Originally Posted - April 3, 2006

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ST. PETERSBURG, FLA---The Rules of Professional Conduct for Florida attorneys are very specific that a lawyer must abide by a client’s decisions, not perpetuate a case for the attorney’s own objectives or motives.

According to statements made by Michael Schiavo in his recently released book, “Terri: The Truth”, he claims that following an argument with his concubine, Jodi Centonze, and alleged threats on the lives of their children shortly before the feeding tube was to be removed from Terri Schindler Schiavo, Michael called his attorney George Felos and told him he wanted to “give up his fight” to kill his wife.

But Michael writes that Felos refused to honor his decision and “persuaded him not to” allow Terri to live. Schiavo writes in his book that Felos “reminded me that we had to realize that it wasn’t just about Terri anymore. It was about the rest of the people who didn’t want the government telling us how we could die and when we were allowed to decide that we didn’t want further medical treatment”.

He writes that euthanasia advocate Felos told him “and it was about who has the right to make decisions between a husband and wife”, never mind that the husband was severely conflicted, a suspect in the abuse, neglect and exploitation of the ward and that her death verdict had been based on self-serving hearsay testimony.

With his written words, Michael Schiavo has indicated that it wasn’t about Terri’s right to live, it was about the personal wishes and agenda of George Felos.

Michael Schiavo’s revealing statement not only indicates a clear ethical violation by Felos but solidifies the long held belief of many that the Terri Schiavo case wasn’t at all about Terri’s wishes, it was the test case for America’s death culture. George Felos and his right-to-die sect used Terri Schiavo for his own purposes and she was truly the guinea pig for the euthanasia cult.

Rule 4-1.2 of the Florida’s Rules of Professional Conduct, dealing with objectives and scope of representation, states that a lawyer is mandated to abide by a client’s decisions concerning the objectives of representation…..and shall consult with the client as to the means by which they are to be pursued.

“A lawyer shall abide by a client’s decision whether to make or accept an offer of settlement of a matter”, the rules state, thus George Felos was ethically bound to accept Michael Schiavo’s decision to withdraw his efforts to remove the feeding tube and to allow Terri Schiavo to live.

It has been held that in questions of means, the lawyer should assume responsibility for technical and legal tactical issues but should defer to the client regarding such questions as the expense to be incurred and concern for third persons who might be adversely affected. By his own admission, in the hours before her feeding tube was removed, Michael had decided to allow Terri Schiavo to live and allow her parents to care for her but Felos, impassioned by his own agenda, talked Michael out of it. In this case, Terri’s own money---awarded to her by a jury for her rehabilitation---was being used to kill her even after her guardian decided to allow her to live.

Rule 4-4.4, which addresses “respect for rights of third persons”, states that in representing a client, a lawyer shall not use means that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass, delay or burden a third person or knowingly use methods of obtaining evidence that violate the legal rights of such a person.

“Responsibility to a client requires a lawyer to subordinate the interests of others to those of the client but that responsibility does not imply that a lawyer may disregard the rights of third persons.

Of course any determination of whether or not Felos committed ethics violations and violated the Rules of Professional Conduct would ultimately be made by the Florida courts, beginning with a referee probably chosen from the judiciary of the Sixth Judicial Circuit which includes Shames and probate court judge George W. Greer, the Schiavo death judge. If it is determined that Felos did engage in ethics violations, the referee’s report would go to the Florida Supreme Court for decision.

The Florida courts habitually ruled against Terri and her parents in their seven year battle before the Sixth Judicial Circuit and George Greer to save her life.

Michael Schiavo had petitioned the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida in 1998 to remove the feeding tube of his brain-damaged wife. He claimed that she wouldn’t want to be kept alive by artificial means although at the time she supposedly made her unwitnessed “death wish”, she was 22 years old and feeding tubes weren’t deemed as artificial life support.

Terri had left no living will or advanced directive to indicate what her wishes would be should she become incapacitated and Michael claimed that she was in a persistent vegetative state, that she had no chance for recovery and would want to die by starvation and dehydration. Her parents disputed that, saying she would never choose to die in such a manner, that she was minimally conscious and could recover to some degree with therapy and rehabilitation which Michael had withheld from her for over 10 years.

Evidence suggests that Michael had met Felos as early as 1995 and it suggests that Felos may have even lobbied Michael Schiavo with the intent to advance his own interests, that of the right-to-die movement. Felos ex-wife, Kim was and is a professor at St. Petersburg College which Michael attended and where he received a nursing degree.

After the covert attempt to kill Terri occurred in 1997 in the court of Sixth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Mark Shames, the highly conflicted judge whom the Schindlers had consulted about representing them in a guardianship case against Michael Schiavo before Shames became judge, suddenly Felos appeared on the scene with a letter to the Schindlers indicating that he was representing Michael in his quest to end Terri’s life. The court agreed to allow Michael to use Terri’s rehabilitation money to pay Felos to obtain court permission to kill her thus Felos was essentially being unknowingly paid by the victim to arrange for her death and further his own cause.

Shames had tried to end Terri’s life without notifying her parents but Michael's attorney, Deborah Bushnell, told Shames in May, 1997 that it wouldn't be proper to circumvent her parents, Mary and Robert Schindler. According to public record, as of May, 1997, Schiavo had already intended to move Terri to a hospice where his new attorney, euthanasia advocate Felos was a member of the board of directors, and remove her feeding tube to end her life.

In August, 1997, Felos notified the Schindlers of the intent to end Terri's life by removing her feeding tube and in May, 1998, attorney George Felos and Michael filed a petition before Greer to remove the tube----albeit at that time, gastric tube feedings were not defined as "medical treatment".

After Felos persuaded Michael to withdraw the feeding tube on March 18, Terri died 13 days later on March 31, 2005, of marked dehydration but the cause of death has still not been determined.

Under the Rules of Professional Conduct, the client has the right to terminate the lawyer’s services at any time or the right to settle litigation that the lawyer might wish to continue. And Felos was ethically bound to accept Michael’s decision to “give it up” and to allow Terri to live.

Either Schiavo or the Schindlers or any of the attorneys representing them could file a complaint against Felos. Obviously Schiavo will not be doing so.

If a complaint is filed, it will be reviewed by Bar counsel (an attorney employed by The Florida Bar) to determine if The Florida Bar has jurisdiction to investigate the allegations. If The Florida Bar has jurisdiction, the inquiry is considered as a complaint and a formal disciplinary file is opened.

When a disciplinary file is opened, the Bar counsel continues the investigation and decides if the complaint should be referred to a grievance committee. If the complaint does not meet the threshold for an investigation, the complainant will be notified of that fact. There is no right to appeal a determination by the Bar counsel not to refer a matter to a grievance committee. During the investigation, the lawyer involved may be asked to respond to the allegations and will be asked to send the complainant a copy of the response, if one is requested and given.

The length of each investigation depends upon the facts and circumstances of each case. Therefore, the time from the filing of the complaint until the time of final decision varies from case to case.

If, after investigation, the grievance committee finds probable cause to believe unprofessional conduct occurred, Bar counsel is directed to file a formal complaint against the accused lawyer with the Supreme Court of Florida. The Supreme Court then appoints a circuit or county court judge as a referee to hold a trial on the complaint.

The complainant does not become a party to the proceedings. If the matter advances through the disciplinary process, the case is known as The Florida Bar vs. the lawyer. If Bar counsel decides to close the case, the complainant is given the reasons for doing so. If the file is closed, the bar counsel's reasons may not involve a determination as to the truth or falsity of any allegations or the response. The final decision will depend upon the nature and weight of all of the relevant evidence and testimony and may be based on the Bar’s ability to prove the case.

This instance is not the first time that Felos would be accused of improper conduct and ethics violations in the Schiavo case.

On March 29, 2004, shortly after the Schindlers alleged that their daughter was not receiving the proper medical and dental care after finding broken teeth and said that her estranged husband had denied her dental treatment for over 10 years, Felos and Michael retaliated by issuing a widespread press release without any investigation accusing the Schindlers of abusing their daughter during a visit.

“Theresa Schiavo was found by medical personnel to have been the victim of numerous wounds”, Felos’ statement said, “five of them apparently caused by a hypodermic needed, with her feeding tube wrapped around her back and an allergy band pulled up very tight on her arm like a tourniquet”.

Felos alleged that a purple needle cap had been found in Terri’s gown and he claimed that the incident occurred “immediately after a 45-minute visit from her parents” and inferred that her own parents may have been responsible for injuring her.

Although Felos said that the Clearwater Police were investigating, instead of referring media inquiries to the police, he said anyone wishing further information should contact him.

Schindlers were banned from visiting their daughter for nearly two months and because Felos had alleged that they may have committed a crime, false allegations, they retained Clearwater attorney George Tragos.

“I’ve never in my life heard of anybody issuing a press release announcing a criminal investigation, then saying if you want further information, don’t call the police department, call me,” Tragos said, charging that Felos had acted improperly.

“This press release was an abuse of the process to gain a strategic advantage.” Tragos also said that no foreign substance was found in Terri’s blood and that all toxicology reports came back negative. “Everything in his press release is bogus,” Tragos said. “Felos tries to control everything, including the Schindler’s visits. He’s using this as an excuse to stop their visits.”

The Schindlers were not permitted to see their daughter unless they were willing to pay for an off-duty police officer to accompany them. “The irony of this request is that there’s been a policeman sitting at the entrance to her room since last October (2003),” Bob Schindler said.

Felos eventually relented on the police escort request and agreed to let the Schindlers visit Terri on May 23, nearly two months later, for an hour.

Terri’s father said that after they arrived, a woman had approached them in the hallway and announced to them that she was Schiavo’s representative. They had never seen her before.

She was Gloria Centonze, wife of John Centonze who is the brother of Jodi Centonze, Schiavo’s concubine.

Centonze, 54, claimed that she was a nurse for Terri at a nursing home about 1990-1991, before she became part of the Centonze-Schiavo family. However, according to the licensing records for Florida medical professionals, no nursing license is on file in Florida for the woman under either Centonze or her maiden name of Cassaro. According to Florida marriage records, John Centonze married Cassaro on June 22, 2002.

In late May, 2004, after Schiavo and Felos had kept Terri in isolation for nearly two months, Greer ruled that Terri’s parents and her siblings could have an unsupervised visit with Terri and eventually their visitation privileges were restored.

On May 14, 2004, the Clearwater Police Department had issued a statement saying that their investigation of Felos’ allegations “found no evidence of harm, injury or violation as the result of a criminal act”.

They said that the “purple needle cap” to which Felos referred was not a hypodermic needle cap but rather a hollow, open-ended polypropylene “catheter syringe tip adapter” and is used as a plastic tubing connector in medical feeding and irrigation setups, it has no application for injection. Thus Felos’ accusatory statement was negligently and maybe intentionally false and had wrongfully accused the opposing party, Terri’s parents. Certainly as a licensed registered nurse, Michael Schiavo should have been able to identify the “purple cap”.

Terri was examined at the Mease Hospital and various procedures, including toxicology tests for the presence of unauthorized drugs, all proved negative, with no evidence of criminal activity or even attempted criminal activity and no harm done to Terri----except that Michael and Felos had been successful in keeping Terri’s family from visiting her for two months.

Despite the police report clearly indicating that Felos’ press release had contained false allegations, apparently the Florida Bar took no disciplinary action against him. 4-3-06

© 2006 North Country Gazette