pezzellas decided to pay Troiano an unannounced visit last week, they found the office closed and an eviction notice tacked to the door.

The Pezzellas contacted me for help in unraveling the mystery of what happened to their lawyer.

I still don’t know the whereabouts of Troiano, but I think I know why he’s not answering clients’ calls.

On Jan. 19, the Supreme Court of Florida suspended Joseph Anthony Troiano from the practice of law until further notice.

A week earlier, the Florida Bar filed a petition for emergency suspension stating the facts “establish clearly and convincingly that (Troiano) appears to be causing great public harm by the misappropriation of client trust funds.”

The Florida Bar presented two affidavits in support of its petition. One was from a client in Texas who said a $10,000 check Troiano wrote him Dec. 31, 2009, bounced. The account was supposed to have about $450,000 in it left over from the $1.1 million the client had entrusted to Troiano for various real estate investments.

Read more here: http://www.news-press.com/print/article/20100204/COLUMNISTS40/2040353/Fort-Myers-lawyer-goes-missing-and-so-does-money-in-his-care