A Tampa man, fighting a protracted legal battle with family over his dead mother’s estate, is suing one of the judges in the case claiming he was falsely blamed for making anti-Semitic comments.
Those fabricated statements led the judge to retaliate by ruling against him on several motions.
Darryl Martin Schneider, 55, was in a contested legal battle with his sister, Cyrie Schneider, among others for the estate of their mother Gloria C. Schneider, who died in 2012.
in 2014, Darryl filed a lawsuit – without the help of an attorney – against Cyrie and others in Hillsborough County.
One of the judges in the ongoing case was Bernard Charles “Bernie” Silver, 71 first elected to the bench in 2006. Silver served the court through 2015, and is now in private practice.
Schneider’s lawsuit said, at the time, Kim Cash was Silver’s judicial assistant. Cash now serves as the court’s media liaison.
In a suit filed January 27, Darryl Schneider accuses Cash of libel, saying her actions cost him an estimated $1-million in damages. Cash “destroyed” Schneider’s relationship with Silver, by suggesting Schneider made anti-Semitic comments about Silver during the 2014 lawsuit he brought against his sister.
Schneider argues that Cash fabricated “slanderous” lies to boost her self-esteem – something he says “low-level employees” do to feel superior.
According to the suit: “[Cash] had stated slowly to the Plaintiff [Schneider], ‘How dare you discriminate against the Jews,’ then laughed in the PIaintiff’s ear because she had just thought of this good lie to tell the Defendant’s secretary about the Plaintiff, putting Bernard [Silver] and the Plaintiff at odds with each other. Spiteful and shameless Kim Cash proudly shared her illegal plan with the Plaintiff for increased gratification.”
Silver — described in the lawsuit as an “unscrupulous” and “vindictive” “racist … looking to hurt someone white” — retaliated against Schneider by ruling against him on multiple motions as well as refusing to recuse himself.
After one hearing in the 2014 case, Schneider says Silver “walked out of court after giving [Schneider] a dirty look as if to say, you wanted to fight with a Jew, so this is what you get.”
Court transcripts show Silver telling Schneider he “needs to do a better job of arranging hearings.” Silver dismissed the claim he was holding Schneider to an unfair standard.
“Not everybody else calls my JA [judicial assistant] names and makes threatening accusations,” Silver says.
Schneider is seeking damages for defamation.
