This went down 1 week after Gardners chief legal counsel Howell had my wife and I served with

a bogus domestic repeat violence injunction in the Public Records room at the courthouse, where we were on our 3rd day of making copies of her divorce file, having flushed it out of hiding on April 1, 2003. It had been made unavailable for months because of Howells depo in Howell vs Howell (posted here: Deposition Howell vs Howell, Payback Time, Job Is History)

which exposed Howell and her boyfriend, later husband, illegally taping a conversation (re: blackmail of Patrick Howell) from the offices of Lydia Gardner on the 20th floor. We had it immediately filed in the probate case, Estate Of Wm. H. Olney. Thirty days later Howell hurriedly settled (and sealed) her divorce case (5 years running) and the probate case, both with hugely reduced settlements from what she had been asking. She also had her attorney ask that her depo be sealed in the probate settlement. Those file sealings did not save her job, which according to her personnel file she submitted a notice of intent re: resignation on May 14, 2003. She had settled the probate case on May 8, 2003 and settled her divorce case Howell vs. Howell and then sealed on May 15, 2003 by Judge Sprinkel. You can read excerpts from it here: Backstory To Probate Case Re: Estate Of Attorney William H.

OIney And Ensuing Probate Battle

We didnt find out until 2 years later (April 2005) after FDLE subpoenaed Akerman, Senterfitt for the probate case billing records that the law firm (vendors of legal services to the Orange County Clerk of Courts) had been financing her 15 month litigation, basically open-ended litigation. A public records request of Howells personnel file revealed that her job responsibilities included vendor contracts: procurement, vendor selection, bid taking, approval, in short Orange County Clerk of Courts Lydia Gardner left it totally up to her chief legal counsel to be soley responsible for those matters. We also did a public records request (all of this is posted here at scribd.com under FDLE Complaint Results In Subpoena For Akerman Senterfitt Billing Records) for Akerman, Senterfitts vendor contract work files with the Orange County Clerk of Courts. Now we knew how Akerman, Senterfitts client Howell had managed to stay in the game litigating the probate case for 15 months while simultaneously litigating the divorce case, since 1999, with no money of her own to spend on legal fees for representation by the biggest law firm in the state of Florida, Akerman, Senterfitt.

Orange County District Attorney Lawson Lamar and Orange County Clerk of Courts Lydia Gardner are countys top crimefighters when it involves lowly employees pilfering pocket change, but look the other way when it comes to a violation of Floridas vendor gift laws, especially when it involves Gardners chief legal counsel Stephanie Howell and Floridas biggest law firm Akerman, Senterfitt, a vendor of legal services to Clerks office.