The Florida Bar is asking a Pinellas judge to revoke the law licenses of three attorneys accused of setting up a rival lawyer's 2013 DUI arrest.



Pinellas-Pasco Senior Judge W. Douglas Baird listened to two days of evidence earlier this month during the sentencing phase for attorneys Stephen Diaco, Robert Adams and Adam Filthaut.

In July, Baird ruled that the trio, with the Adams & Diaco firm, orchestrated the DUI stop and arrest of rival attorney Phil Campbell, who represented Todd "MJ" Schnitt during the 2013 defamation trial against Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.

Clem's lawyers allegedly conspired with a Tampa police officer to trap Campbell into that DUI, and Melissa Personius, a legal aide at the Adams & Diaco firm, was supposedly involved. Charges against Campbell were later dropped.



On Monday, the Florida Bar recommended that Diaco be permanently disbarred. For Adams and Filthaut, the Bar called for temporary disbarment with a chance to reapply for their law licenses in five years.

The Bar's attorneys said Diaco had several professional violations during the ordeal and the hearings that followed.



Baird is expected to make a decision by the end of the month, which will then be reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court.

The State Supreme Court will make the final ruling.

