TAMPA — Not much appears awry in attorney Barry Cohen’s downtown Tampa workplace lobby.
A coquettish statue of Lady Justice nevertheless bares her thigh during the door that is front site visitors, such as for instance a blindfolded starlet unexpectedly handed a blade and scale. In the walls hang framed front pages chronicling four years of consumers’ not-guilty verdicts and settlements that are multimillion-dollar.
The designs appropriately mirror the achievements and design of Cohen, a silver-haired, silver-tongued 74-year-old understood throughout Florida for his seeming incapacity to reduce a huge situation. But recently disclosed appropriate and economic documents declare that some significant cash dilemmas lie beneath their well-buffed image that is public.
Documents filed month that is late last federal court in Tampa, along with court public records and affidavits from ny and nj-new jersey, suggest Cohen owes out-of-state monetary organizations about $35 million.
The debts are primarily caused by high-interest loans Cohen has utilized for at the very least the last ten years to invest in his unusually costly model of high-stakes, contingent-fee litigation. One loan provider is suing him to recoup its cash.
Cohen acknowledged the other day that he may have done a more satisfactory job handling their firm’s cash within the past. The high-risk instruments that are financial have actually helped float their training had been chosen by their company’s company staff without their knowledge, he stated. Continue reading