ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – An attorney who represented three of his neighbors in an unsuccessful lawsuit against their homeowner’s association has been locked up in jail for nearly two months, News 6 has learned.
Bruce Burtoff, 77, was jailed for contempt of court March 4 because he refused to identify two of his clients who anonymously sued their HOA using the pseudonyms Jane Doe and Joe Doe, court records show.
Burtoff, who is asking an appeals court to overturn the civil contempt order, argues that disclosing the plaintiffs’ identities would violate a Florida Bar rule related to the protection of confidential attorney-client information.
The HOA disputes that attorney-client privilege prevents Burtoff from revealing identifying information about Jane Doe and Joe Doe.
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Burtoff remains incarcerated at the Orange County jail as the appellate process is underway. The contempt order states he can be released at any time if he discloses the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the anonymous plaintiffs.
“I’m very disappointed and near tears,” said Lynn Sandford, the only plaintiff to identify herself in the lawsuit. “His incarceration is one of the most unfair, no justice situations I’ve ever witnessed.”
Sandford and the two anonymous plaintiffs sued the North Shore at Lake Hart Homeowner’s Association in 2020, alleging mismanagement of the 1,049-home community in southeast Orange County.
Eight current and former HOA board members and officers were also named as defendants.
“Plaintiffs Jane Doe and Joe Doe request anonymity for fear of reprisal, retribution and retaliation against them by the Defendants,” the complaint stated.
Sandford, who is currently being sued for slander by the HOA’s president and previously reached a confidential settlement in a separate slander lawsuit filed by the HOA, believes her neighbors are afraid of publicly criticizing the association.
“Folks don’t want to speak out with their name on it,” said Sandford, who claims she does not know the identities of her fellow plaintiffs.
Sandford and the Does were originally represented in their lawsuit by Burtoff, who also lives in the North Shore at Lake Hart community.
But in early 2023, Burtoff filed notices in court indicating he was withdrawing as the attorney for Jane Doe and Joe Doe due to “irreconcilable differences.”
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Although Burtoff no longer intended to represent the Does, the attorney told a judge he would continue to accept legal correspondence on their behalf and forward it to them to preserve their “confidences.”
The HOA immediately filed a motion demanding Burtoff disclose the anonymous plaintiffs’ identities.
“Defendants have a right to, and must obtain, the identities and contact information for Jane and Joe Doe, especially if their counsel withdraws and they are proceeding in this matter pro se [on their own behalf],” the HOA’s attorney wrote.
Before a judge ruled on the parties’ requests, the lawsuit filed by Sandford and the Does was dismissed with prejudice, so it cannot be re-filed.
Five previous versions of the lawsuit had also been thrown out, court records show.
In his dismissal order, Circuit Court Judge Emerson Thompson described the residents’ complaint as “incoherent.”
“(The complaint) does not clearly allege which board members acted improperly during a particular period of time,” Thompson wrote. “Nor does the complaint specify who the board members were when an alleged unauthorized act occurred or what the act was as it relates to specific board members.”
The very next day, the HOA’s lawyer filed an affidavit seeking attorney’s fees and costs from the three plaintiffs.
At the time of the October 2023 filing, the HOA claimed it had incurred more than $116,200 in legal expenses defending the lawsuit.
Those legal costs had grown to more than $300,000 by the following year, according to a newsletter on the HOA’s website. The final amount will be determined at a future court hearing, records show.
“Defendants will be severely prejudiced without the identities and contact information for Jane Doe and Joe Doe, particularly as to their respective liability for attorneys’ fees and costs arising out of this matter,” the HOA’s lawyer wrote in a subsequent motion seeking to compel disclosure of the plaintiffs’ names.
Burtoff initially argued in court papers that he was not obligated to identify the Does since they had been quietly dropped as plaintiffs more than a year earlier, when an amended complaint was filed under only Sandford’s name.
The attorney also said he could not disclose the names due to “attorney-client privilege,” court records show.
“Neither (the HOA nor its attorney) can articulate a single reason why they need this information now,” Burtoff wrote in response to the HOA’s request for the identity of the Does. “There is no imminent danger of death or bodily harm nor an endangered child, simply nothing except (the HOA and its attorney’s) efforts to harass and intimidate Plaintiff Sandford (and) harass this attorney.”
In early 2024, a judge temporarily denied the HOA’s request to compel Burtoff to identify the anonymous plaintiffs because Sanford had appealed the dismissal of her lawsuit.
Nearly two years later, after an appeals court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal order, the HOA resumed its quest to collect attorney’s fees from Sandford and the Does.
Circuit Court Judge John Jordan instructed Jane Doe and Joe Doe to personally appear in court with valid personal identification on January 27, 2026.
After the Does failed to show up, Jordan ordered Burtoff to disclose the names, addresses and phone numbers of his anonymous clients by February 3.
Burtoff did not comply, records indicate, prompting the HOA to ask the judge to find the attorney and his three clients in contempt.
“Burtoff’s complete and utter disregard of this Court’s directives and orders and his obligations have wasted this Court’s precious time and resources, have caused the Association to incur unnecessary attorneys’ fees and expenses, and have prejudiced the Association’s ability to obtain and collect an award of attorney’s fees and costs,” HOA attorney Todd M. Hoepker wrote in a motion for contempt.
The HOA requested a Feb. 11 court hearing to address its contempt request.
Burtoff immediately filed an objection, claiming he was “out of the country” and would “not be able to attend” the hearing.
Court records show Burtoff had notified the judge one month earlier, on January 6, that he would be “out of the jurisdiction” that week with “limited access to email or phone.”
Burtoff later explained that he was on a cruise with his wife in the U.S. Virgin Islands, records indicate.
The HOA, which has accused Burtoff of “abusing” his court availability schedule, noted that Burtoff filed legal papers during the same period he claimed to be out of the country.
Jordan held a contempt hearing Feb. 11, despite Burtoff’s pre-announced absence.
Burtoff, Sandford and the Does did not appear, records show.
During the hearing, which lasted less than 10 minutes, Jordan granted the HOA’s motion for civil contempt against the attorney and his three clients.
“Burtoff has shown a willful and contumacious disregard of the (orders) and directives of the Court and therefore the imposition of civil coercive sanctions is necessary and appropriate to ensure compliance with the Court’s orders and directives,” Jordan wrote in an order commanding law enforcement to take the attorney into custody.
The order noted that Burtoff could be released from jail “at any time” if he disclosed the names, addresses and telephone numbers of Jane and Joe Doe.
Jordan also ordered Burtoff to pay a $500 daily fine to the HOA until he complied with the conditions.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office has been unable to take Joe Doe and Jane Doe into custody since the agency requires names to be listed on court papers, records show.
Although the judge found Sandford in civil contempt, records show Jordan later vacated the order after Sandford testified under oath that she did not know the identities of the Does.
Deputies took Burtoff into custody on March 4 when the attorney appeared in Jordan’s courtroom for a hearing in the case, records show. Burtoff was booked into the Orange County jail later that afternoon.
Two weeks later, while Burtoff remained incarcerated, Sanford filed a motion on her own behalf seeking to disqualify Jordan from the case.
Sandford’s motion noted the judge’s decision to hold the contempt hearing despite Burtoff’s documented unavailability that day.
Jordan granted the motion to disqualify himself and the case was re-assigned to another circuit court judge, records show.
“Even when the allegations may be misstated, judges should not try to defend the honor or reputation of the Court when reviewing and ruling upon motions for disqualification,” Jordan wrote.
Later that week, a state commission announced that Jordan admitted to violating Florida’s Code of Judicial Conduct in two unrelated cases and had agreed to a public reprimand.
Burtoff is now asking the Sixth District Court of Appeal to quash Jordan’s contempt order and release him from jail.
“Immediate intervention is required to restore his liberty,” Burtoff’s attorney Richard Parker wrote in an emergency petition for a writ of habeas corpus. “Petitioner’s only recourse is to request relief from this Court.”
Burtoff’s petition cites a Florida Bar rule that allows attorneys to exhaust all appeals before being forced to reveal confidential client information.
The HOA called Burtoff’s narrative “false and misleading.”
“The petition attempts to portray Burtoff as an innocent lawyer,” the HOA wrote in response. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Burtoff blatantly disobeyed every warning, directive and order requiring disclosure of the true identities of Jane Doe and Joe Doe.”
At the time of this publication, the appeals court had not yet indicated when it might rule on Burtoff’s petition.
“The priority is to get Mr. Burtoff out of jail,” Sandford told News 6. “There’s no justice here.”