Brevard County Commission Chair Bryan Lober (R-Rockledge) was served a notice from The Florida Bar dated March 5, 2020. The complaint was filed by a private citizen in response to a Facebook post in which Lober publicly offered $500 as a reward for anyone who could provide him with an non redacted expunged court record, which legal experts say was possibly a crime in of itself.
Under the Rules of Professional Conduct, Lober was ordered to file his response to the complaint no later than March 20, 2020.
Lober claims to have made this offer of a bounty as a private citizen and not in his capacity as a County Commissioner. Lober is the Commissioner for District 2 which does not include any portion of Palm Bay. However, in response to The Florida Bar, Lober emailed a request for an extension to submit his response from his official County Commission email. The instructions in the letter clearly state that any correspondence must be sent through U.S. Mail. This action is consistent with Lober’s past issues thinking that rules and laws do not apply to him. He clearly uses his official capacity when it serves him to do so, but conveniently takes that hat off when at times conducting himself in a questionable and unprofessional manner.
As an attorney however, he is always an attorney and is expected to conduct himself under the rules set forth by The Florida Bar or risk losing his license to practice law.
Lober stated in his email that the deadline poses an under hardship as he has a number of unmovable conflicting obligations set to occur this month. One of these obligations he claimed is the regularly scheduled County Commission meeting. Just recently he claimed that his position was a part time job requiring only 20 hours per week for justification in raising the fees for public records requests. He also claimed a surgery for an immediate family member. Lober is married with no children.
It appears Lober is beginning to realize the severity of this complaint as he states he is worried about sending a hurried or incomplete response without adequate time to do so. He goes on to say that he is considering getting legal counsel to actually represent him in this case. This may be a wise decision as he is the listed respondent in another serious ongoing complaint to which he was found googling how to respond to bar complaints in a public records request.
His request was granted and he is required to respond no later than April 20, 2020. His “private” conduct is clearly having an impact on his elected duties by his own statements.
What Lober did not include in his reasoning for requesting an extension is that he has been summoned to Tallahassee to respond to a hearing by the Florida Elections Commission for dozens of illegal campaign finance violations and contributions. That complaint was also filed by Robert Burns last year. It is unknown whether Lober has requested a continuance of this hearing, but given the extent of his current legal issues, and his unpreparedness to handle such issues, it is reasonable to believe he will.
