MIAMI SHORES, Fla. — A South Florida woman with multiple fraud convictions managed to find employment at at least two law firms and posed as an attorney, according to police.
Investigators said Brianna Rae Needham managed to gain work as a paralegal at one law firm by submitting a resume that claimed she worked at another during a period in which she was actually in jail and prison.
Miami Shores police arrested the 32-year-old, out on probation until 2030, on five felony charges on Tuesday.
Investigators said Needham worked as a paralegal at Chepenik and Trushkin, an estate planning firm at 12550 Biscayne Blvd. in North Miami, and then as a legal assistant at Alderman Law Firm, a corporate firm at 9999 NE Second Ave. in Miami Shores.
In an arrest warrant, Miami Shores police Detective Igor Kubicek wrote that Needham, of Pembroke Pines, got work at Chepenik and Trushkin in January by claiming she had been employed at a Doral firm from 2017 to 2024 and providing a false reference.
Investigators said she had worked at the firm, but only for three months from 2019 to 2020; in reality, she had been in the Broward County jail and in state prison from 2021 to 2023.
Police said she fraudulently obtained a notary commission by lying about her convictions on a renewal application. According to the warrant, staff at Chepenik and Trushkin trusted that the notary commission “meant that the person had been screened as having no criminal background.”
In mid-May, while at Chepenik and Trushkin, police said she stole the identity of one of its lawyers and drafted a bogus settlement letter in an active Broward County eviction case involving someone with whom she had had past financial dealings.
Meanwhile, at Alderman Law, police said Needham “orchestrated a systematic embezzlement and fraud scheme” by “exploit(ing) her access to firm accounts, client billing systems, and a victim’s personal credit card to generate fraudulent invoices, misappropriate client payments and divert funds into her personal and business accounts.”
“The scheme was uncovered through suspicious charges, confirmed by audits and directly tied to her through digital forensics and transaction records,” Kubicek wrote in a separate arrest report.
Police said on Sunday and Monday, Needham “sent multiple emails and text messages to individuals offering to provide legal representation” in eviction cases.
Kubicek wrote that she arranged to meet one prospective client, who would be paying her through Zelle, at a home in Miami Shores.
The arrest report states that Needham was taken into custody at a Dunkin’ store at 95 NW 167th St. in North Miami Beach just before 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
Needham, whose charges include practicing law without a license and organized fraud, was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Wednesday.
While her bond was set at $15,000, records show she was already out on felony bond on more fraud charges at the time of her arrest.
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