A Florida lawyer who was disbarred after being accused of stealing $450,000 from his family’s trust fund has been charged with the murder of a man believed to be his father, who was also a lawyer.
Brandon Labiner, 34, was charged after a bullet-ravaged body was found in a pool of blood outside the law office of his father Paul Labiner, 68, on Saturday.
Police said in a statement that “Marsy’s law” had been invoked by the victim’s family not to name them, but local outlets, including The Sun Watchsuggested the body belonged to Brandon’s father.
A redacted police report seen by the outlet indicated the victim was found at the address of his father’s law office and a lawyer for Brandon said he was “mourning the death of his father.”
According to the Florida bar, Brandon was disbarred in April after his father sued him for stealing about half a million dollars from a trust fund that listed his mother as the sole beneficiary.
Brandon Labiner, 34, was charged after a bullet-ravaged body was found in a pool of blood outside the law office of his father Paul Labiner, 68. The pair are pictured together
Brandon Labiner, 34, will appear before a judge Monday following his arrest on first-degree murder charges
The pair worked together at the same law firm until Brandon was forced to resign last September.
According to police, the victim’s body was found around 4:30 p.m. Saturday by a family member at the 5400 block of North Federal Highway in Boca Raton.
He was found with car keys in his hand and had been shot in the head, upper chest and twice in the lower body, police said.
Brandon had been a personal injury attorney before his license was suspended, and after leaving his father’s practice, he operated from his own office about three miles north, also in Boca Raton.
After 2 p.m. Saturday, license plate readers identified a vehicle owned by Brandon traveling in the area of the crime, according to the police incident report.
Surveillance videos also showed that just after 3 p.m., a man rode a bicycle to Paul Labiner’s law office. That man was wearing a drawstring backpack and took a box from the backpack and then a gun from the box.
He then laid the gun on the ground and began “pacing through the parking garage.”
Forty minutes later, he picked up an item from the ground and hid near the wall, according to the arrest report released Monday by Boca Raton police and viewed by The Sentinel.
Pictured is Paul Labiner’s law firm, outside the body of which a victim was found Saturday afternoon
According to the Florida bar, Brandon was disbarred in April after his father (right) sued him for stealing about half a million dollars from a trust fund that listed his mother (left) as the sole beneficiary.
Paul Labiner (left) is pictured with his son Brandon (right)
A second man, believed to be Paul, is then seen with the suspect. After the two disappeared from view of the surveillance camera, the man with the gun ran away.
Using the surveillance video, the Boca Raton Police Department identified the suspect and found him at his own law office at the 900 block of North Federal Highway, where he had barricaded himself in the building.
According to the police, his lawyer managed to lure him out of the building on Saturday night.
Inside the office, an officer saw “a bicycle, in an open closet door, matching the description of the bicycle seen on the parking garage video surveillance.”
While officers were in the building, they also went to the public restroom and found in the garbage can on the second floor, near Brandon’s office, a gun cleaning kit and a piece of paper with the name of the attorney, his attorney Rodriguez.
A search warrant was executed on his car, and police found a black drawstring backpack, a 9mm magazine, several boxes of ammunition, a box for a handgun, a gas canister, a lighter, gloves and a face mask, according to the report.
A rubbish bin was also burned that “may have been used to attempt to destroy evidence,” the police report said.
In the car, they also found a poncho they said the suspect wore to the crime scene, which was seen on surveillance video from a nearby motel.
Paul’s law firm specializes in estate and trust planning and he was admitted to the Bar in 1992. He is pictured
Brandon Labiner’s criminal defense attorney, Valentin Rodriguez, told The Sun Sentinel that his client “disputes” the allegations.
Paul’s law firm specializes in estate and trust planning and he was admitted to the Bar in 1992.
He sued Brandon over the trust fund dispute and in a lawsuit, the couple allegedly had a “pretty good father-son relationship.” Brandon began exhibiting “bizarre behavior” in February 2022.
Paul said in the lawsuit that his son assaulted him in May 2022 and injured his shoulder in the process.
Before the two fell apart, Brandon had run his own department within his father’s law firm, the Personal Accident and Injury Law Center.
According to the Sentinel, they once employed about 20 staff at the time.
“But Brandon’s poor work ethic and underperformance as a plaintiff’s attorney caused the case count to drop dramatically” to “no more than a handful of viable cases,” the lawsuit said, as seen by the outlet.