Sarah Boone murdered her boyfriend, Jorge Torres Jr., say authorities. (Mug shot: Orange County Jail)
A Florida attorney is fed up with his murder-defendant client, and the feeling is mutual. The lawyer asserts she might as well represent herself in court.
“No attorney can satisfy her,” attorney Frank J. Bankowitz wrote in a motion filed Aug. 22, 2023, in Orange County.
The case concerns Sarah Boone, 45, the woman accused of fatally trapping her boyfriend, Jorge Torres Jr., 42, in a suitcase. She allegedly taunted him on video, saying he choked her and cheated on her.
Attorney turnover complicated the case, with some lawyers citing conflicts of interest. But like Bankowitz, one of the other attorneys said he had problems with Boone.
Assistant Public Defender Lydia L. LaBar of the Ninth Judicial Circuit initially defended Boone but backed off in March 2020 because Boone wanted private counsel.
That new attorney, Mauricio Padilla, eventually bounced from the case. He wrote in a second amended motion to withdraw on May 6, 2022, that he and his client had “irreconcilable differences” and their relationship became “adversarial.” Things got so bad, he said, that he could no longer give her “effective aid in the fair representation” of her defense.
The public defender’s office briefly took back the case but had to again punt it, saying they previously represented Jorge Torres Jr. in a domestic violence charge in which Boone was the victim.
David Varet of the Office of Regional Conflict Counsel took the case, but that had to end, too. The office previously represented a witness.
Court-appointed attorney Marc Consalo only managed to take over for a couple of weeks before he filed on July 8, 2022, to withdraw. He said he had to withdraw over “conflict with his representation of the defendant that precludes him from further representation in the case.”
Bankowitz took over from there, but on Dec. 19, 2022, he first asked to leave. He told the court he and Boone had “irreconcilable differences.” The court ended up denying the motion, but Berkowitz is mincing no words in his Aug. 22, 2023, motion to withdraw:
3. The Defendant will not be satisfied with any attorney unless said attorney does not have a case load and can dedicate his or her time solely to Ms. Boone’s case.
4. The undersigned has been in murder trials over the past sixty days and is presently defending a Capital murder case in Lake County, Florida which absorbs all of his time including weekends.
5. The best possible avenue is to have the Defendant represent herself as no attorney can satisfy her.
Trial for murder in the second degree is currently set to begin Oct. 2, but Bankowitz told Law&Crime the court granted his newer motion to withdraw.
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There’s no love lost between him and his client.
“Am I surprised my attorney is trying yet again to give up completely? No,” Boone wrote in a letter dated Aug. 26, 2023. “Is it a blessing? YES!! Let’s be honest, Frank J. Bankowitz is a dud of an attorney. He is unprofessional, hides, lies and is disrespectful.”
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Her letters about the case appear throughout the court record. She claimed that Bankowitz was uncommunicative, rarely meeting to speak with her. Boone claimed on Jan. 10 that Bankowitz’s initial motion to leave the case “blindsided” her.
“I can only say her claims are totally unfounded,” Bankowitz told Law&Crime in an email when we asked him about Boone’s claims that he was unresponsive. “I saw her on numerous occasions in person and by virtual conferences. It is not my job to babysit. It’s to effectively represent the client. Ms. Boone did not care that I have been in trial in murder cases for the last two months without a break. She wants an attorney who only has one case, hers. I moved to withdraw and that motion was granted after the court telling her basically what I have already stated.”
All told, Boone has repeatedly voiced frustration about her case.
She addressed a letter dated May 15 to Judge Wayne C. Wooten, Bankowitz, and “Whole Wide World.”
From the beginning of the letter [formatting hers]:
PERSPECTIVE: (Merriam-Webster’s Dicitionary) I wonder how many people are going to actually look up the definition to see if it’s the same. I wonder also how many website hits the word PERSPECTIVE will get.
She wrote both the artistic and subjective point-of-view definitions of the word, then wrote:
Please review so EVERYONE has a clearer, better understanding of my CONTINUED concerns, hinderances, questions and frustrations with the “JUSTICE” system and the solid, absolute remissness of my case and the DUE PROCESS of I am and have been waiting very patiently and maintaining what I can since no one else has or will it seems, and I feel at this point – 6 attorneys later, 39 months, almost 3.5 years (which I will make) and NOT BY CHOICE – I need to make all aware of my immense struggle with the extreme mismanagement of my case to date.
“Aren’t you tired of getting my letters always asking about the same questions, concerns and drab information?” Boone wrote Wooten on Aug. 26.
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