‘Threat to kill’ charge among reasons a Fort Lauderdale attorney is suspended

Business admin June 15, 2026 0 Comments

‘Threat to kill’ charge among reasons a Fort Lauderdale attorney is suspended

Felony charges related to an ongoing divorce filed four years ago got a Fort Lauderdale lawyer suspended by the state Supreme Court.

The Florida Bar requested an interim felony suspension for personal injury attorney Michael Wallace, who entered not guilty pleas to felony aggravated eluding and fleeing and, in a separate case, written threat to kill.

Wallace joined the Florida Bar in 2015 and had a clean discipline record.

READ MORE: Father-and-son Fort Lauderdale lawyers face discipline for impugning a judge

Both cases remain in progress. Though separate cases, according to the arrest paperwork, both involve Wallace’s estranged wife, who filed for divorce in April 2022. A week before filing for divorce, she obtained a domestic violence restraining order against Wallace that ran until July 21, 2022.

She got another domestic violence restraining order against Wallace on April 9, 2024, that ran until Oct. 24 of that year.

911 call in Sunrise

The second restraining order was in effect when, according to an arrest report, Sunrise police answered a June 2, 2024, 911 call from the house Wallace and his wife had shared. Wallace’s estranged wife made the call after seeing the alarm had been activated.

She “requested police be dispatched because she believed her ex-husband had made entry into her home unlawfully and without her consent which he has done in the past,” the arrest report said. “It should be noted, the alarm company made contact with [Wallace] who gave an improper passcode, but was confirmed to be on the property.”

The arrest report says another Sunrise police case backed up Wallace’s estranged wife’s statement that he no longer lived there.

Officers saw Wallace leave the house, the arrest report said, and get into his black, 2016 GMC Yukon in the driveway. As Wallace drove toward the development’s exit, Sunrise police say officers in a marked police car hit the lights and siren to halt Wallace for a traffic stop.

Instead of pulling over, the arrest report said, Wallace “took off at a high-rate of speed to flee from the officers. [Wallace] failed to stop at a stop sign as he was exiting the neighborhood.”

The chase narrative said Wallace blew through another stop sign, at Key Lime Way and Northwest Eighth Street, then accelerated back to “a high rate of speed in a willful and wanton disregard for the safety of persons and property” while holding his cellphone out of the driver’s side window.

Officers followed Wallace to his apartment at the Solero at Plantation complex in Plantation. The arrest report says he managed to get inside his apartment, but surrendered after coming out to his balcony and not speaking to officers for five minutes.

Wallace stayed similarly silent, as is his right, after being arrested. He remains charged with aggravated fleeing and eluding at high speed and misdemeanor petit theft plus two traffic citations for running stop signs.

Real threat or emotional outburst?

An arrest warrant from Sunrise police says that on Aug. 29, 2025, Wallace “unlawfully transmitted a text message to his attorney, Lawrence Meltzer, outlining his intention to kill/cause great bodily harm to” a person with the same initials as Wallace’s estranged wife.

Michael Gottlieb, Wallace’s current criminal defense attorney, argued in a motion to dismiss any such statements because they were just part of a “highly emotional” years-long legal fight and made in privileged conversations between Wallace and his attorney.

“The alleged ‘threats’ were not communicated to the alleged victim and were immediately followed by clarifying statements expressing emotional exhaustion, not intent,” Gottlieb wrote. “Additionally, the statements were only taken as threats by Meltzer once Wallace told Meltzer that he wanted a refund. Meltzer did not express concern for the safety or well-being of the wife or of Wallace, who also expressed a desire to ‘murk’ himself.”

The charge of writing a threat to kill remains pending.