Re: U.S. Magistrate Klein died of a mysterious lung ailment

[Guest guest]

KC...my prayers go out to his family and all that new him. Not good

way for mold to get into the news. Darlene

>

> Posted on Thu, Sep. 28, 2006

>

> THEODORE KLEIN, 66

> U.S. Magistrate Klein, veteran defense attorney, diesTed Klein, a

> South Florida legal giant, died of a mysterious lung ailment that

> cut short his career as a federal magistrate judge.

> BY JAY WEAVER

> jweaver@...

>

> http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15625289.htm

>

>

> U.S. Magistrate Theodore Klein, recognized as one of the sharpest

> legal minds in South Florida during a storied career as a federal

> prosecutor, defense attorney and judge, died Wednesday afternoon of

> a lung disease.

>

> Klein, 66, died at South Miami Hospital after battling a mysterious

> lung ailment that family members say may have been caused by mold

> spores in his home. Klein, appointed as a magistrate nearly three

> years ago, fell ill last December and had been hospitalized since

> June.

>

> His brother, Hank Klein, said the illness was a shock because Ted

> exercised regularly, ate healthy foods and never smoked.

>

> ''We don't know what caused this disease,'' said Klein, vice

> chairman of Codina Realty Services. ``He skied several times during

> the winter. He hiked during the summer. He jogged all the time. He

> was in excellent shape for a man of 66.''

>

> Ted Klein was born in Czechoslovakia in 1940 during the Nazi

> occupation. His father, Rabbi Maurice Klein, and mother, Sara, fled

> their homeland with young Klein, then 9 months old, and his sister,

> Miriam, 4, eventually making their way to Lisbon. On May 15, 1941,

> the Kleins emigrated to the United States, settling with friends in

> the Cleveland area.

>

> The family moved to Miami in 1957. At the University of Miami, Ted

> Klein was known as a bookworm. He graduated from the UM law school,

> where he was associate editor of the Law Review.

>

> ''He got the top grades in his class,'' said Bierman, a UM

> law alumnus. He added that Klein was a ``compulsive preparer.''

>

> Klein went on to earn a master's degree in law at Yale University.

> Then he returned to Miami and began to make his mark in the legal

> community.

>

> In the late 1960s, Klein became a prosecutor with the U.S.

> attorney's office, working with Bierman and another friend from

> college, U.S. District Judge ez.

>

> ez said they would regularly go for lunch and talk about their

> cases -- and whatever struck their interest.

>

> ''One time, we were talking about mosquitoes, of all things,''

> ez said. ``Ted went to the library and memorized the names of

> about 650 mosquitoes.''

>

> During that period, Klein and his wife, , had two children --

> , a Yale history professor, and , a Miami

> psychologist. The couple later divorced.

>

> ''I've always been so proud of him and what he's done,''

> Klein said. ``I've always looked up to him for everything. He had

> such a great sense of humor and was always able to give the support

> and guidance I needed to find my own direction.''

>

> He said his father had that kind of impact on many people, including

> countless students he taught as a UM adjunct law professor for

> nearly 30 years.

>

> UPHOLDING PRINCIPLE

>

> Klein praised both of her parents in her recent book, For

> All These Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping of America's

> Public-Private Welfare State.

>

> ''I always saw my father as a person who stood up for what was

> right,'' she said.

>

> She said he resigned from the Dade Heritage Trust because it met at

> Miami Beach's long-restrictive Bath Club. She also said he devoted

> much of his career to representing defendants because he viewed

> their right to counsel as vital to a democracy.

>

> ''He was committed to the notion that a democratic society had to

> have a strong defense bar,'' she said, citing her father's 1983 U.S.

> Supreme Court victory in a case of unreasonable search and seizure

> that dealt with police profiling of drug suspects at airports.

>

> Klein spent most of his career at a prestigious Miami law firm, Fine

> son Schwartz Nash Block & England. He earned a reputation as a

> formidable defense lawyer in white-collar, healthcare and financial-

> fraud cases over more than two decades.

>

> Klein almost became a federal judge after President Clinton

> nominated him in 1993. But his appointment was stalled by Congress.

>

> When Fine son dissolved, Klein teamed up with Bierman and

> another longtime colleague, Ed Shohat, in their own firm.

>

> In one of Klein's more memorable criminal cases, he and Bierman

> defended former Miami-Dade seaport director Carmen Lunetta, who was

> indicted along with two port businessmen on charges of stealing up

> to $1.5 million in public money.

>

> After government prosecutors rested at trial, U.S. District Judge

> Middlebrooks expressed dismay over ''substantial evidence of

> greed and public corruption.'' But he directed a verdict of

> acquittal, saying the three defendants couldn't have stolen public

> money because it belonged to the private firm that ran the port's

> cranes.

>

> In 2003, when there was an opening for a magistrate in Miami,

> Klein's name was at the top of the list. Sworn in that fall, Klein

> presided over arraignments, bond hearings and pretrial motions.

>

> Klein was respected by both prosecutors and defense lawyers, who

> remembered him as a fair judge with a quick wit.

>

> `WITH A SMILE'

>

> ''As a defense lawyer and magistrate, he was always a pleasure to

> deal with, and he did it with a smile,'' said veteran prosecutor

> Dick Gregorie.

>

> In addition to his son, daughter, mother, brother and former wife,

> Klein is survived by his fiancée, Donna Syrop, and a sister, Miriam

> Klein Kassenoff, a Holocaust educator in the Miami-Dade school

> system.

>

> A funeral service is planned for 10 a.m. Friday at Temple Beth Am,

> 5950 N. Kendall Dr.

>

> A scholarship has been established in Klein's name at the UM law

> school. Donations may be made to the University of Miami School of

> Law, Alumni and Development Office, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables,

> FL 33124.

>