Florida Bar asks for emergency suspension of lawyer for social media 'attack of massive and continuous proportions'
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Updated: The Florida Bar has obtained the emergency suspension of a lawyer who attacked opposing counsel on social media, leading one of the targeted lawyers to obtain an injunction against stalking and the other to file a libel suit.
The lawyer, Ashley Ann Krapacs, “has launched an attack of massive and continuous proportions” on social media, the Florida Bar said in its emergency petition. “Clearly, respondent’s fury has no bounds.”
The Daily Business Review covered the petition and spoke with Krapacs.
Krapacs’ “terrorist legal tactics” began after moving to Florida and initiating a petition for a domestic violence injunction against a former boyfriend in Texas, the petition says. Lawyer Russell Williams represented the ex-boyfriend.
Though Krapacs dropped the case, she “began a social media blitz” on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube, the petition says.
Krapacs called Williams an “old white male attorney” and a “bully attorney” who had threatened to file a motion for sanctions against her if she didn’t drop the case.
She wrote that “opposing counsel flat-out LIED” and the judge “didn’t bat an eye,” the petition says. She also used the hashtag #holymisogyny when writing about the case and accused the judge of membership in the “Old Boys Club.”
In reality, the judge had treated Krapacs “with utmost dignity, courtesy and patience” and Williams did nothing to warrant public disparagement, the bar said.
Krapacs continued her rants in a YouTube video posted after Williams filed a libel suit against Krapacs and hired lawyer Nisha Bacchus to represent him.
Krapacs called Williams “a moron and a sexist and a bully” and said Bacchus was “a backstabbing traitor” for representing “misogynist pigs, misogynist bullies” like Williams.
“She’s a door lawyer,” Krapacs said. “Which is basically a lawyer who takes anything that walks in the door in any area of law.” In later posts about Bacchus, Krapacs used hashtags that included #sellout and #womanhater.
Bacchus sought the injunction against stalking after Krapacs posted a Home Alone meme showing a shotgun pointed at a perpetrator. Krapacs added the caption “when opposing counsel tries to use the same exact trick you saw in your last case.”
The Florida Supreme Court granted the emergency petition in a Feb. 27 order. Two of the court’s seven justices said they would have denied it. A referee has been appointed to try the ethics case.
Krapacs told the Daily Business Review that Williams sued for defamation weeks after the death of her father, and she was upset when Bacchus asked for proof.
Krapacs said she turned to social media after court filings and letters to the bar did no good. “I haven’t posted anything that wasn’t either truthful or subjective opinion, so it’s frustrating that I’ve had to defend that,” she said.
Story updated on Feb. 28 to report that the emergency suspension was granted.
