Linda Hadad: Florida Lawyer Disgraced And Disbarred For Having Inappropriate Relationships With Inmates She Was Supposed To Represent

Florida lawyer Linda Hadad, 43, has been disbarred for admitting to a long history of drug abuse and having sexual relationships with two prison inmates, the Daily Mail is reporting.

Hadad, a former public defender in Volusia County and criminal defense attorney, was disbarred as a lawyer for having sex with inmates at the Volusia County jail. One of the inmates, Steve Sullivan, said Hadad used to smuggle meth into jail because the illicit drug made them have better sex.

#DaytonaBeach attorney Linda Hadad disbarred, sentenced to rehab – via @frankfff pic.twitter.com/qqJAw3dQjQ

— Tony Holt (@tholt74) April 30, 2016

In a statement, the Florida Bar explained why Hadad was disbarred.

“Hadad engaged in a pattern of misconduct that included illegal drug use and sexual relationships with clients. She had inappropriate intimate relationships with inmates at the Volusia County jail while she represented them, and engaged in inappropriate phone calls, which were routinely recorded by the jail.”

Hadad confessed that she had been using drugs during her legal practice. The drugs included meth, ecstasy acid, marijuana, crack, Adderall, cocaine, Xanax, and Oxycodone. She went on to describe in detail that she had used acid once, ecstasy 20 times, crack at least 10 times, cocaine 10 times, and meth three times.

During her deposition, Hadad was made to listen to her phone sex conversations with Steve Sullivan and another jail inmate, Brandon Carson. During the deposition, an embarrassed Hadad asked if she could stop listening to herself having phone sex. Carson, 25, a volatile inmate who vehemently believed that the Hiroshima bombing occurred in 1954 and not 1945, also admitted to having sexual relations with the disgraced lawyer.

Hadad was economical about her relationship with Carson, admitting to only kissing him once. But Carson held nothing back about her visits saying that he told her to buy a diabetic needle once so that they could shoot up together, a request that the former lawyer agreed to try out.

Despite being a lawyer, Hadad was always in trouble with the law. She had been arrested five times prior to her disbarment, four times for vehicular license issues and once for driving under the influence. She came close to being arrested a sixth time, when she flashed a bouncer because she wanted to get inside a club. Hadad also had a penchant for not showing up at hearings, forfeiting criminal cases and changed her law office once without notifying those she was legally representing.

There was also a time when Hadad attempted to reach out to a domestic violence victim on behalf of an inmate who had been ordered to stay away by the court. W. Bryan Park II, a friend to the former lawyer, said if Hadad conducted herself well from now on, she could reapply to the Florida bar in five years. He expressed sympathy over her case, saying it was a distasteful case of the damage drug addiction could do to a person. He revealed that his friend was in a sober facility in South Florida.

According to drug rehab facility Elements Behavioral Health, over 20 percent of lawyers in America abuse drugs or alcohol. The American Bar Association Commission argues that because lawyers set lofty goals for themselves, they tend to escape from their overwhelming workload via drugs and alcohol.

The commission went on to explain there was little margin for error in the legal practice, explaining that the pressures of keeping to time and maintaining deadlines were a crushing factor that many in the legal profession could not handle.

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