Before investigators found Eric Lipman’s child pornography collection, Lipman lived in Tallahassee and was general counsel for the Florida Elections Commission, Florida Bar No. 958247.
Now, Lipman, 60, lives in Sumterville at FCI Coleman Low, a low security federal prison, Inmate No. 55255-509. And, as of last month, he’s no longer a member of the Florida Bar.
As Lipman began serving his six-year sentence for one count of conspiracy to distribute, receive and possess child pornography and one count of distribution of child pornography, he applied for disciplinary revocation. Disciplinary revocation makes the Florida Bar’s discipline case against Lipman go away. In return, Lipman accepts what is, the state Supreme Court says, “tantamount to disbarment.”
Most disciplinary revocation petitions are for revocation “with leave to apply for readmission,” allowing the attorney to apply for Bar readmission after five years. Lipman’s petition was without leave to reapply for readmission, essentially requesting a permanent revocation of his license.
A youth soccer guy turns out to be one of “The Dirty Ones”
Lipman graduated from University of Miami Law School in 1991 and became a member of the Florida Bar in 1992. Lipman’s LinkedIn biography is scrubbed down to his Florida Elections Commission position. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, before joining the commission as assistant general counsel in 2001, he was a senior attorney with Florida Department of Children and Families in Leon, Wakkula and Franklin counties.
One database listing Lipman’s work lists only two youth soccer organizations. From 2005-2010, Lipman appeared in state filings as vice president, then president of Capital Soccer Association and, in 2009, a director with Tallahassee United Futbol Club.
But Lipman had been elections commission general counsel for a decade on Feb. 24, 2021 when, federal court documents say, Leon County Sheriff’s Office got two Cyber Tipline reports from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Yahoo! reported that several files, later found to be 24 videos, with child sexual abuse had been transmitted through account eml110561@yahoo.com.
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Yahoo! also turned over emails from that account to itself with links to Mega.NZ, a cloud storage website hosted in New Zealand and for which Lipman had registered on Feb. 8, 2021. After determining the IP address used to access the Yahoo! account was a Comcast account in Lipman’s wife’s name, Leon County Sheriff’s Office investigators hit Lipman’s house with a search warrant on April 7, 2021.
Searches of Lipman’s phone, laptop, thumb drive and Mega.NZ account revealed even more child sexual abuse files and participation in four chat groups: taboo2chat, Caldo Extremo, All Things Taboo and Los Sucios (“the dirty ones”). Chat group members posted, shared and discussed their favorite kinds of child sexual abuse material.
Along with the sheriff’s office, Homeland Security Investigations investigated this case.
This story was originally published December 18, 2022 8:14 AM.
Since 1989, David J. Neal’s domain at the Miami Herald has expanded to include writing about Panthers (NHL and FIU), Dolphins, old school animation, food safety, fraud, naughty lawyers, bad doctors and all manner of breaking news. He drinks coladas whole. He does not work Indianapolis 500 Race Day.
