Opinion ID: 622033
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: River Shores Scheme

Text: The nature of this scheme demonstrates the blurry line between Lander's private practice and his work as county attorney in this case. A group of real estate developers planning a project called River Shores at Jena (River Shores) in Dixie County retained Lander to help guide their project through the county's regulatory process. When they initially met Lander they did not know he was the county attorney, but they quickly became aware of this fact through their meetings with him. In order to give a level of security to the prospective buyers that [the developers] would finish the development, (Dkt. 190 at 96), the developers gave Lander $820,000 in August of 2005 to be held in trust to draw against as the developers incurred infrastructure expenses. Lander then opened an account called the Lander Law FirmSpecial Account to hold the developers' funds. But, not all of these funds helped complete River Shores. For example, Lander made a $140,980 withdrawal from the account to buy an island off the western coast of Florida. He also used the money for various other personal expenses. These personal withdrawals continued until December of 2007 when Lander depleted and closed the account. While Lander was making personal draws on the account, he also fulfilled two of the requests from the developers for money from the account. Lander mailed a $200,000 cashier's check drawn from the account on August 17, 2005. In early 2006, Lander fulfilled another request for $300,000. According to one of the developers, he did not question that Lander still held the other $320,000 because Lander remitted these two requests in a timely manner. When the developers made a third request for funds, Lander denied it and informed them that the county commissioners were not comfortable with the project and the rest of the money would be released when they finished the project.