A Florida lawyer who was disbarred after being charged with stealing $450,000 from his family’s trust fund has been charged with murdering a man reported to be his father, who was also a lawyer.
Brandon Labiner, 34, was charged after a bullet-riddled 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 the victim’s family had invoked ‘Marsy’s law’ to avoid naming them, but local media, including the sentinel of the sunsuggested that the body was that of Brandon’s father.
A redacted police report seen by the outlet stated that the victim was found at the address of her father’s law office and an attorney for Brandon said she was “grieving the death of her father.”
According to the Florida Bar Association, Brandon’s law license was suspended in April after his father sued him for stealing about half a million dollars from a trust fund in which his mother was listed as the sole beneficiary.
Brandon Labiner, 34, was charged after a bullet-riddled body was found in a pool of blood outside the law office of his father Paul Labiner, 68. The two appear together in the photo.
Brandon Labiner, 34, appears before a judge Monday following his arrest on a first-degree murder charge.
The couple had worked together at the same law office until Brandon was forced to resign last September.
According to police, the victim’s body was found by a family member in the 5400 block of North Federal Highway in Boca Raton around 4:30 p.m. Saturday.
He was found with car keys in 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 law license was suspended, and after leaving his father’s practice he operated out of his own office about three miles north, also in Boca Raton.
According to the police incident report, license plate readers identified a vehicle belonging to Brandon who was driving in the area of the crime after 2 p.m. Saturday.
Surveillance video also showed that after that, a man arrived at Paul Labiner’s law office on a bicycle shortly after 3 p.m. That man was wearing a drawstring backpack and removed a box from the backpack and then a gun from the box. .
He then put the gun down and began “walking across the parking lot.”
Forty minutes later, he picked up an object off the ground and hid near the wall, according to the arrest report released by Boca Raton police Monday and seen by The Sentinel.
Pictured is the law office of Paul Labiner in the 5400 block of North Federal Highway in Boca Raton, outside whose body the victim was found Saturday afternoon.
According to the Florida Bar Association, Brandon had his law license suspended in April after his father (right) sued him for stealing about half a million dollars from a trust fund in which his mother (left) was listed as the sole beneficiary.
Paul Labiner (left) is pictured with his son Brandon (right)
The father and son (pictured) were said to have had a “pretty good father-son relationship” until around February 2022.
A second man, believed to be Paul, is then seen fighting with the suspect. After the two disappeared from view on the surveillance camera, the man with the gun got away.
Using surveillance video, Boca Raton police identified the suspect and found him in his own law office in the 900 block of North Federal Highway, where he had barricaded himself in the building.
On Saturday night, his attorney was able to encourage him to leave the building, police said.
Inside the office, an officer “observed a bicycle, in an open closet door, matching the description of the bicycle seen on parking lot surveillance video.”
While the officers were inside the building, they also entered the public bathroom and found in the trash on the second floor, next to Brandon’s office, a gun cleaning kit and a piece of paper with the name of attorney Rodríguez on it.
A search warrant was executed on his car and police found a black drawstring backpack, a 9mm magazine, several ammunition boxes, a gun box, a gas can, a lighter, gloves and a face mask, according to the report.
A trash can was also burned in what “may have been used to try to destroy evidence,” according to the police report.
In the car they also found a poncho they said the suspect wore at 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 is “discussing” the charges.
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 one lawsuit said the couple had had a “pretty good father-son relationship” until Brandon began exhibiting “bizarre behavior” in February 2022.
Paul said in the lawsuit that his son assaulted him in May of that year, injuring his shoulder.
Before the couple fell out, Brandon had run his own division within his father’s law office called Accident and Personal Injury Law Center.
According to The Sentinel, at that time they hired around 20 employees.
“But Brandon’s poor work ethic and lackluster performance as plaintiffs’ attorney caused the caseload to drop dramatically” to “no more than a handful of viable cases,” according to the lawsuit, seen by the outlet.
