A Florida lawyer accused of killing his father after an argument at the family law firm has been found dead in his jail cell.
Brandon Labiner, 34, was accused of fatally shooting his father Paul, 68, on July 1 outside their office in Boca Raton.
Three months earlier, Brandon had been suspended after being accused of stealing $450,000 from a family trust.
Val Rodriguez, Brandon’s attorney, told WPTV that Brandon was discovered early Wednesday morning by sheriffs at the Palm Beach County Jail. He had hanged himself.
Brandon Labiner, 34, was found dead in his jail cell Wednesday while awaiting trial for the murder of his father Paul Labiner
Brandon Labiner, 34, appeared in court on July 3 following his arrest on charges of first-degree murder
Brandon Labiner (right) and his father Paul. Brandon was charged with murder after his father was found shot to death outside his office in Boca Raton on July 1
Rodriguez said her client was dealing with a series of personal issues, including an impending divorce and the death of his only child, who was stillborn at 39 weeks.
Brandon, who worked with his father, was left ‘devastated’ and ‘despondent’ after accepting a foreign check and transferring $100,000 to the customer without first carrying out the correct checks, resulting in the loss of the money.
He tried to raise the money by moving money from his father’s accounts to his own, according to court documents filed against Brandon.
Rodriguez said 2023 had been an excruciating year for the family.
“The year 2023 was the most tragic,” she said The South Florida Sun Sentinel.
“Father, son and grandson, all dead.”
Brandon and his father had worked together at the same law firm until Brandon was forced to resign in September 2022 due to an escalating rift between them.
Paul Labiner is seen with his wife Mindy. Paul was shot dead on July 1
Pictured is Paul Labiner’s law office on the 5400 block of North Federal Highway in Boca Raton
The father and son (photo) are said to have had a ‘pretty good father-son relationship’ until around February 2022
Brandon had been a personal injury attorney, but his law license was suspended due to the theft allegations.
In May, Paul Labiner sued his son over the trust fund dispute.
In his court documents, he said they had a “pretty good father-son relationship” until Brandon began exhibiting “bizarre behavior” in February 2022.
Paul said in the lawsuit that his son attacked him in May 2022, injuring his shoulder.
License plate readers identified a Brandon vehicle traveling in the area of the crime on July 1.
Surveillance footage showed a man arriving at Paul Labiner’s law office on a bicycle just after 3 p.m., carrying a drawstring backpack.
Brandon Labiner, 34, was charged after a bullet-ridden body was found in a pool of blood outside the law office of his father Paul Labiner, 68. The pair are pictured together
Paul’s law firm specializes in estate and trust planning and he was called to the Bar in 1992
You see the man take a box out of the backpack and then a gun out of the box.
The man hid behind a wall and hindered Paul Labiner as he passed by.
Paul Labiner was shot in the head and chest, and twice in the lower body, with his car keys in his hand.
Police tracked down Brandon Labiner, who was barricaded in a nearby building.
After a standoff, Brandon eventually surrendered himself and was arrested.