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George E. Tragos
Mr. Tragos is Board Certified by the Florida Bar in Criminal Law & has practiced over 25 years strictly as a trial lawyer. In the area of criminal law, he has defended in state & federal courts–all aspects of criminal defense, including but not limited to, white collar offenses, narcotics offenses, money laundering, bank fraud, health fraud & racketeering.
He has represented the U.S. Government in the courts of Switzerland & conducted foreign investigations in France & Austria. In the area of litigation, he has represented multinational corporations, publicly held corporations & individual, in state & federal courts.
Mr. Tragos is a frequent speaker at professional associations & organizations throughout Florida. He also lectures at Florida Bar seminars & at Stetson University College of Law. He co-authored the Florida Bar Evidence Manual. He is listed in several editions of Who's Who in American Law, Who's Who in America, & Who's Who in The World.
EDUCATION
* JD 1974, Florida State University;
* BA 1971, Florida State University
ADMITTED
* 1974 Florida; 1975 U.S. Ct. App. (11th Cir);
* 1991 District of Columbia; 1995 U.S. Tax Ct.
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
* Criminal Division Chief 1983-85, United States Attorney's Office
* Middle District of Florida Former Felony Division Chief State Attorney's Office
* Former Lead Trial Assistant, Dept. of Justice.
* President's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Former Commissioner West German Government
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
* The Florida Bar Rules & Evidence Committee (past Chair)
* Florida Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers (past President)
* Clearwater Bar Assn. (past President)
* Past Chairmen Criminal Law Section, Florida Bar
* 6th Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Committee
* Herbert G. Goldburgh American Inn of Court (Chancellor)
George E. Tragos is a Leading American Attorney
To be selected, attorneys must receive multiple recommendations from their peers in a statewide survey conducted by American Research Corporation. Fewer than 6% of the state’s attorneys are Leading American Attorneys.
Mr. Tragos was selected as a Leading American Attorney in the area of Criminal Defense Law. American Research Corporation conducts extensive, ongoing research on attorneys throughout Florida to determine the leading practitioners in each area of law. Thousand of Florida attorneys were asked to whom they would recommend a friend or family member in need of legal services. The result is a limited number of peer-selected Leading American Attorneys in Florida recognized for their abilities in specific areas of practice.
For additional information, contact
Leading American Attorneys
(800) 272-3386
This article about George Tragos appeared in The Champions magazine in the August 1991 issue.
"The criminal defense bar is far more ethical than the lawyers I encountered in civil practice."
George E. Tragos was born in Chicago "in a happy and stable home." He was an only child, "so it was easy for my parents to give me everything, God bless them. My father and mother were also smart enough to move from the cold Chicago weather to Clearwater, Florida when I was six years old."
In Chicago his father worked in the family business called None Better Bananas, banana wholesaler. In Florida, he opened the first of a number of successful restaurants they have owned over the years. As a result, during his youth Tragos worked restaurant-related jobs from dishwasher to bus boy to wait to cook to bartender. He says, "the only acceptable career choices for a Greek boy were to be either a doctor or a lawyer; otherwise it was the restaurant business."
He recalls knowing that he wanted to be a lawyer from the time he was 14 years old. "All of the attorneys who were friends of my parents seemed to be intellectually sharp, successful, and a lot more fun than doctors."
Tragos attended Florida State University, where he obtained his BA in 1971, with a major in government, and his JD in 1974. "I only applied to two schools," he says, "Florida and Florida State. Florida State had the better ratio of females to males, so I choose it."
Tragos cites law school Professor John Yetter, "who made criminal law exciting (he also gave me the highest grade I ever received in law school in Advanced Criminal Law)" as having influenced his career choice. "Until then," he says, "I thought I was going to be a tax lawyer."
While in law school, Tragos worked as a legislative aide and an analyst for the finance and tax committee of the state legislature, where he helped draft the Florida Administrative Procedures Act. He says that experience has proven particularly important now that he is so involved with the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (he is the incoming President of FACDL) and their lobbying efforts with the state legislature. "We try to quell the tide of law and order blindness that seems to create mass hysteria in state legislatures."
Although he wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer, Tragos accepted a job following law school as a prosecutor in the State Attorney's Office, eventually becoming Chief of the Felony Division of the Clearwater office. "There was no better place to train and get the necessary trial experience than to be a prosecutor. What I really loved were the stakes -- life and death, freedom or prison. But I also gained great respect for criminal lawyers during this time, since they were the only thing standing between me and winning every case I ever tried. No matter how bad the case, the criminal defense lawyer, at least the good ones, fought like crazy. The principles of the Constitution were so important to them that it did not matter if they liked the client, or whether they approved of the client's activity."
He left the State Attorney's Office to enter private practice, joining the firm of Case, Kimpton, Tragos, and Burke. "About 50 percent of my practice was criminal and the rest was civil trial work for the other partners."
After five years in private practice, Tragos accepted a job as Chief of the Criminal Division with the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, a rather infamous prosecutor known as "Mad Dog" Robert Merkel. Tragos says "It was a tough decision, since it meant a lot of financial sacrifice by my family, but I viewed it again as a career opportunity -- as a way to sharpen my skills as a criminal defense lawyer."
Of his time with the U.S. Attorney's Office, Tragos says, "it gave me the opportunity to travel all over the world to try the best cases against the best lawyers. I was appointed a Commissioner for the West German government and I was one of the first attorneys to represent the U.S. in the Swiss courts to obtain financial documents. It taught me on a regular basis the inner-workings of politics within the Department of Justice. It was an incredible experience even with all the sacrifices."
By 1995 Tragos decided "it was time that I dedicate my practice to criminal defense, sink or swim. I opened up my office as a sole practitioner and prayed that God would bless my practice."
Among his more interesting cases as a defense lawyer, Tragos lists that of defending a co-defendant (and close friend) of General Manuel Noreiga, which involved several trips to Panama directly after the U.S. invasion. Tragos also defended the third largest savings and loan in Florida in a fraud prosecution by the Department of Justice and he represented Jim and Tammy Baker's colleague Richard Dortch, the President of the PTL. He current represents the first officer from Desert Storm to be court-martialed in the U.S. He adds "My practice has included all levels and types of crime, and I have enjoyed every minute of it. One of the most important things I have found is that, without a doubt, as a whole the criminal defense bar is far more ethical than the lawyers I encountered in civil practice."
In another case Tragos represented a woman charged with trafficking in cocaine, which included a police videotape of the sale. In the course of his investigation he learned that his client had been propositioned by the confidential informant to be a nude model. In order for her to become a model, she was told she would have to provide the informant and his friends with cocaine, a scam which this informant had used on a regular basis with several other women. "
I also found that nude pictures the informant had taken of the other defendants were in possession of the Pinellas County Sheriff's office vice unit (apparently as evidence!) and the confidential informant had a habit of walking in on his targets naked -- or at least with his pants down -- and those who did not provide him with sex were the ones who got busted." The prosecution, embarrassed by the public disclosure of the informant's practice, dropped the trafficking charge. Tragos adds, "Sometimes we win outside the courtroom"
Tragos describes another satisfying victory in a case in Memphis, Tennessee. The son-in-law of the owner of a large newspaper chain was indicted for possession and distribution of marijuana and cocaine, "in order to intimidate him into cooperating against a fellow criminal defense lawyer in that city who had represented police officers accused of corruption. This attorney was such as thorn in the side of the government, they were willing to go to great lengths to get him. Once we were able to show the jury that the government was not interested in my client, but in the attorney, the jury was so incensed by the prosecution's conduct that they found my defendant not guilty. It was another case of the government targeting criminal defense lawyers instead of criminals."
Tragos says "the practice of criminal law is phenomenally exciting and beats any other profession hands down. We are gladiators who must honestly squeeze every drop of blood out of the Constitution and the rules under which we try cases. We cannot be intimidated or afraid of the prosecutor or the judge. Something more important than money is always on the line."
He continues, "many times I am asked how I can be a Christian and a criminal defense lawyer at the same time. To me, being a criminal defense lawyer is probably one of the greatest vocations that the Lord can give a Christian. It teaches us not to judge our clients; it is the principles established by our Judeo-Christian ethic that we are defending. The Constitution was written by men with strong beliefs to prevent the tyranny of government. Unfortunately, in this country we are heading away from these principles. It is my deep belief that the Framers of the Constitution would be shocked to see what the Attorney General of the United States is attempting to do with the Constitutional rights of every American.
Tragos says be initially joined the NACDL "just because I believed every criminal defense lawyer should. I sent in my dues and I enjoyed the publications, but that was as far as it went for many years." His state association, the FACDL, was then, he says, "basically a Miami-based organization." However, in 1988 Tragos received an invitation from those Miami lawyers to attend a meeting to turn FACDL into a truly statewide organization. "I was so excited I volunteered to chair the first annual meeting and seminar. From that beginning of approximately 30 lawyers we have grown to nearly 1,000 members. We are active and influential with the legislature and recently FACDL was named in the law as an organization with the right to appoint a member to the Grand Jury Study Commission established by the legislature."
Tragos says he believes that NACDL is as important nationally as FACDL is in Florida. He adds, however, "I also believe that NACDL is viewed by some as an organization with little interest in state practitioners. This must be addressed by NACDL if it plans on successfully representing all criminal defense lawyers in the United States."
In addition to serving as the President of FACDL, Tragos is a member of the Executive Council of the Criminal Law Section and Vice-Chair of the Rules and Evidence Committee of the Florida Bar, and he is co-author of the Florida Bar Evidence Manual.
Tragos and his wife Demetria have been married for 13 years and have three children: Louise (age 9), Gina (age 6), and Peter (age 3). His wife, who holds a black belt in Judo, is a registered nurse and works as the office manager for a pediatrician. Tragos says, "she is a wonderful wife and mother."
Tragos concludes "the single strongest interest that I have is my Christian faith. That is the guide to my family relationships as well as my professional relationships. Because of the constant scrutiny that criminal defense lawyers are under, it is essential that they operate an honest law office and conduct themselves with the highest degree of moral responsibility."