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The Colorful Case of A Well-Named Lawyer
"He's a very easygoing, good-natured guy," Botero says. "We don't work together, we just share boating adventures, going to the Ocean Reef Club, which his father founded, and going to Dolphin and [University of Miami] Hurricane games."
Botero pauses.
  Montgomery Blair Sibley with client Deborah Jeane Palfrey on Monday. "I'm a big boy, I can take it," Sibley says of criticism he's received. (By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post) |
"In court, he's a very different animal."
Asked about this personality shift, Sibley is straightforward.
"I really believe in being given a path in life," he says. "Judges don't intimidate me. I don't care if I upset the apple cart. It needs to be upset. This country is in a world of [expletive]."
Oh.
About his divorce, back in 1994: Sibley had been married for 13 years. It didn't seem to end well.
"I've filed more than 60 lawsuits. It's a little hard to put in a nutshell."
According to court files, Sibley once threatened his wife: "We will litigate until I am disbarred and bankrupt if necessary."
Barbara Sibley could not be reached for comment for this article. The court file says the ordeal started when Blair Sibley left the Miami area, triggering $4,000 per month in child-support payments, which he failed to make. The 77 days in jail eventually followed.
Among the dozens of defendants Sibley has sued in the wake of the divorce are the Florida Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.
"This case exposed a real abuse of the family court system," he says. "Some have called my filings themselves to be abusive. I don't. I consider it my patriotic duty to expose a horrible system."
