It’s been five years since a woman accused a Florida fertility clinic of defrauding her by signing a contract without her knowledge.
But the story has come back to haunt her.
The woman, who is pregnant, says she had to pay a $7,000 settlement for emotional distress.
She’s suing Florida fertility specialist Dr. Robert A. Giese, who said she’d been given a false promise of a $10,000 payment after she signed a contract that did not exist.
Giede has since been indicted on fraud charges.
The Florida Supreme Court recently denied her request to quash the indictment, citing Florida’s open court doctrine.
She’s also seeking a jury trial to determine whether Giedefraud violated her rights as a consumer.
But if the Florida Supreme court agrees with her, the woman would likely face a second trial.
And she could lose.
The case is among dozens filed in Florida since 2010 by women who say they were duped into signing bogus contracts, which have become a hot commodity in the burgeoning embryo market.
Some of those women say they’re losing their cases because of new information and technology, like new technology to prevent the fraudulent signing of contracts.
In the case of Giedec, the case has been litigated more than a dozen times and ended in different ways.
In 2015, the Florida Attorney General’s office filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that Giedes fraud was a violation of the Florida Open Court Act.
But that motion was rejected by the Florida Court of Appeals, and the Florida Legislature moved to strike down the indictment.
That motion was also rejected by a lower court.
A trial in the case would have required a jury.
The judge overseeing the case then sent a notice to the state’s top law enforcement agency that he would not rule on the motion.
But he did not issue a ruling on the dismissal, and neither did the state Attorney General.
The next day, Giedevs attorneys, John Boulton and Scott Krakauer, filed a reply brief.
In it, they argued that Florida law requires that an indictment be dismissed unless a jury is found to be warranted by clear and convincing evidence.
That is, the trial judge must find that Giesevs misconduct was the result of a criminal conspiracy and that the defendant is not entitled to a new trial because of his conduct at trial.
The attorney general then dismissed the case.
The Florida Supreme District Court disagreed and sent the case back to the Attorney General for a second time, this time with a different attorney.
The Attorney General filed an amended motion in the Supreme Court, asking that a jury be found.
The state Supreme Court agreed.
The Supreme Court upheld the second motion, but it rejected the Attorney Gases motion to quashed the indictment because the Attorney’s Motion failed to state a claim that was supported by clear, convincing evidence and that was not prejudicial to Gieds right to a fair trial.
In court filings, Boultons attorneys said the Florida attorney general did not show that there was any evidence of a conspiracy to defraud Giedekes and that no one at the Attorney Generals office made any attempt to warn Giedemes that Gias misconduct was unlawful.
In their rebuttal brief, Krakausers attorneys also claimed the Attorney did not prove a criminal or civil conspiracy.
Boults attorneys said that they did show that the Attorney had not done enough to prevent Giedez from signing a fraudulent contract and that a conviction could have been avoided.
The state Supreme court has heard testimony from the two attorneys and the state attorney general’s office in the trial, and is expected to rule in the coming weeks.
The trial is set to begin Sept. 16.